NOT a guide for advancements: 8/8/2021 02:42:00 |
functor
Level 56
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@Phoenix
When I was still in Phase 1, I first got Joint Strike and Increased Army Camp Production. This is not enough to unlock Phase 2. At that time, the best option for me is to get Increased Ore Sell Values, which was much better than Additional Mercenaries and Discounted Mine Upgrades.
Now, I have more APs. If I ever reset my APs, I would not get it anymore.
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/8/2021 03:39:14 |
krinid
Level 62
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Wow, lots of discussion going on. RE: feasibility of Merc-based strategy for 1st playthrough, it's possible, I did it. As soon as I saw the relatively smaller value of army camps (very difficult to cause the # of armies from army camps to rival that of mercs or caches, and of course JS & hospitals are on a different scale altogether, as are Drafts for me [but not for others, see later]) value of mercs getting more early level bonuses & higher drafts, I switched to that. You don't need max Additional Mercs, I played @ 75% for my entire 1st and 2nd Ascensions. I'm now on my 3rd and I've raised it to 87.5%, and I will eventually get it to 150%, I'm just mulling over if other things have more value. But 75% was enough to get me through every level if I crafted enough & upgraded my hospitals properly. If you don't upgrade the hospitals properly, then you can get stuck at the end of the level by running out of mercs. This must be avoided. Good planning avoids this. But as soon as I started using this, I realized that MONEY was the key. Unfortunately it took me a long time (1/2 way through 2nd ascension) to realize that Increased Crafter Speed was the answer. Both the Advancement & the Artifact help massively to get me extreme item sell value income. Of course I use the Item Value Artifact & am now putting AP into Increased Sell Value advancement (phase 3, so this comes later). Increase Draft Sizes also helps me I think ... not sure how much, but my armies from Drafts are big compared to army camp income. I think this Advancement just helps me drain the sliding pool faster (the part that gives bigger drafts when you buy mercs). I have it at 150% ... no idea if this is actually required or if a lower % would suffice. But at end of level of Netherlands (2nd playthrough) for example, I have army camps 23B, mercs 373B, caches 160B, drafts 62B and tbh I left a lot of drafts in the sliding pool, I was still getting 2B armies each draft when I finished - which means I should have bought my final stretch of mercs sooner and drafted more often to get the units out of the pool and finish the level quicker. Once I get to phase 4, I'll likely focus on Armies from Caches first to get that 160B to 320B! The cache benefits are important b/c they are constant - finishing a level more quickly will not reduce the value & bonus they provide. Increased Money Caches is good. It's in phase 1 ... and it's _money_ which means mercs. On Netherlands, my money income was territories 40B, bonuses 172B, ore 198B, items 1.6T, caches 707.6B. I spent a lot of AP on Increased Money from Bonuses in phase 3 . . . but you can see here that it's not that big; the advancement brings it from 86B-ish to 172B (I have +100%; the "-ish" is b/c I also have an Epic BMB so it plays a role too, not sure how best to break that down). So it has value, but not sure it's worth the huge AP it costs. Also as I finish levels more quickly = less time for bonuses accumulate = value goes down over time. I'd rather have put that AP into Increased Item Sell Values - but that's the next item in phase 3 I'll max out. I have it at 30% now. I have Increased Ore Sell Values @ 100% - it's cheap and in phase 1 and gives you something to do to get profit from extra ore. Another good Advancement is Increased Resources from Caches. It's in phase 2, and like the Money cache Adv, it's reasonably cheap and value doesn't diminish over time, and it helps both for (a) having ore for the luxury bars for the last Techs that have the nasty bar requirements (some levels give the right ore for them, if so, great; but some don't), (b) additional ore to sell, so if you have Increased Ore Sell Values, these work well together. Not smelting at all is a waste if there is at least one recipe that makes any profit. If you have Increased Ore Sell Values maxed out, smelting bars is NEGATIVE PROFIT. It's _only_ worth smelting if you're making bars for crafting. Otherwise you're wasting time b/c you get more money by selling the ore. After I start crafting & have the market to buy what I need, I fall into the "smelt when I need it" group. If I don't need something, I stop my smelters -- b/c sometimes smelting consumes all the ore I might need later for a luxury bar for a tech. Notably the 15% merc discount techs, 15% item sell value techs, the 10% hospital value techs, 50% cache value tech. The 10% hospital discount techs typically come too late for me, and I've already upgraded my hospitals by that point. They really need to be higher in the tech tree to be useful. No point grabbing those at great cost when you're already upgraded 90% of your hospitals. So for new players, I would say definitely get: - JS (no brainer) - Increased Money Cache - Additional Mercs b/c you get more of the _cheap_ mercs too - if the expensive ones are too expensive to buy and you leave them there, fine, but you're still getting more of the cheaper ones, and as you get more crafting buffs, even the expensive ones will become accessible And once you get to phase 2: - Increase Cache Resources - Merc Discount - Increased Crafter Speed - **Increased Draft Sizes (see note above) And in phase 3: - Increase Item Sell Values - this is really the only item you absolutely need - Increased Money from Bonuses - not really necessary BUT you need to put AP into _something_ in order to unlock phase 4, and this is really the only other item worth getting imho
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/8/2021 11:06:48 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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I haven't created a similar detailed version than I initially did, but I wanted to check whether I understand the merc-strategy, so I looked at the advs and selected what a merc-strategy would unlock and why. Note: I will on purpose exclude advs that even those players would initially unlock in order to get a little speed-up early on. See this as the selection of advs that one would reset their APs to as soon as they have enough. Advs-groups that are irrelevant: - Ore Booster (this strat doesn't use mines)
- Auto-Advs (they aren't efficient for any strat)
- Everything with techs (techs are no priority, the relevant techs come too late)
- Everything with mines and Army Camps (this strat ignores mine production and doesn't value army camps except very early on in each level)
What that would leave as relevant: - 1) JS (obviously)
- 1) Additional Mercs (well, it's a merc-strat after all)
- 1) Idle Time (even merc-based players must sleep from time to time)
- 2) Smelter/Crafter Visibility (no priority, but nice to have, if they move with a new map generation)
- 2) Merc Discount (well, mercs again ;) )
- 2) Recipe Visibility (no priority, but nice to have, if they move with a new map generation)
- 2) Speedy Crafter (main source of money income)
- 2) IAP (no priority, but even a merc-based strat profits from this)
- 3) Merc Camp Visibility (no priority, but nice to have, if they move with a new map generation)
- 3) Item Sell Value (main source of money income)
- 3) Market Visibility (no priority, but nice to have, if they move with a new map generation)
- 4) Better Hospitals (main saving of armies)
- 4) Army Caches (to reduce the amount of necessary mercs further)
If I now filter by priority, I get a selection that pretty much prioritizes unlocking adv-phases as a side product: - 1) JS (obviously)
- 1) Additional Mercs (well, it's a merc-strat after all)
- 1) Idle Time (even merc-based players must sleep from time to time)
- 2) Merc Discount (well, mercs again ;) )
- 2) Speedy Crafter (main source of money income)
- 2) IAP (no priority, but necessary to complete phase 2)
- 3) Item Sell Value (main source of money income)
- 4) Better Hospitals (main saving of armies)
- 4) Army Caches (to reduce the amount of necessary mercs further)
Any comments? Have I missed anything?
Edited 8/8/2021 11:09:58
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/8/2021 11:29:29 |
functor
Level 56
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@Phoenix
The list looks pretty good. Below are two comments.
Until we have a high modifier of Additional Mercs, it is very likely to run out of mercs. By then, the army production will drop to about 10%. We need to plan ahead and try to mitigate this issue.
Since we are purchasing a lot of mercs, it is not that easy to drain the drafting pool, 15% of total armies earned. Some army production boost and draft size boost could be helpful.
Edit: You can check krinid's post and find some additional advancements that could enhance this strategy.
Edited 8/8/2021 11:45:23
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/8/2021 23:06:29 |
krinid
Level 62
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Increased Ore Sell Values does work w/mercs strategy, b/c you are either:
(A) smelting all your ingredients (KCENbroh can advise on this - the summary is that he has found a method to make even more profit than buying from markets by smelting all the ingredients for crafting), thus more ore is required, and whatever is left over (some mines have 2+ ore types, so you will likely create some you need and some you don't) can be sold for higher profit = more mercs.
(B) buying all your ingredients from markets, which means you aren't smelting much or even at all, in which case all the ore you pick up from caches (etc) can be sold for higher profit with this Adv.
Regarding running out of mercs before end of level - yes, that's a danger. Unless you're sure you have enough for that level (either just have a good feel for it, or check people's logs for how many armies are on the map, how many mercs are on the map, calculate how much hospital benefit you need to clear it without running out), you should come close to maxing out all the useful upgrades of the hospitals. For example, on a 400B army map with 300 territories left, upgrading a hospital that saves 500K=150M savings total for the remaining territories=not really significant, so you can and should skip it, unless it's one of the super cheap initial upgrades. If it's a hospital upgrade that saves 50M=15B total = significant, and you probably need this to be able to finish the level without running out of mercs (depends on Additional Mercs level, for up to 75% you need high hospitals to finish w/o running out; I've just recently upgraded to 90% now & 100% resource caches, and I find the resources are giving me lots of money, so combined with more mercs, I've been getting away with hardly doing any Tech upgrades or Hospital upgrades; but so far only to Copper Creek ... the tougher levels are still to come).
Lastly ... regarding drain the drafting pool ... this is important! DRAIN THE POOL. In order to do this, you need to buy mercs EARLIER. Don't save them all for the end. If you wait until you're ready to clear the level, you can leave ~10-20% of the total armies earned in the draft pool ... wasted. But you need time to drain it, so you should buy mercs earlier. Even if you aren't going to immediately capture territories with them, buy mercs and keep on doing big drafts. Or what I do is just buy mercs and strategically capture bonuses (the most you can capture with the units you have), without trying to take the big territories before your hospitals are ready for it. And keep on drafting! Don't waste that 10-20%.
In my case, I draft massive amounts of the cheap mercs asap. Then when they start getting expensive, I slow down until I get at least a couple of the 15% merc discount bonuses, then start again. And once I get the last one (or the last one I'm willing to bother getting, I'll skip the last 1-2 if they require bars that are too obnoxious to smelt and can't be bought from markets), I just dump all money into hospitals, digs, and whatever is left over buys mercs ... then draft. There are some levels where I get massive drafts continuously from the mid-game through end game b/c I keep on buying mercs.
Edited 8/8/2021 23:12:35
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/9/2021 18:31:50 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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Given today's idle update I would LOVE to hear any new strategies with the new situation we're in (markets for the most part). For now, I will postpone my experiment of trying a more merc-based approach in the next level until there is a new consensus about a merc-based strategy that will - most like - be based on money generated from one's own smelters/mines. At this point, I will definitely not risk my slow but still somewhat predictable level times on maps where I need roughly a month. If I now tried my best attempt of a merc-strat and failed, the level would last two months probably. So, that's where I am at right now.
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/9/2021 19:38:02 |
Sefer
Level 30
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I use a mostly smelting-based strategy; I usually go straight for Tin Cans because those are the most profitable early thing and I'll buy alloys for that if I'm ever having trouble keeping enough things for smelters to work on early on, but other than that I use markets very little- I maybe grab a few key alloys before using my Time Warp artifact if it'll set something good up. There's not much more to it than upgrading your mines; if you can't keep a smelter going constantly making a alloy you need, upgrade mines until you can (or be prepared to switch back and forth between useful alloys often). If one smelter doesn't make enough, invest in mines until you can run two. This isn't always immediately viable, meaning you'll have to swap smelters between alloy types relatively often early in a level before you can afford to get some good ones going, but eventually you'll have a few different alloy types constantly pumping out so you can run a few different crafting types. You may need to increase the priority on getting smelters if you don't have enough to keep your crafters going. You won't have everything running the most profitable recipe because you won't always have the ingredients. Invest in the first few levels of ore production tech and maybe a level or two of reduced cost on upgrading mines.
I generally get just about every early mine up to at least level 4 and trail off on the later mines where it'll take too long to pay off. A lot of the very early mines will get up much higher than that in later levels; I go back and upgrade early mines that cost just a few seconds of money production on general principle, to support having the ore for the two-ore alloys later on. In later levels I tend to invest heavily in silicon and aluminum mines, to support having the welding rods and twine needed for most high end crafting items.
I have Increased Ore Sell Values maxed (which is very cheap), which gives most alloys negative profitability. Thus, I never smelt for profit, just for techs and crafting ingredients. Just sell high end ores that you're not going to smelt. You can get a lot of money off of this in levels where the resource caches mostly give high end ores.
Edited 8/9/2021 19:46:18
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/9/2021 20:53:27 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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@Sefer, do you use the speedy smelter adv? Or speedy crafter adv for that matter? As I've mentioned in some other thread, there comes a time about mid-way through the campaign where one smelter (of any alloy) can't fully supply one crafter (of any single-alloy-ingredient item before glass) anymore. I could see that being a lesser problem if you have maxed out speedy smelter adv, but if you (also) use speedy crafter adv for the additional profit, I would assume that there is a constant need for more smelters. Given this phenomenon in those later levels and my experience with those high-demand recipes, I'd think that you HAVE TO choose one crafting recipe for every crafter (even if your mines can't keep up forever) and - if necessary - switch all smelters/crafters over to a completely different recipe if your stock of ore is depleted because otherwise your smelters will produce too little of some of the recipes. But having all on one recipe is the easiest to handle. And for Tin Cans the mine upgrades are relatively affordable.
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/9/2021 21:15:37 |
Sefer
Level 30
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I have maxed Smelter Speed and 35% extra on Crafter speed. For late game levels I end up with most of my smelters working on aluminum and silicon with a few devoted to other alloys- I think when I was finishing up Europe Huge and US recently I generally could handle a gold and platinum full time, with another mine switching between them (so when I ran low on gold switch to platinum and build up some gold, when running low on platinum switch back), a couple that could mostly keep up with thorium and neodium, and the rest on whatever was useful- mostly lead because Europe uses Structs for late recipes and Structs sell for more than Welding Rods in US. It definitely requires more hand holding than buying alloys and it slows down the start some (there's a while that you're spending money on mines and not making much money from selling things), but it does reach a point where it's self sustaining and just pumps out profits without you needing to use those profits to buy ingredients for the next round.
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/10/2021 05:26:03 |
Kcebnroh
Level 60
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Looks like Sefer uses a similar strategy to the one I use. I upgrade all my mines to level 7 up to about Neodymium, and then 2-5 all the way to the end. I end up having almost as much ₩ at the end from ore sales as I do from selling items. I just finished Africa, and the deference was just under 700 billion vs just under 900 billion.
@Sefer, do you find level 4 supplies enough for all your recipes for techs, or are you past your first ascension? Also, what are your AP upgrades in?
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/10/2021 05:48:33 |
Sefer
Level 30
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I get all early mines to at least level 4, and push them higher as needed to support whatever I'm crafting. It's just a baseline I aim for because I know I'll need it eventually and level 4 is the point that the penalty in mine math stop applying. (Don't remember the formula off the top of my head, but I've seen it multiple times on the forum). Several mines will get to level 7 or higher, if they're particularly cheap (sometimes I max out the very first mine if I need a lot of copper ore for a later bar- if it costs less than a second or two of my income I just go for it) or particularly necessary (I push a lot of silicon and aluminum since I like to have 4 or more smelters of each going at all times).
I was just starting the last level I'd need to ascend the third time when the new update came out, and I've abandoned ascending for now to work on hardened levels. I've just unlocked the 4th advancement tier. I've got AP all over the place, but the ones relevant to the discussion are probably maxed Increased Ore Sell Values, Discounted Mine Upgrades, Increased Cache Money, Increase Smelters Speed, Increased Cache Resources, Increased Money from Bonuses, and Mercenary Discount plus Additional Mercenaries at 72.5%, Increase Crafters Speed at 35%, and Increased Item Sell Values at 75%. I'll add more to those last three eventually but my economy and merc boosts are on pause while I work on Better Hospitals and Increased Cache Armies now that those are available to me. It's been a long time since I ran out of mercs (I actually bought all of the mercs from Hardened Peloponnesian War earlier today, but it was way more than I needed to finish the map) so it's been a long time since I've felt any pressure to upgrade that.
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/10/2021 09:11:52 |
Kcebnroh
Level 60
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NOT a guide for advancements: 8/12/2021 11:30:55 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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I know, we agreed on the fact that unlocking higher phases isn't the first priority you should have, but I just did the math: With the new hardened levels (and assuming you start them even if you haven't reached their recommended level of advancements) you can in theory reach phase 4 with a single play through. Though, I really wouldn't recommend this, as IAP would be (except for 300 additional AP) the only thing you would invest in in phase 2.
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