Thanks for the update Mark and great to hear about the progress!

A couple thoughts on the latest:

1. I personally don’t consider how many hours of digging there are on a level because the next level will have plenty more dig sites. The only optimization I would suggest here is to choose a dig site that will finish *just before* or *long after* I complete any given level so I miss the window where I don’t have money / available sites.

2. You can delete the ‘_d’ from an imgur link to get a higher resolution image on mobile

3. One thought with artifacts is to think of the ones which synergize with your new strategy. You will have a *lot* of money, particularly once the Alloy Values advancement is maxed. Artifacts that affect money (hospital discount, merc discount, territory money boost) are bolstering an area where you are already strong. Instead, I would consider an area of relative weakness such as running out of mercenaries. To address this one, Army Cache Boost and Hospital Boost (like you say) are good selections. Time Warp is also indirectly a good one (especially at Epic level!) since you can skip one of the two hour hospital upgrade windows and accelerate dig speed.

Epic time was when WarTog feel he start to flourish. So I will offer my two coins.

BTW, this does not supersede any of the excellent advice that has already shared. But it is a couple of things that haven't been mentioned yet.

1) Join a Clan. Getting Clan Requests can be a really nice boost a couple of times a day. And can help you get through times when a map seems like a slog.

2) Be sure you are making good use of the SUPER powers. They double the efficacy of many of your powers. And any many cases, are real game changers. Super IM is arguably OP. Super TW doubles the amount of time you are getting out of time warps. Super Market Raids/Free Cache/Supercharge Mines can turn a fairly innocuous power into something that actually makes a big boost that can help you finish a level or break through an obstacle. Supercharge Fog Buster can sometimes clear an entire level, which an make the whole process feel easier. (Yes, there are other ways to find the location of assets. But it can be very relaxing to just bust all the fog at once. Especially on your first time through a level.)

Side note: When I was burning up all those super powers, I was a little bit worried about running out. (Because you only get 2 of each power and then they're gone.) But actually, I have found that once you get past the Epic stage into the Legendary and Insane stage, you are less reliant on Powers to finish levels. So in hindsight, IMHO the Epic stage is precisely when you want to make best use of your Powers.

Side note (part 2): Do *not* use your SUPER supercharge army camp. The SAC powers are most useful when coupled with Clan Request as it 20X the size of your Clan Request.

And one final thing, I will add. *Everybody* is right about drafting.

Yes, drafting every 6 minutes gives the maximum result.
But, also yes, drafting every 6 minutes probably isn't the funnest use of your time.

IMHO, I found that drafts were something that - *while* I was actively playing I wanted to nab them as often as I could. But when I'm done playing for the day, try not to worry about it.

They's probably true of a lot of things about Idle. You want to make sure you are being as efficient as possible while you are online and active so that you are making the best use of your playing time. But then switch tactics for your down time.

One thing I think you (Mark) can rethink - that is something a lot of players can benefit from in Idle - is making sure that you are making good use of your downtime and your uptime.

That is to say: Trying to start hospital upgrades at a time when you were going to be offline for two hours anyway. So you're not spending online time waiting for a hospital or a dig. Making sure to start long or short digs based on when you think you are gong to be off or on. If you encounter a massive blockade, maybe don't tackle it right away, but take a break, grab some lunch, and when you come back you might have accumulated enough armies to do a Joint Strike or even a Triple Strike around it.

That sort of time management can greatly improve your perception of how fun the game is, or how much of a grind.

2. For me, 2-3 hrs per map planning is foolish. I still am thinking days. I have 10 hospitals (out of 13) and have upgraded each to level 4. At 2 hrs per upgrade, that's 60 hrs so I plan to use that time wisely.

Wait a second...upgrading all hospitals to level 4 takes 6 hours, not 60 hours. Let me make a bold guess here...

Are you upgrading the hospitals one by one instead of upgrading them all at the same time?

That may explain why you were emphasising on hospital upgrading taking 2 hours. I was wondering how would that 2 hours make a meaningful difference if you're spending days in clearing levels anyway. If you're upgrading hospitals one by one, that may explain it.

I need to continue to focus on digging over collecting AP.
but I still have 9 days of digging before the next map

I wouldn't recommend focusing too much on digging. Dig sites regenerates infinitely and they're everywhere. As long as your digging team is working most of the time, you're already at maximum digging efficiency.

There's an advancement called "Faster Digging" at phase 4. So, the best way to dig quickly is to get more AP lol

Given that you're completing Orbis, I guess that you're starting Scandinavia soon. Just like Orbis, in Scandinavia you can get all the important techs by buying from markets.

Copper bars is in a market that cannot be accessed early though, so probably you shall smelt the copper bars yourself. But other than that there should be no need to smelt or craft anything.

The map screenshots don't really show which market is the first market. It's the one on the east of the starting area.

Given that you're spending way less time in Orbis than you were in Old Town, sounds like you're improving quickly and starting to get the hang of it :)

Seems that nobody commented on this yet:

There is no way to reduce hospital upgrade time. It's always 2 hours. No advancement or artifact can reduce that. Even if you have all types of artifacts all at insane and maxed out all advancements from phase 1 to phase 4 and super-ascended for 1000 times, hospital upgrade time is still 2 hours.

Another thing I would like to comment on is that, while artifacts make a difference, the difference it makes is nowhere near having good advancement setup and being familiar with the maps. Try not to overestimate the power of artifacts. Gameplay with epic artifacts isn't that different from having higher level artifacts. Having legendary and insane artifacts help reducing level time a bit here and there, but it's not like playing a different game and can cut your level time by a large portion. The two things that makes a big difference is advancements and map familiarity. A year ago when my artifact collection was way less impressive, all the strategies still worked.

If you give me an account with zero artifacts, having 25% Joint Strike, 150% Additional Mercenaries, 50% Mercenary Discount, 100% Increased Sell Alloy Value, but no other advancements, I'm confident that I can still complete Old Town within a few hours. I know exactly how much money and army I need for my Old Town route, and I can calculate that those 4 advancements alone give me enough of what I need. No artifacts or other advancements needed.

However, if you give me an account with all 41 types of artifacts, all at insane, but no advancement, it will take me days to clear Old Town.

I personally find the following artifacts useful:
-Alloy Value. Epic is good enough for most maps. For a few later maps, legendary Alloy Value will help. There's really no need to get it to insane.
-Army Cache Boost. The higher the level the better it is.
-Hospital Boost. Rare is enough. After the Hospital Boost nerf, there is no much point in upgrading it beyond rare. Rare is 8%. Epic is 10%. Legendary is 12%. Its effect is no longer doubling beyond rare.
-Time Warp. It is the only artifact that can reduce dig time, which effectively gives you more artifacts in return!
-Supercharge Army Camp. It helps with reaching the first market quickly. Rare is often enough to do the job, though epic may work better in a few maps with far away first market like Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
-Army Camp Boost. Nowadays I clear levels quicker than Supercharge Army Camp cooldown, so I also use Army Camp Boost to help reaching the first market.

These are the 6 artifacts that I'm currently playing with. Other artifacts either don't feel relevant enough to me or their bonus percentage is not big enough for me to care about. I know that some other far-progress players also used Triple Strike and Inspire Mercenaries a lot.

You mentioned Hospital Discount and Tech Discount. I don't recommend focusing on them.

We talked a lot about market strategy abstractly, but didn't really demonstrate it. It may be beneficial to have a video showing the way it works, especially the part after capturing first market and before capturing all markets and hospitals. That part is particularly tricky. Doing that part sub optimally is often the main reason why market strategy doesn't work well.

Today I recorded my gameplay for Orbis and Scandinavia.

Here's my gameplay video for Orbis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxp54KyMkVc
The important part is between 2:13 and 11:53. Perfecting the market hopping technique is the key to clear levels quickly.

My advancements and relevant artifacts are mentioned in the video description.

Scandinavia recording uploaded as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EopMqeWl3No
The important part is between 11:20 and 20:03.

I don't post often but I do read a lot, so I just want to say a collective "thank you" to the many experienced players who've posted on this thread and many others. Your helpful strategies and tips have been very useful to me. I play Idle a bit more idly than some of you, so I'll never push speed records or ascension leaderboards, but I've gotten to where I know that I can finish most levels through HEH more or less whenever I want. I can idle along for a few days, and then when I have the ~1 hour needed to blast through the rest of the level, I can. As long as my diggers keep digging and I'm not getting stuck, I'm happy!

Yes, I was upgrading my hospitals one at a time before advancing to the next market. I will try to progress faster as I get the hang of this strategy. I haven't yet maxed out my mercs so I am focusing on that and revealing the markets (I am up to 2 so far). I really want to get my triple strike to legendary before facing U.S. again so I am completing the digs (all but 1) before starting the next level. Yes, I can move on and keep digging but my wife would not put up with me if I played the game too often. And, yes, Scandinavia is next. Thanks for the links.

A few random (final?) comments.
1. I tried getting all the hospitals on Scandinavia and ran out of mercs too quickly. Upgrading the hospitals sequentially gave my army camps time to build my forces in Orbis. I had to collect all the hospitals in 3 shifts in Scand. Still a big time saver. I'm under 2 days into the map, have all the markets and upgraded hospitals with only 200 territories left. I need to collect another 100B armies to finish (prob another 2 days). Much faster than my first attempt at the map (20 days).
2. WarTog, super time warp is not really 10x because the 30% army boost runs out after 4 hours. At most, it works out to 4+6*.7=8.2
3. I discovered another way to REALLY improve the resolution on imgur. Change the URL from imgur.io to i.imgur.io (as well as removing the_d). When you magnify the map, the icons are sharp!
4 Math, very impressive youtube video. With the tw cooloff, you did it all with only two slots. Wow! My main differences are a. I have 4 slots for artifacts but b. My Army Cache boost is only rare. Also, I use epic bonus boost to add more money and the cache ring to get more from caches. But most of all, I upgrade army camps and use JS more at the start (I see that this is wrong.). I really need to max out my mercs.
5. Again, thanks to everyone for the assist. God bless you all.

Postnote - I missed a few army caches and didn't account
for JS properly so it did not take so long. I will finish Scand in 1 day, 23 hrs. Now, back to digging.

Edited 2/14/2023 17:12:12