With market strat, your army camps should cease to matter as soon as you hit the first market. If they still matter, then some combination of:

• You're doing it wrong
  
• Your AM isn't high enough
  
• You ran out of money (need a better AV arti, IASV and/or MD advancements)
  
• You're playing a terrible level like Trisk
  
• You're drafting your way out of a merc shortfall (painfully slow)
  
• You ran out of big drafts too and are actually waiting on army camps (excruciatingly slow, avoid at all costs)
  

As for artifacts, AV is the absolutely most important first Legendary you should take. There's not much point in taking it to Insane though, Legendary is enough (or really close to it) for all the levels that matter and where it's not enough, Insane AV still isn't enough either.

Your next two artifacts to keep should probably be some combination of A$B, A^B, SAC, and/or TW. Pick the two you like the most and take the other two as #4 and #5. After that you probably want HB and CB. That's the core set of artifacts, after that you're starting to get into luxury/niche artifacts like BMB, TMB, SC, MD, RCB, MCB, ACD, OV, and IM. If you have all of those at Legendary then... maybe... consider TD. But it's still not that compelling. Most of the tech isn't very important and nearly all of the parts that are you can just buy using the markets.

Edited 8/2/2025 19:13:39

"army camp boosts"

Here's two cents. When I first started I focused on Army Camp production. This included investing in mines and spending AP on increasing resources so I could complete the first column in the Tech tree. Until I 'wasted' some AP on unlocking Stats.

Stats shows an army summary so we know exactly where armies come from. I saw Army Camps is the slowest way to generate armies.

At this point in the Phase 1 Advancements section after JS is maxed I teeter-totter between IACP and AM until Phase 2 opens. Once P2 opens I teeter-totter between Mercenary Discounts and AM until both are maxed. Then I go for Increased AP, Increased Draft Sizes then back to IACP.

I really dislike the “Statistics says most armies come from caches therefore army camps are less important” narrative that plagues these forums. It’s the correct conclusion but the logic is not sound.

I can easily describe a map that demonstrates this, imagine a map with three territories:
- an army camp on the left generating 10k per second
- a 1M territory with a 1M army cache in the middle
- a 2.5M territory on the right

This map would take 250s to complete (100s for the middle territory plus 150s for the right territory, net of the cache)

If you double your army camp production it would take 125s (50s for the middle territory plus 75s for the right territory, net of the cache).

If you double your army cache production it would take 150s (100s for the middle territory plus 50s for the right territory, net of the cache)

A player who thoroughly enjoys army caches would follow the *slower* army cache upgrade path and be justified by your logic (“see? I only got 1.5M from army camps but I got 2.0M from army caches! i just need to upgrade my caches a little further!”)

What is relevant is time, not armies. Real maps don’t look like the one I describe. But they do have a dynamic where army camps help you get to the first market and if you have instant hospitals and maxed artifacts then that’s all that matters because the rest of the map will take negligible time.

If you want to use “Statistics” the relevant number is the snapshot once you get to the first market (and have enough mercs to get to the next merc camp or army cache). The end-of-level stats are meaningless.

"narrative"

In order to settle strategy once and for all two separate community games focusing on the two most popular strategy methods could be setup and played.

Red Team Vs Blue Team, if you will.

The goal being a race to 1st Super Ascension. The two groups separately, collectively debate & make game play decisions. No double agents! And then everyone will see the most efficient strategy to 1st Super Ascension.

The two games would have to allow team member access for viewing but only the moderator can execute decisions.

Edited 8/5/2025 00:21:52

I believe I was the very first person to advocate for Insane Army Cache Boost when super-ascensions were invented, others preferred Alloy Values or Army Camp Boost or pre-patch Time Warp (back when it recharged other artifacts).

You don’t need to convince me that Insane Army Cache Boost is the best single artifact in the game, I’m just saying that the ‘look-at-Statistics-at-the-end-of-the-level’ argument is fallacious.

Time Warp still recharges the other active artifacts, just not itself. It's a good choice for someone who wants to use active artifacts more often and spend time digging at the end of a super ascension.