Hi all,

I’m currently playing Geopolitics (L13) on my first play through (as in I haven’t ascended), although I have dabbled in hardened levels such as hardened Scandinavia using super powered skip levels and inspire mercs. I’ve currently got 11 (almost) artifacts and can’t make my mind up about which to upgrade to epic.
My rares are:

-Supercharge army camp (1hr)
-Supercharge mine (1hr)
-Ore values (+36%)
-Draft boost (+16%)
-Idle time (+80mins)
-Hospital boost (+8%)
-Army camp boost (+40%)
-Inspire mercenaries (12%)
-Mine discount (-10%)
-Mercenary discount (-8%)

I will also soon have Speedy crafters (+30%)

Atm, I’m fairly set on sacrificing Inspire mercs, Mine discount, and draft boost but not sure abt the fourth and not sure which one to upgrade.

It is also important to note that my living situation makes idle time worth it, as I can only play the game twice a day, both separated by more than 6hrs (my base idle time).

Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to answer my newbie questions.

SAC is perhaps the best choice out of those. Merc discount is pretty awesome too. Camp boost is nice for the early game but becomes less important later. I eventually take draft boost to epic but only when I'm in phase 4 advancements. Hospital boost is a great artifact but has nerfed scaling after rare so people often leave it there.

You didn't mention it, but make it a priority to build up an alloy values artifact, if you haven't already done so. That should take priority over everything else.

Everything awaythro stated confirmed.

Definitely SAC



And you definitely, absolutely want one of these.



Edited 6/4/2023 00:11:21

Thanks, super helpful.

Would you say it’s worth buying poor artifacts to get alloy values bc I’ve never gotten one. I have 318 coins.

no, its not worth spending coins on artifacts.

AlloyValues is a crucial artifact, but just prioritise shorter digs until you find one then promote it asap.

You can digs 3 commons a day, so you should see one every ~14 days.

I am not sure I would upgrade any of your current stock to Epic, you only have a few bad artifacts in there, and I would keep them to make an Epic AV

Cheers

Without Alloy Value, you will soon be short of money
Mercenary discount can help a lot

Given your setup, i would not upgrade any of yours but wait until you get an AV artifact, which imho is the very first epic you should have.

You can save 4 poors, 4 commons, 4 uncommons, 4 rares so that once you get that AV, you can immediately push it up to epic (and I agree with Zinthos that you could be patient digging common artifacts instead of bying poors).

I spent more coins than I want to admit trying to get an AV. Just use 8h common digs.
or some 12h digs maybe.

do not upgrade unless it's worth it.

Edited 6/4/2023 08:44:42

As others have said, get an AV, but also try to get an ACacheB, as it's just free armies and caches become really important on later levels, especailly SAsc levels, but that's far away from your stage.

You have to spend your coins somewhere so I have a bit or a problem understanding the guys who say that it is not worth it. If you use your own money, you are also supporting the site and I'm sure people have used their money for more nonsense than that.

Edited 6/4/2023 13:24:18

The reason why Alloy Values is so important is because of the market strategy.

If you have a good AV artefact, you can buy and sell alloys at the market for a massive boost in cash to buy the mercs.

Pretty much everybody uses this strategy.

After AV, Supercharge Army Camp is best, then either Bonus Money Boost of Bonus Territory Boost.

I would also keep Army Camp Boost and look our for Draft, Money and Resources Cache Boosts as you move forward.

Norman has a valid point and maybe I should have been a bit more elaborate on that. Imho, spending coins for bying poor artifacts is the least efficient of many options.

For instance, higher tier artifacts have a better value/coin ratio. But bear in mind that you still always get a random artifact. I personally bought an epic artifact when I was about to upgrade my epic AV to legendary and only had 3 others (but you need 4 to upgrade). So it wasnt important for me which artifact I got, as I was using it as fodder anyways.

Even finishing a dig a few minutes earlier so that you can start a new one before going to bed might be worth the coins.

And I strongly believe that advancements are much more important than artifacts anyways. So for me personally, the most efficient use of coins in idle is to use the 30% AP boost at the end of a level (for 50 coins). This is what I am actually regularly doing.

I am less excited about Supercharge Army camp than most. It is helpful to get a good start to a map, but you see rapidly diminishing returns as you acquire multiple army camps and play the bigger maps and hardened levels. By far my favorite active artifact is Triple Attack, boosted to Legendary it turns the ugliest territories into a major source of armies. A free Epic Triple Attack is a nice bonus to look forward to on a later map. At Legendary, it is very helpful in the mid and late game, especially the big and/or hardened maps. It is my favorite active artifact. Time Warp is another good Active.

Otherwise, I prefer to keep slots for a variety of passives that are used situationally: Army Cache Boost, Hospital Boost, Money/Resource Cache Boost when taking territories. Alloy Values for Markets, or any selling of alloys. Merc Discount when buying mercenaries. Item Values can be nice, especially for Markets that sell no metals. When chilling, like when hospitals are upgrading or away from the game, Army Camp Boost, Bonus Money Boost, Mine Boost, and increased Idle Time are solid passive options.

Someone already mentioned Army Cache Boost, but it really is a stealthy excellent artifact. If you unlock some stats you can see how substantial those Army caches are in overall Army production--boosting those caches is a very good idea.

SAC boosts ACamp production, helping reaching the draft cap like 3 times faster. So it's good to start and good to end with if you run out of mercs.

Don’t upgrade hospital boost past rare. It goes from like 8 to 10% not 16
For normal wzi levels best arts are av, tw, sac, army cache in that order
For sasc levels you need legendary ts and/or inspired merc
For wzib best arts are sac,tw,av, army cache in that order. Many will argue army camp but that that’s discounting that you’re more likely to get attacked by people targeting most armies / sec