I’m pre-super ascending, actually about to be ready to regular-ascend for the first time.

Which one of my artifacts should I upgrade? And which ones should I use as upgrade fodder? I amassed a handful of epics and they are all pretty useful.

I have
2 Epic Triple Strike
Epic Bonus Money Boost
Epic Territory Money Boost
Epic Army Camp Boost
Epic Army Cache Boost
*Epic Tech Discount
*Epic Efficient Smelters
*Epic Army Camp Discount

I’m thinking ditch the last 3 and an extra triple strike. But which to upgrade? I had been planning bonus money. But I’m wondering about SAC, and I heard someone say they like Army Cache best. And then considering it takes 5 days, which level would be good to do the upgrade while completing?

Any input is appreciated.

Upgrade these two:
Triple Strike
Army Cache Boost

You'll need 1 more Epic to do so, but those are the best two. The rest pale in comparison imho to the value these give with play optimized around them. Leg TS 160% literally gives you armies beyond what the level has to offer.

Hard EU Huge? Bang ... use it on the 1.1T Pchezhsky territory to get 660B armies for free and take the 1.1T territory at no cost at all. Not quite as Epic for 256B Danilov but still good return. And a bunch of 90B, 80B, 70B, 60B, 50B territories.

And how do you get to those territories quickly? Target the Army Caches with a +32% Leg Army Cache Boost. Preferably get the +50% Cache boost Tech first if you are not late phase 4 and don't have the +100% Cache boost Adv's yet (presumably you don't since you said Ascend for first time; once you get that Adv, you don't even need the Techs, just grab the Caches, make your way to these massive territories, use Leg TS and reap the rewards).

If you can pick 2 legendaries for super ascension, I recommend this:
1. Alloy Values
2. A good army based artifact, such as Army Cache Boost, Army Camp Boost, or Triple Strike

A legendary Alloy Values is a must. It dramatically increases the money you can get from markets.

Edited 3/30/2022 15:24:38

Agree with MJ, but AV wasn't in his list so didn't address that.

The best artifacts are:
Triple Strike
Time Warp
Army Cache Boost
Alloy Values
Inspire Mercenaries
Quad Strike
Supercharged Army Camp

I disagree on Army Camp Boost, I think it's overrated, esp compared to the value these others mentioned above bring.

While just digging for territories and trying to assemble my 2nd Insane, I cleared Hard Europe Huge in 36 hrs WITHOUT BUYING ANY MERCS WHATSOEVER using only Rare SAC, Insane TW, Leg TS, Leg QS, Leg IM, Epic ACB, Epic AV. No powers used at all. SAC used at start of level, AV used when draining markets (for hospital upgrades), ACB to capture army caches if a slot was available, and just TS, QS, IM, TW the rest of the time. Had an Active Artifact cooling down most of the time.

I'd wait and keep digging until getting an Alloy Value artifact and then upgrading it straight to legendary lol

I will steal the topic to ask a question.
Now that you dont get a free leg TS... quad is simply better (if you have to choose between the two) right? Or would the need for the extra territory come to bite my *ss?

QS is better so far as % extra units goes, but TS is better so far as versatility.

That said, I'd say that 90% of the time I use a TS, I also have the option of using a QS, just need to cap 1 more territory. On most maps, this isn't a huge deal. So is a bit more work worth for increase from 160% to 198% @ Leg level for you? If so, go QS.

Supercharge Army Camp and Time Warp are lower priorities imo. These are both fantastic artifacts but don’t get that much of an upgrade going from Epic to Legendary. SAC is great to jump start a level and to enable Free Cache powers but you get a similar effect with a common-level SAC. Time Warp is great from a digging point of view but almost negligible in terms of beating levels faster beyond 2 hours.

I think the best legendaries for starting a new super ascension are:
Alloy Values
Army Cache Boost
Triple/Quad Strike
Time Warp

Thanks for the input everyone.

I do have a Rare Alloy Value. (In fact I have pretty much one of every artifact at one rarity or another). Should AV be my first legend in that case?

I’m probably halfway through phase 3 adv and nearly finished up with Hardened Europe + Hardened Triskelion which I am
Multi leveling before my first regular ascension.

Alloy Value for sure if you know why is it important and how to utilize it.

If you don't know why Alloy Value is so good, then probably you're not using a strategy that benefits from Alloy Value. So, maybe upgrade something else.

I know why it’s good for sure (with the markets), but I didn’t start until recently and I’m not sure if I’m doing it quite right.


-Find market
-Unlock techs to max alloy sell values
-find highest profit alloy
-Build up enough money to be able to purchase enough of it to increase market prices by ~100% in one single purchase.
-Sell (with Alloy Value artifact) and repeat with next market.

Am I doing it right?

You have it right, I think, but not sure exactly what you mean by the bolded part of this...

-Build up enough money to be able to purchase enough of it to increase market prices by ~100% in one single purchase.

All you really need to ensure you're doing is not buying so much that you're exceeding the sell price. Doesn't matter if the price increases 30%, 100% or 5000%, all these are variables of the market, the alloy, your Adv's, Artifacts, CW buffs & amount of money on hand.

The idea of "in one single purchase" is key to minimize price increase, and the other key part is just be careful as you go up through the markets that you don't just max out the purchase to the point where (for example) you're buying Lanthanum for 15B and selling for 12B. In the first few markets you aren't likely to encounter this, but in the last couple, if you have maxed of Alloy Values Adv & have Epic Alloy Values artifact and did the buy/sell stuff right in prev markets, you need to be careful.

Yeah the 100% price increase just seems to be the amount with my current advancements that I make the most profit. I did some calculating and there seems to be a “golden” range that will net you the most.

Is it a fact that the number of purchases matters at the market? I thought it was just total spend that affects the price and buying 200 versus 100 + 100 is identical.

I observed the same as Grames.
Also, artifacts with larger winnings at early buys seem to have a steeper cost increase curve, thus in the end netting about the same amount of money...

(at least in my observation)

Hmmm, interesting that our results seem to vary.

What I've noticed is:
- doing many small purchases/sales results in earning profit until Buy price approx approaches/equals/slightly exceeds the Sell price across each market
- doing as few purchases/sales as possible results in earning profit until the Buy price typically exceeds the Sell price by a wide margin, notably the last 2-3 on large maps with 7 markets

@krinid, that's (probably) because what you see in the buy dialog is just the price average, not the price for each unit. And you buy more than you can sell for a profit.

Let's assume, some item sells for the following prices (each number is one item):
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
And the sell price is 6.3 .

a) If you do small purchases (one item at a time), you will buy (and sell) the first 6 items, for a total of 21 (and a profit of 6*6.3 - 21 = 16.8)
b) if you buy in bulk until the average is right below the sell price, you will buy 11 items, for an average of 6 and a total of 66 (and a profit of 11*6.3 - 66 = 3.3)
c) if you buy in bulk until the average is right below (initial buy price + sell price) / 2, you will buy 6 items, with total = 21 and profit = 16.8 (see a) ) and the buy prices afterwards will be at or just above the sell price. (like in a) again)

but in example b) you have bought some items that you sold with a loss (you bought items for prices between 7 and 11, but they were only worth 6.3). In this example, having a purchase price over the sell price after the last purchase would mean that you lost money on the last chunk of items. And your overall profit is nearly zero.

So, if the prices of each item is only dependent on the number of items bought before, this shouldn't make a difference (as long as you don't fall for the "average price trick"). If the prices affect the number of purchases, this would look differently, but I don't know for sure how the prices change.

So, are you sure that you actually earned money if "the Buy price typically exceeds the Sell price by a wide margin"??

Edited 4/3/2022 10:45:57

Interesting ... would have to investigate more on that to be sure. Does anyone actually know the formula used? (tested on many data points and it aligns)

I'm sure I make profit, and I've played around with calculations of the qty & average price to do a few random samples to confirm that in general purchasing higher when the opportunity exists nets more profit than buying less at a lower average price. I've played with the figures b/c it seemed that buying (for example) 20T could net +50% profit margin totaling 750M profit whereas buying less qty could 60-70% profit margin but only 600M (b/c higher profit % on less qty), and there's probably a tipping point, but I'm too lazy to do the optimal calc each time, so I typically just max it out and pull back a bit from the break even point each time.

@krinid, that's (probably) because what you see in the buy dialog is just the price average, not the price for each unit. And you buy more than you can sell for a profit.

So, are you sure that you actually earned money if "the Buy price typically exceeds the Sell price by a wide margin"??

I suppose "exceeds the Sell price by a wide margin" is not an accurate portrayal. The actual buying never exceeds it, but once you click "Sell" after a big purchase, the average buy price immediately goes up to exceed the sell price by a wide margin.

The average buy price is irrelevant. Profitability is the area between the sell curve (a flat line) and the buy curve (a positively sloped curve)

At the marginal unit where these lines intersect, you should stop buying. Even if an aggregate purchase straddling this intersection is “profitable”, you would’ve maximized profitability by stopping at this exact unit.

Said another way, if you ever open the dialog window and “Buy price” exceeds “Sell price” by more than 0 wollars then you’ve purchased alloys at a loss and should’ve stopped earlier.

There’s probably some weird edge cases (due to techs) where it makes sense to over-buy but these are far and away the exception, not the rule.

Have you worked out the price increase formula? Is the increase in price linear (I suspected it wasn't but maybe it is)? If so, then you're right, and what I'm saying is I'm too lazy to do the actual math to identify optimal price point, so I just max out the purchase and sometimes drop it back and bit.