Hi there!

I know there was a discussion about it a while back but I'm still very much a bit unsure how to proceed here - at least in a useful way.

I'm nearing the end of my second ascension and find myself staring at the "Increased AP"-Advancement. Both of the guides I found said that at the end of the 1st or 2nd advancement would be a good time to invest in this. But when I do the math (and even the favourable "buy it all at once"-one) I end up with an insane time to get a ROI from it ... basically (since that's where I'm at again right now) I would have to beat the United States map 27(!!) times to even BEGIN seeing any benefits from this Advancement - so I guess it's about ... 3? 4? Full Ascensions just to recoup the invested AP?

Am I right with this? Do I miss something obvious? This seems like weeks if not months of time invested just for it to be useful.

Thank you!

Ask yourself. Can you invest 1218 AP at somewhere else that can increase your level clearing speed by at least 5%?

If your answer is yes, invest there. If your answer is no, then start investing in Increased AP.

As soon as you start playing Hex Earth, the ROI is good. 25% bonus on 11K AP = 2763AP for a single clear.

I reset and got that when i was finishing my 6ML of the hardened levels at 9k ap.

Now that we have the super-ascensions, this question again arises. Because previously, when there was no reason to regularly reset your advancements, Increased AP payed off eventually, and therefore investing in it early meant a (rather) quick ROI, but still, even if you waited a while, the ROI was somewhat guaranteed. Now, that you might want to super-ascend every now and then and hence, reset your advancements at the same time, the time frame to break even is reduced to whatever time you need / want to spend playing until you super-ascend again.

I would suggest to not "buy it all at once" because that doesn't make sense in general. As soon as you have unlocked IAP you will earn more on your next level. Not immediately 25% but at least 5%. If you instead save up APs until you collected the 8K you lost out on APs you could have gotten in the process. That's true, unless your idea was to manually reset advancements to then max out on IAP. Don't know whether that works that good.

So, if you don't want to super-ascend, the situation hasn't changed much. IAP will pay off eventually.

If you want to super-ascend, then the timing is important. Assuming you max out IAP, then you have to play levels worth at least 31k (in base APs, 39k with the boost) after investing in IAP to break even. So, if you are close enough to super-ascending that you won't collect another 31k, then don't invest in IAP (or at least don't max it out). If you are far enough away from super-ascension, then IAP is still a nice advancement to speed up your super-ascensions by some percentage (probably by 25% ;). In that case it still holds true, that investing in it early will yield a higher return. If you don't plan/want to max out IAP, the calculation is the same, just with different numbers.

Edited 6/20/2022 14:30:35

Imho, after a SAsc, you have a few paths, and when you invest in IAP will differ with that path:

(A) prepare for another SAsc; if you go this route, your goal is really only generating 134K AP asap, and this means maxing out IAP (& Better Hospitals & Increased Army Caches, etc) asap & getting to Hex Earth asap; to do this, you should also invest in Skip Levels so after clearing Hex Earth ~6 times, you can Asc (not SAsc) then get back to Hex asap and do it another 6 times and repeat until you can SAsc again. Simply put, each time you clear Hex without having IAP maxed out is wasted AP towards the next SASc.

(B) completing Techs for Achievements; on this route you need Adv's like Smelter/Crafter Speed, etc, and maybe don't need IAP (etc).

(C) artifact gathering/upgrading; on this route, you don't really care about AP or clearing speed (b/c you'll clear levels faster than you can finish all the digs), and probably want to focus more on Digging Speed buffs, having a high level TW Arti, having Simul Levels and/or Auto-Dig maxed out, and just dig dig dig to make the most of the artifact carryover slots (ie: carryover over Insane/Leg instead of Leg/Epic).

(D) just chillin and clearing levels; on this path, do whatever feels right, if you have no set direction, there's no set best way to arrive there. (;

Phoenix, that was a lot of words which don’t make a lot of sense.

1. Breakeven is irrelevant. Imagine there are two advancements, Increased Copper Production and Increased AP. I’m going to invest in Increased AP regardless of what the payback period on it is. The reality is not far from this, the vast majority of advancements don’t move the needle.

2. Super ascensions make it *more* attractive to select Increased AP. In the old world, AP was pointless since there were no advancements left once you hit ~250k AP (not sure in exact number). With super ascensions, AP has a use again.

@OP: There are a handful of GREAT advancements prior to Level 4: Joint Strike, Increased Mercs, Alloy Values, Increased AC Production. Once you’ve started to hit diminishing returns on these, your level completion times will stagnate at roughly 3-4 hospital cycles. You’re not going to get to 2-3 hospital cycles until phase 4 advancements so Increased AP is a perfectly valid selection (and my personal recommendation) to get there faster.

@graemes: You mentioned some aspects I wanted to include but in the end decided not to, so, let me explain:

regarding argument 2: That is both true and false at the same time. Sure, prior to super-ascension there was a clear cap to the amount of APs you could spent. But, this limit was quite high so, yes, investing in IAP in the end is a waste, but for most players that would be the difference between maxing out everything and not being able to max everything out. In other words, if you have spent the max amount of APs, then all APs you earn after that aren't worth anything (hence you have no benefit in having IAP). But even before super-ascension I assume only a very, very small percentage of players would have gotten near this cap. For all others IAP would have increased the reachable point by 25%. Assuming your number was the actual cap. Without IAP some players might only ever reach 100k before abandoning the game, with IAP they would have had the chance to collect 125k before that (and perhaps would have had more fun and played for longer, because collecting APs in WZI can be a hell of a task at times).

regarding argument 1: Again, yes and no. The problem here is that we argue at length about the benefits of IAP but rarely about the ROI of other advancements, in this regard, sure, if IAP can get you more benefits than investing in any other advancement, then investing seems wise. BUT, and that's the catch, IAP is the only advancement that only affects AP-gain. Even stuff like Increased Copper Production has SOME effects on your level times. At the same time, you can't objectively define a ROI on this one advancement. In contrast IAP is perfectly computable and there are cases where you should not invest in IAP, even if no other advancement gives you the same boost. Because in the end, you will objectively have wasted your time.
For example, if you want some (expensive) advancement and in order to make things easier for you, you invest in IAP first. If this other advancement now costs less than 30k, you will take longer to first max out IAP and then invest in the other advancement.
The same is sort of true, if you are closer to super-ascension than 31k (+8k). The criterion for super-ascension is APs spent in Phase 4, IAP is in Phase 2. So, if you spend 8k in Phase 2 in order to faster super-ascend, you will effectively take longer, because again, the break even is at 31k. Even if this won't have an effect on your level times, rather pick anything in Phase 4 and "pile up" your APs until the super-ascend option is unlocked.

The thing is, if you plan to invest in IAP at some point, then do this early. Otherwise, you will be slower, because you had less time to profit from IAP.