Clash of Clans

[Strazos]

For raiding, I'll generally go with:

8 Giants
8 Wallbreakers
8 Wizards
2 Healers
Rest Archers

For CW, if I'm desperate to generate stars, I might go with something like:

14 Hogs
6 Giants
8 Wallbreakers
8 Wizards
Rest Archers

I will sometimes go cheap on raids with a mix of Barbarians, Archers, maybe 6 Wizards, 8 Wallbreakers, and a smattering of Goblins.

I've been hesitant to routinely use Minions or Hogs, as I really need to DE to upgrade my Barbarian King.

[Samwise]

Minions are a pretty good value IMO (costs a little under 1000 DE to make a bunch of them, so I limit my targets to ones where I think I can loot at least that much), but my theory is if you're going air you need to go all air.  That way a bunch of their defensive buildings are completely inactive rather than having everything firing at you at once.  If you throw a few air units into a ground army, they just get picked off by the AA towers.

[Samwise]

Just in case people doubt the efficacy of the exposed TH strategy (and in case Iain needs convincing that I'm not making up the shield mechanics), here's a representative section of my defense log:



Note the low destruction % (because they only get the TH and a few defending buildings), the low amount of loot taken, and the length of time between attacks (because each one activates my shield, which stays up until my next attack).  It's a very effective strategy and I can't recommend it highly enough to people who are having trouble keeping their loot safe.

Note also the relatively cheap troops used in the attacks -- these are not armies that would be capable of taking my resources if they wanted to.  Part of this is having a (relatively) low trophy count, and part of it is that even at high trophy counts there are a lot of people trawling for cheap wins with cheap armies, and the exposed TH greatly increases the odds you get attacked by one of those rather than someone with a dozen dragons looking to flatten someone.

[IainC]

No, I realised I'd got the shield thing backwards when you posted before. It's been a while since I last played, I don't think I've seen any of the last few updates.

[NowhereMan]

I broke down and started up a game of this just to have something to play on my tablet. The timing mechanics are making my OCD tendencies a bit crazy, I can only make two things simultaneously and it means I hate the idea of downtime. I have been sorely tempted to set a 3am alarm just to make sure I can get that Level 7 gold mine started a few hours earlier...

Haven't restored the Clan Castle yet, is there much point making that a priority or should I try to get level 4 Town Hall upgrades finished up a bit more?

[eldaec]

If you build the castle you can join bat country and people can give you troops to help out.

[Maven]

I'll get started and bolster Bat Country. I too often play these things without an Alliance.

Edit: Wow. Activision really did make this game with a Call of Duty skin. however they did add Predator missiles and Chopper Gunner... but turned Captain Price into an abomination of himself.

The game doesn't consume too much bandwidth on my phone so I ought to be an active member.

[Maven]

Hah, they got Liam Neeson for their commercial. I wonder how much he got paid.

Mobile game companies have been doing a lot of commercial video marketing. I guess that means they are turning a good profit?

[eldaec]

Supercell reported $890M revenue in 2013. So it is just possible, yes.

[NowhereMan]

Thanks lots for the archers. Attacking someone else and getting wtfpwned by their clan supplied level 5 archers persuaded me of the value of it. Might need to look at base layout soonish, got a very simple one with mortar in the middle, resource storage around that, pockets for my towers on the corners and the town hall also pocketed but it leaves a 1 tile gap in my wall (with traps). I'm guessing it's made me more trouble than it's worth to attack since I haven't had any since I started despite having several thousand in resources lying around waiting for builders.

Any general tips on how fast to tech up? Should I try to level all my tech and buildings to max before upgrading the town hall? Or are there some I can ignore a bit?

[TheWalrus]

Im running two accounts, and I had a better go of it by leveling the th to 5 and then maxing everything before upgrading the th again. Leave your hall outside your walls, keep the clan castle central. Always upgrade your clan castle first. It is your best defense. Otherwise, walls are the most important in general defense, air for clan wars since people seem to think dragons are the poo.  You will occasionally get steam rolled. It happens. If it starts happening too often, drop trophies asap. When attacking, try and draw castle troops first before you plop your whole army down. Castle troops will fuck you up. Learn to recognize a loss and dont be afraid to hit end battle before killing all your troops. It's a fun game. Enjoy!
 

[IainC]

At lower levels where upgrades are still fairly cheap, the best defence is being poor. Keep your resources low and just build up through battle and/or shields when you need to pay for something more expensive like a TH upgrade.

[Maven]

Burned 10k a little early but request sent to BC.

[NowhereMan]

Maven as a tip one you've got to town hall 4 or so raiding becomes a much, much faster way of getting resources. With a couple of lucky matches I made 70k over about an hour and a half this morning. You can also have troops queued that start producing as soon as you deploy any. Is also cool because those ridiculously high level players that have dropped loads of trophies sometimes have their producers outside defence range and you can talk up 5 or 10k with a few archers.

Now if only I had more than 2 builders, first time I think I've been getting resources faster than I can talk think about spending them.

[K9]

You only need to complete a couple of quests/achievements to get enough gems for a third builders hut I think. It's doable by the time you hit TH5 or 6 pretty easily I think.

You get 450 gems for getting to 1,250 trophies, which is Silver II I think. I did this around TH5, just ground out trophies for a little bit at the expense of resources, then de-trophied once I got the achievement. I've had three builders since, and that's generally been enough to see me through TH9.

[Maven]

I am on track for third builder and just hit TH4. I will be raiding, I imagine there are fat unprotected casuals ripe for plundering. Build speed is my current bottleneck.

[Samwise]

I have five builders and nothing left for them to upgrade but walls (which are instant) and heroes (which there are only two of, and it takes at least a couple of weeks to save up the DE to upgrade one at this point).  I'm kinda looking forward to them inevitably adding another TH level.

[luckton]

I'm having trouble accumulating resources now at TH8. Seems like a lot of work just to try and get the 1M+ coin/elixir needed to upgrade anything while also making sure you hold onto the loot in between fights while rebuilding lost forces.

[Strazos]

I'm kind of in the same boat. You might try tanking either gold or elixer, so that you're not a super-juicy target. Also, get that TH outside of the walls - some will burn tons of troops to burn the TH down, then stop the attack and give you a simple shield.

Winning Clan Wars makes building up resources a lot easier.

[Samwise]

Having finished all my level 9 walls, the cheapest thing I can build now is... level 10 walls, at 3M gold/elixir a pop (250 sections, which means it'll take me a long while to do all of them).  Curious to see if this means I start actually getting hit for resources again, since now I can't spend down until I'm at 3M, which is more than a third of my storage.

[NowhereMan]

Holy hell inflation with level is insane in this game. 1/3 of your storage for 1 wall section? I was super happy about getting my walls all maxed at TH5 in a couple of days. That would require some severe catassing resource purchasing. Also this seems to be the point where progress starts to slow down as upgrades are starting to move into 1 day territory. I know, I know, 1 day will seem super quick later.

[Samwise]

I still have yet to ever buy gems for this game, or do silly shit like using a drinky bird to keep the screen active.  I'm just patient.   

[eldaec]

Clan levels and the ability for individuals to opt in and out of wars in the new patch.

Oh, also even bigger cannons.

[Samwise]

Yay new cannons.  I've been waiting for them to add a level to match the latest archer tower boost.  Gives me something non-stupid to spend my gold on.


So on the clan war thing, I mentioned this in the game chat, but here's the system I think is easiest, given that I can't force the "opt out" flag on people who I know aren't gonna make their war attacks:

1) If you don't have a league, I'll skip you for the war.
2) If you "opt out" of war, I'll skip you for the war.

Everyone else will be in.  

So if you DO have a league but DON'T wanna be in the war (i.e. you know you're not going to be able to make two attacks on war day), please go to your profile and hit "opt out" so there'll be a little orange thing by your name when I'm picking and I'll know you don't want in.  You only have to do this once, and you can change your mind any time.

If you DON'T have a league for some reason but DO want in the war, just make an attack, that puts you in a league and makes it easy to see you're active.  Otherwise I assume the lack of league means you're playing very very infrequently and/or never make attacks, which means you probably don't wanna be in the war, and you just haven't bothered to "opt out" yet.

Once I have the "in" list, it'll be rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5 (because that's how wars work) based on trophy count.

Cool?

[K9]

What level do Balloons and Minions need to be at to be effective? Is 5/5 good enough. Going to pick up Lava Hounds too when I get enough elixir for the Barracks upgrade.

[Samwise]

Depends.  Effective vs what?   

Bigger is always better, but you gotta start somewhere.

[Rasix]

Sent a clan request.  Still no idea what I'm doing in this game other than building shit.

[Maven]

I've been using 10 Giants / 60 Goblins to farm. I find a juicy target (100k+ resource), distract turrets, and feed. It has been working so far.

[Strazos]

What level do Balloons and Minions need to be at to be effective? Is 5/5 good enough. Going to pick up Lava Hounds too when I get enough elixir for the Barracks upgrade.

You could probably get by with tier 3 minions I think? Also depends on your potions.

[NowhereMan]

I'm opting out of the wars for the moment, spending too much time upgrading defences (are they still out of commission for Clan War attacks like regular raids? Haven't checked) Also going to be out of town for a week or so and not sure if I'll have any connection.

[Samwise]

All buildings and heroes are active in war defense, even if they're upgrading/sleeping/unloaded in your main village.

So far I gotta say I'm loving the new war roster mechanics.  We won that last one by what, 2 to 1?  Looking forward to more loots.   

[Rasix]

Let me know how I can help.     I realize that I'm a year or so behind the rest of you. 

[Maven]

Let me know how I can help.     I realize that I'm a year or so behind the rest of you. 

I have only been going for a couple weeks but the Clan War matchmaking accounts for that. You'll be in it sooner than you think, though Sam are you doing ten-mans from now on?

[K9]

Depends.  Effective vs what?   

Bigger is always better, but you gotta start somewhere.

Mostly TH8/TH9 bases in Crystal 2-3. Might just try it; I see all the top players are doing it, and I'm assuming it's because Lava Hounds are OP?

[Samwise]

I've been doing all air (minion/balloon mostly) since long before lava hounds.

For now we're doing 10 man wars because we don't have 15 actives.  Needs to be a multiple of 5.