Since the original posts on how to approach HEX are a bit scattered in the super ascension thread, I thought we can collect the different routes here as some kind of a summary.

Basically, you can do HEX with a comparably low requirement on advancements (at least compared with HEH, for instance), but the general idea is to burn one to three IM powers per HEX.

Before going into the routes, lets discuss on how to reach HEX:
* obviously, you have to have supered before as otherwise the levels are locked
* since HEX is the 17th map after EH, the default approach to reach it is by defeating EH, having SL advancement at lvl 6 and using a sSL power to straight jump to HEX

I usually finish EH, stay on the map after conquering the last territory, use the sSL and confirm the popup "do you want to jump to HEX", which is automatically shown, with yes.

The route which I was doing during my first 3 supers is as described below. It's a combo of what graemes described in the Super Ascension thread and what Ivan0 shared with me. So all kudos to them.

1) Army cache: Parauapebas
2) Merc Camp: El Caura in Venezuela (use 1 IM)
3) Money cache: Suriname => army camp upgrade
4) Army cache: Espirinto Santo
5) Merc Camp: Denver (use 1 IM) (take route via Cuba)
6) Merc Camp: Snow in Greenland (use 1 IM) (take route via Cape Dyer)
7) Hospital 1: Snow (8 N of Merc Camp)
8) Money Cache: Snow (2 NE of Merc Camp)
9) Army cache: Ustuansky (3 NW of Bonus Komi) (take route via Iceland, Stokholm, Turku)
10) Hospital 2: Mortka (2 SW of Bonus Central Urals)
11) Hospital 3: Xinjiang 5 (1 SW of Bonus Xinjiang)
12) upgrade 3 big hosps to lvl 2

If you dont have a good ACacheB artifact or respective ACache advancement:
- Get all four crafters
- Get all five markets
- Craft what you need to get the 50% cache tech

13) Money cache in bonus Eastern Sakha => upgrade 3 big hosps to lvl3
14) Army cache (Bonus: Central Sakha)
15) TS on big territory in Far East Russia (Vyazemsky)
16) Army cache (Bonus: Far East Russia)

17) finish map easily with AQ, AAQ or manual clicking

(btw, this is my unfogged HEX map: https://i.imgur.com/vjE6brF.jpeg)

Edited 5/9/2023 10:57:22

2 IM route(may need good ACB)

Don't Joint Strike there's plenty at the end but there's not enough to get you places if you js.

1 grab 64k green (Army cache: Parauapebas)
2 grab 9m money (Suriname)
3 grab 3m merc camp (Southwestern Amazonas)
get AC to 11(12? 13 too much)
CR(sac+clan+super fc?)
4 *Army cache: Espirinto Santo
buy all mercs
5 grab 170m money cache (Eastern Paraguay)
buy all mercs for real now
6 get 10m merc camp (El Caura)
*buy more mercs
7 Chipas (im)
8 Hebron (im)
9 snow hosp
10 snow money cache
11-15 cheap hosp and mc
16 Ustuansky army cache
17 Mortka (Central Urals) hosp
18 Xinjiang 5 hosp (upgrade the big 3)
19 Pakistanian Kashmir money cache
20 Central Sakha (Bonus) army cache
21 Eastern Sakha (Bonus) money cache (upgrade the big 3)
22 Vyazemsky 737.4B
23 Far East Russia (Bonus) army cache
24 Mari El 280.2B

Especially for the 2 IM route, there are plenty of different paths to follow. The one that krinid was proposing (maybe he wants to add a more detailed description here), goes via:

1) 1st IM on AF Northeastern C.A.R.
2) 2nd IM on Hebron
3) Ustuansky through AF

if IM is so powerful why not get IM artifact?

Thanks for starting this thread otto!

The original ‘graemes’ route is intended for 3 IMs and bare minimum advancements/artifacts. There are much better routes but this is a good “beginners” route for first timers. Obviously this route takes more time than other more efficient routes due to crafting but I think it should work for any setup.

@3.14: The problem is that an IM artifact at any level other than Insane is fairly useless while even an Insane IM artifact doesn’t get much use outside of Hex Earth.

It’s a *lot* to upgrade an artifact all the way to Insane to use it ~2-4x per super ascension and for most players an Army Cache Boost or Time Warp or Alloy Values makes more sense. Especially when you can just use a single power and get *more* utility.

But thats exactly what makes a HEX guide difficult. Everyone has different setup on artifacts and advancements.

When I am doing HEX the first time per super ascension, I barely have unlocked phase 3 (just for the SL), maybe not even maxed additional mercs. But after I finished it that first time, HEX's AP reward boosts me so deep into phase 4, that the second run already looks completely different.

So I guess the more difficult part is to describe the prerequisites for every route and not the route itself...

@pi
Insane IM = 96% = super powerful

And once you get enough artis & Adv's high enough, you can do a 1 IM clear = no IM power depletion

And you do it the same as the one above that takes you to the money & army caches in SA without using any IMs, then to the 1st market is Africa, drain the market, drain the mercs from the cheapest 5 merc camps, then go to Hebron and use the IM there, then to Ustansky army cache, etc

To do the 1 IM Hex clear, you need to have:

Advancements:
- 25% Joint Strike
- 100% Increased Money Cache
- 57.5% Additional Mercenaries (also need to use 1 SAC + a few FCs)
or 65% Additional Mercenaries (don't need any SAC or FCs)
- 5% Auto-Conquer (you can skip this and go with less AP, but hello carpal tunnel)
- 50% Mercenary Discount
- 100% Increased Alloy Sell Values

Artifacts:
- Insane Cache Boost (25%)
- Insane Money Cache Boost (128%)
- Insane Army Cache Boost (64%)
- Insane Mercenary Discount (64%)
- Insane Alloy Values (224%)
- **Insane Inspire Mercenaries

** = or just use 1 IM power

With lesser requirements, there is a 2 IM Hex clear, then the 3 & 4 IM Hex clear methods as well, but you can often use SAC+FC to eliminate 1 IM requirement

Here is another 1 IM route

Equipped Artifacts:
Insane Army Cache Boost
Insane Time Warp
Epic SAC
Rare ACB

Advancements:
Increased army cache 100% (maxed)
Auto-draft 0 (maxed)
Start with tech 4
Increased Draft size 200%
Army camp bonus (ads) 30%
Cache armies from clan reward 30%
(plus most non-ore advancements in phase 1+2 maxed, e.g. JS, Increased ACP, Increased cache money, additional mercs)

(Note: I've done similar runs in previous ascensions without the 30% clan reward, this works as well but takes a bit longer - hours not days)

Level play:
Activate SAC
Get ACache in Parauabebas
Get MCache in Suriname
Upgrade AC Gislic to level 12 and supercamp to level 2

(wait ca. 25 min)
Get ACache in Espirinto Santo
Get MCache in Eastern Paraguay
Upgrade AC Gislic to level 17 and supercamp to level 4

Get the 2 merc camps in Sth America (and also in Chipas if you have lower advancements/artifacts)
Superpower free cache (+8.6b armies)

Get the merc camp in Central Newfoundland and use 1 IM (+67b armies)

Get the money cache in Snow (and the merc camp in Snow but the latter is not really required)
Get the hospital in Snow

Go back via Sth America and Africa and take 2-3 merc camps on the way to the army cache in Ustuansky. Buy the mercs with the available money to get there.

Get the hospitals in Mortka and Xinjiang 5 (and upgrade the now 3 hospitals to level 2 in case of lower advancements/artifacts)

Get the army cache bonus from Central Sakha (taking any cheap path with ca. 1b army territories)

Get the money cache bonus from Eastern Sakha and the army cache bonus from Far East Russia

(In case of lower advancements/artifacts also get the money cache from Australia to be able to buy missing armies from merc camps)

Use (normal) auto-conquer to take the remaining territories

Complete hex earth in ca. 45-50 minutes (this time it took me 58 minutes because i was taking notes simultaneously)

Edited 6/6/2023 06:07:31