Clash of Clans: Town Hall Level 8

As you know by now each TH level has a different base that should accompany it. In this post, I will show you some of the worst TH lvl 8 setups and some of the best (in my opinion). Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Here are a few of the absolute worst town hall level 8 bases I have ever seen… it really makes me wonder what they were thinking.

There are so many things wrong with this base, I don’t even know where to begin. Okay, here goes… first of all, if someone is farming, then they may have all of their resources in a 4 layer deep wall, but this person’s Town Hall is on the inside of the walls. Since his TH is on the inside, that means he is not farming. He also has his gold and dark elixir storage on the outside of his walls, so he is not trying to protect resources.  And, since he does have his TH on the inside of his walls, that leads you to believe that he is trying to protect his trophy count. This would be extremely easy to get one star on. All you would need to do is implement GlitterPony’s Attack Strategy, especially since none of the defenses are behind walls. If you own this base, please comment and let me know what the heck you were thinking. Thanks 😉

Horrible Base Number Two:

This base  is protecting the army camps much too much. He is hardly protecting his elixir or gold. It makes me wonder how he got level 5 & 6 walls, because I guarantee that is the first thing that gets stolen. I smell gems! He may think that your troops all die if you camp is destroyed. Rest assured, that is not the case anymore. I have tested this theory! Your troops are safe to fight another day!

Here are some examples of good bases for Town Hall Level 8

This is a pretty good TH lvl 8 setup. The only thing that really concerns me with this base is the placement of the clan castle, but since this player isn’t in a clan anyway, it really doesn’t matter where they place it. For a player that is in an active clan, be sure to centralize your castle and protect it somehow. If a clan castle is destroyed during a raid, all of your troops will be trapped in side and will not be able to help you. This base does a good job of protecting it’s borders, but not much of the inside. Let’s hope that the enemy is dead before it even would reach the center! This one just barely fits into the “good” category.

This base is good. It defends the borders and has a pretty decent splash area. The only thing I would suggest is spreading out the spiking a bit more and adding them to all sides of the base… and bringing in the research closer to the rest of the base. Spreading out your buildings like that is only good when you are of a lower level and want to make sure someone doesn’t get 3 stars. Spreading them out when you get higher up is just basically giving away buildings, so your enemy can get to 1 star that much easier.

I like this setup. It uses traps efficiently and he is building up his strongest walls on the weakest part of the base. It looks pretty solid. Once the walls are done, I think it would work well. The teslas and wizard towers are placed well and the town hall/resources are in the most secure spot in the setup. All in all, I like it. Try this one out of you are having problems with winning while you are not on.

This is my favorite base, but I suggest staying below 1800 trophies with it. Once you get past 1800, it is pretty hard to defend. I am partial to traps and really like the way the tesla is hiding where people would likely enter. Then the two teslas by the TH would protect that well. Everything is grouped together pretty well, so nothing would be given away for free, making it harder to get any stars. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Clash of Clans: Town Hall Level 4

The very beginning stages of CoC is not as easy as it looks. You have to protect your gold and elixir with pretty much no defenses.  I would really not worry about your town hall in the beginning, you don’t need to protect it. If you are at TH level 4, TH really should be the last of your worries. In order to progress you will need gold and elixir, so keep those safe.

Here is a really good set up for TH level 4. In this setup, they protect their gold and elixir, but leave the unimportant stuff alone. Down the line these items will become important, but not at the beginning. If you have any questions at all about starting out, leave a comment on this post and I will help you.

Clash of Clans: Hidden Tesla (or unhidden)

The hidden tesla is a very neat defense item. It is essentially hidden from attackers until their troops get too close, then they get zapped with electricity.

The CoC load page says this about the hidden tesla “Lay a deadly trap with the Hidden Tesla! Our Wizards have trapped a storm cloud into each of these sneaky towers. When an enemy walks or flies close enough, the tower springs up and fries it using the power of Electrickery!”

While the Tesla is a great defense item, it needs to be placed properly. I can’t tell you how many times I see the tesla set up incorrectly in many various bases. Here is the thing, the tesla is supposed to be hidden. You don’t want your enemy to know where it is, that is where it’s power lies. If you know where the tesla is, you can send in 15 level 5 archers and take it out. You might be asking yourself, how can you tell if it’s placed incorrectly? Well, you know those squares that you click on to deploy your troops, but the troops won’t deploy there? Those are teslas. This happens when the player leaves a 3×3 square where the tesla is placed. The tesla only needs a 2×2 square and when given any more space than this, it shows up as an empty square.

Here is an example of an incorrectly placed tesla:

Now that you know what to watch out for, keep an eye our for these unhidden teslas during your next battle.

Clash of Clans: How to Hide your Elixir

If you read Clash of Clans: GlitterPony Attack Strategy, you know how smart that Pony is. Well, he recently let me in on a secret that he uses when he goes to bed at night. Not only did I try it, but I am amazed that it works!

This trick is to be used before you go to bed or leave the game unattended for a extended period of time without a shield. Here is what you do…
1. Make sure your camps are completely full of troops.
2. Fill up your barracks with wallbreakers.
3. That’s IT!

What this does, is hides your elixir from anyone that could attack you. Not only will they not see it when they look at your base, but they also will not be able to steal it. How much can you hide? well, if you have 4 level 10 barracks and level 4 wallbreakers, you can hide 750,000 elixir. 75 troops in each barracks and 2,500 for each troop. Just be sure to remove the wallbreakers when you wake up/when you donate to people, or you will end up with a lot of wallbreakers.

More realistically, if you have a level 7 barracks, you can hold 50 troops. Each level 4 wallbreaker costs 2,500 to train – so you will be hiding 500,000 elixir. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Clash of Clans: GlitterPony Attack Strategy

Hi clashers! GlitterPony is one of the top rising stars in DetroitDeath. He is level 52 and got above 2000 trophies in a short period of time. Many people have asked him what the secret was… and since he is such a good Pony, he decided to share. Here is what he said…

GlitterPony Attack Strategy

Things Needed:

5 Giants, 5 Wall breakers, remaining camp space fill with Archers, whiskey to sip on, Motley Crüe Pandora radio station playing

Optional:

Healing Potions and Heroes

I have level 5 archers, level 5 giants, and level 3 wall breakers

I will attack someone if they meet a few criteria:

1) They put their town hall out to get a quick shield.  Simple enough, just drop a few archers.  Be careful going for 50% damage here, make sure you look at their camps and barracks size first.  They put their town hall out for a reason and could potentially hold a grudge against you for taking 2 stars.  Only push for two stars if you’re confident you can defend an attack from them.

2) They have their town hall close to the edge of their base.  It’s safe to say they have tesla coils hiding but all you have to do is send in a giant and distract them while your archers kill them.  Then drop 15-20 archers at a time until the town hall is destroyed. I can’t remember the last time I used a giant with a purpose other than distraction.

3) You can get to a town hall by breaking one wall. 

This person has just made it super easy for you to destroy their town hall.  Send in a giant followed by wall breakers to the wall by the cannon on the top right side.  Now send in archers at the broken wall and they will kill the cannon and then funnel in directly to the town hall and kill it.  Notice, too, that by the poor placement of their wizard tower and clan castle they won’t even activate.  Now that the town hall is dead you should have enough archers and giants left to steal all of their elixir and gold very easily.  The most important thing about killing the town hall first is that it saves you troops and now you have already won, so you can decide if you want to push and steal their resources, attempt 50% damage, or just take the trophies and run.  With this person’s base design you should be able to get 2 stars easily.  You can drop single archers around to try and destroy buildings out of their defenses range.

4) The person is upgrading their defenses.  Before hitting next on what looks like a tough base take a look at what they are upgrading.  If they have mortars or wizard towers being upgraded they have a huge weakness in their defense.  Smart base builders balance their defenses to provide equal protection throughout unless you’re farming and protecting resources.  Well, if they are upgrading their mortar they now have a defensive imbalance and a weak side for you to attack.

5) If the person is so heavy on defending their castle and storage’s that they weakly defend everything else.

Some people will put up a big 4 layer thick wall with their town hall, resource storage containers and, mortars/wizard towers/x-bows and then they leave everything else sitting outside the wall fresh for the taking.  In this case, you may never get close to their town hall, but you should be able to get 50% damage easily by just dropping archers all around the outside.

 Heroes: In all of these attack strategies heroes can be a huge factor!  They do a good amount of damage and have lots of health.  My most common use for them is if I have destroyed the opponent’s town hall and I’m sitting at like 47% damage.  I will send in a hero to a spot where they will be attacked the least and can easily destroy 1 or 2 buildings.  As soon as you hit 50% damage end the battle.  You do this because you have no potential for 100% and now your heroes’ regeneration time is lower so he/she will be ready to fight for you again sooner.

 Healing Potions: I use these because with this attack strategy you are dumping a large amount of troops in one spot so a healing potion is super effective at making their mortars ineffective.

 Barbarians: I do not use them because it’s hard to predict what they will do!  You may place your giants and wall breakers perfectly, and then send in barbarians and they just do whatever they want.  They remind me of someone with ADHD, you place them perfectly for what should be a successful battle but then they see something shiny off to the side, get distracted and attack that instead.  Plus, it’s extremely difficult to keep them out of your opponent’s defensive range.  The fact that they have more health and do more damage than archers means nothing because they make it so easy for your opponent to kill them.

 Goblins: The fact that they do 2 times damage to resources and their fast movement speed is nice but in my opinion they are not great for anything but farming.  A smart base design has everything spread out so it’s harder to take all of their loot which causes goblins to run halfway across the map to attack a gold mine right past the archer’s tower shooting them in the face.

Final Thought: You could call this the poor man’s attack strategy.  It has worked well enough to raise me above 2000 trophies and you don’t have to spend large quantities of elixir and time training dragons.  I have found the most important part to my success was raising my camp level and archer level.  If all else fails you can just overwhelm your opponents defenses with the sheer volume of archers you are sending at them.

For people with less trophies and smaller troop capacity I would consider using fewer giants.  People you battle at lower trophy counts (up to around 1400 trophies) will have weaker defenses and the giants aren’t as crucial.

Hope this helps someone!

-GlitterPony

Be sure to check out Pony’s thoughts on hiding elixir as well! Click here!

Clash of Clans: Builder’s Huts

Builder’s huts are one of the most important buildings in CoC. These huts house your builders. The builders are the little men with hammers that run around upgrading your buildings, resources, and defense.

In the beginning of the game (see beginner’s guide), you will receive one builder, then during the tutorial, you will be prompted to spend 250 gems on a second builder. While I don’t think you should use gems in the beginning to upgrade, I do think you should spend the 250 gems for the second builder. Two builders are necessary and anything less would be silly. As soon as you can, try to get more builders. You will want to spend gems on gold, elixir, and speeding up your builders, but wait and buy a third builder, then a fourth!

You can get gems to buy builders by completing achievements, removing debris from your base, and, of course, buying them. The easiest way to get gems without spending money is to remove the trunks, trees, mushrooms, stones, etc from your playing field. You will find one, two, or three gems in various items you remove. These items regenerate, so once you remove them, they will come back. Keep removing them to get gems and experience points.

The best achievement for you to get is getting to 1250 trophies. Once you get 1250 trophies, you will get 450 gems. Since the third builder only costs 500 gems, between this achievement and removing debris, you will definitely have enough for a 3rd builder.

If you do plan on spending any money in CoC, consider spending it on builders. I have spent a small amount in the game. I bought a 4th and a 5th builder. Since upgrade times take so long when you get higher up in level, a 5th builder really makes a difference.

Builder Pricing:
1st hut: Free
2nd hut: 250 Gems
3rd hut: 500 Gems
4th hut: 1000 Gems
5th hut: 2000 Gems

What to do with all of your builders?!

This is a good problem to have. Make sure you are strategically upgrading your base. Never have all 5 builders working on defense (unless you have bought a shield). This will leave your base open to attack, you will likely lose many trophies and a lot of resources. I suggest using two builders for defense, one for gold/elixir, one for army camps/barracks/storages, and keep one doing smaller upgrades so it is readily available to update your walls and remove debris.

Clash of Clans: Laboratory

Hi Clashers! I was not going to make a post about this, but, surprisingly, it is the question I have gotten the most! Here is all of the information you need to know about your laboratory!

The best advice I can give you is to always have a troop in the lab upgrading, this will help immensely when you start to upgrade your town hall. To upgrade your troops, click on your laboratory and click which troop you would like to upgrade. When the upgrade is complete, all of the troops you currently have in your camps will be upgraded as well. The training costs rise the more you upgrade your troops.

You can build your laboratory when your Town Hall is at level 3. The initial build of your lab costs $25k elixir. With a level 1 lab you can upgrade your archers, barbarians, and goblins to level 2. Each of these troop upgrades costs $50k per troop type.

Lab 2: You can build a level 2 lab when your TH is at level 4. Upgrading your lab to level 2 costs $50k elixir. With a level 2 lab you can upgrade your giants, balloons, and wallbreakers to level 2. Each of these troop upgrades costs $100k per troop type.

Lab 3: You can build a level 3 lab when your TH is at level 5. Upgrading your lab to level 3 costs $90k elixir. With a level 3 lab you can upgrade your archers, barbarians, and goblins to level 3. You can upgrade wizards to level 2. Upgrading your wizards and barbarians costs $150k elixir. Upgrading your archers and goblins will cost $250k elixir per troop type.

Lab 4: You can build a level 4 lab when your TH is at level 6. Upgrading your lab to level 4 costs $270k elixir. With a level 4 lab you can upgrade your giants, wallbreakers, wizards, and balloons to level 3. Giants and wallbreakers cost $250k. Wizards and balloons cost $450k elixir.

Lab 5: You can build a level 5 lab when your TH is at level 7. Upgrading your lab to level 5 costs $540k elixir. With a level 5 lab you can upgrade your wizards, giants, wallbreakers, balloons, archers, barbarians, and goblins to level 4. You can upgrade your healers, dragons, and PEKKAs to level 2. Barbarians cost $500k to upgrade. Archers, goblins, giants, healers, and wallbreakers cost $750k elixir per troop type. Balloons and wizards cost $1,350,000. Dragons cost $2 million and PEKKAs cost $3 million.

Lab 6: You can build a level 6 lab when your TH is at level 8. Upgrading your lab to level 6 costs $1,080,000 elixir. With a level 6 lab you can upgrade your archers, giants, goblins, wallbreakers, barbarians, goblins, and balloons to level 5. You can upgrade healers, dragons, and PEKKAs to level 3.  These upgrades range in cost from 2.25 million to 6 million.

Lab 7: You can build a level 7 lab when your TH is at level 9. Upgrading your lab to level 7 costs $3 million elixir. With a level 7 lab you can upgrade your archers,  giants, balloons, and barbarians to level 6. Barbarians, balloons, and giants cost $6 million and archers cost $7.5 million. All updates for this level take 14 days.

Clash of Clans: February 2013 Update

The newest CoC update is, if you ask me, much better than the heros update. This update helps all levels of players and the update is more useful, especially for clan leaders. Below is a quick synopsis of the new update!

CoC now has higher level troops! Level 6 troops are available for you to upgrade. In order to upgrade to level 6 troops, you need a level 7 laboratory and a level 9 town hall. The level 7 laboratory upgrade is $3 million elixir and takes 5 days to upgrade.  Once you have upgraded your laboratory, you can start upgrading troops to level 6. Each troop costs between $6 and $7.5 million and takes 14 days to upgrade. This update is really neat, but, again only useful for the top players.

These defenses target air troops. The Air Bomb costs $4k gold and the Seeking Air Mine costs $600 dark elixir.

This is another important update for clan leaders… but not horribly important to anyone else. Unless there is a competition going on. I know my clan holds trophy runs every few weeks. The winner gets a dragon and the loser gets kicked (maybe). This will be a lot easier than taking screen shots of each player’s trophy level and doing the math!

This is probably the neatest feature that can be enjoyed by all. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t even remember what it was like to have a clan without donation counters. That upgrade was flawless and very needed. I think this one will be too. Not only can you see the top players in your area, but the top 200 players and the top 200 clans are now available to be viewed. Like before, you can still view your clan or personal rank when you scroll all the way down the list.

More info to come, once I have a chance to play with it some more! Got a question? Leave a comment!

Via Supercell Forums:

Version 3.25:

Cool New Leaderboards

✔ Climb to the top of your Clan; see who’s on the rise and who’s falling
✔ New local Leaderboards: who’s the best player in your country?
✔ Clan members who recently joined tagged as “New”
✔ Supersize my Leaderboards! More players now fit onboard

New unit upgrades!
✔ Upgrade your Laboratory to to unlock these mighty level 6 units:
✔ Barbarians get sharper swords and mighty horned helmets
✔ Archers get new bow techniques and fashionable tiaras from their Queen
✔ Giants are heartier and hairier than ever
✔ Balloons are pimped out with spikes and the Jolly Roger

Air-tight air defense!
✔ New deadly traps to stop airborne attackers: Air Bomb and Seeking Air Mine
✔ Upgrade your Air Defense turrets to level 7 to shoot down the nastiest dragons
✔ Turn enemy balloons into pincushions with the level 11 Archer Tower

Hero improvements!
✔ Heroes recover health faster thanks to the Alchemists’ new sleep potion
✔ Hero level and stats are now displayed correctly when visiting villages
✔ Heroes now patrol a larger area and show guard radius when tapped

Gameplay improvements
✔ We discovered that metal armor conducts electrickery! P.E.K.K.A is now a priority target and receives extra damage from Hidden Teslas
✔ Spell creation times reduced – blast more magic more often
✔ Notification when your troops are ready for battle (Army Camps full)
✔ Wall levels 9 and 10 strengthened: hold off the rampaging hordes for longer
✔ Shop now notifies when new items are available
✔ New Achievements: Heroic Heist and Mortar Mauler
✔ Lower reload costs for X-Bow levels 2 and 3
✔ Tapping a trap shows its trigger radius

Clash of Clans: Town Hall Guide

Like many people, you may be confused as to when to upgrade different aspects of your base. Never fear, here is some info that should help you.

Many players are so excited to upgrade their Town Halls that they do not think about the strategy involved with it (me included, my bad!). In order to restrict farmers from taking everything lower levels had, Supercell put a loot restriction on different level Town Halls. Basically, if you attack a player that has a town hall within two levels of your current level, you will get 25% of the loot in their gold/elixir storages and 50% of the loot in their gold mines and elixir collectors. For example, if you have a level 5 town hall, in order for you to get the most amount of  loot possible, you would need to attack someone between TH lvl3 and TH lvl 7. If you were to attack someone lower than a level 3, you would only get 25% of the loot (gold and elixir) in the storages and 5% of the loot in the collectors.  Dark Elixir is a little different, if you fall into the two TH level rule, you can raid 5% from the DE storage and 75% from the drills. Your DE looting is capped at 2,000 from the storage. At first glance, this helps the little guy… but lower level upgrades cost less and high levels need more loot. It would make more sense to me to keep it how it was before this November update. Maybe they will change it back, hard to say. But I can tell you it gets incredibly hard for lower level players if they upgrade their town hall quickly. They do not have the level of troops they need in order to fight higher level players, so they really don’t stand a chance, unless they plan on buying gems. Supercell really wants everyone to buy gems, so they make it as hard as possible for you to not spend money. Play smart and you will never need to. Use patience and strategy.

My advice to all of you, upgrade your defense buildings and walls as high as they can go for the level town hall you are at, then, once you have everything upgraded, move to the next town hall. There really is no reason to be so eager to jump to a high level town hall if you can’t defend yourself and also get less loot once you have upgraded. Be sure to always have a troop upgrading in the lab, so you are offensively prepared as well. You will need very high level troops to loot level 8 & 9 TH.

Town Hall Level 1

Defense: At Town Hall Level 1 you get 2 cannons and you can upgrade them to level 2.
Resources: 1 gold mine up to level 2, 1 elixir collector up to level 2, 1 gold storage, 1 elixir storage
Offense Buildings: 1 barracks up to level 3 and 1 army camp

Town Hall Level 2

Defense: At Town Hall Level 2 you are allotted 2 cannons at level 3, 1 archer tower at level 2, and 25 walls at level 2.
Resources: 2 gold mines up to level 4, 2 elixir collectors up to level 4, 1 gold storage up to level 3, and 1 elixir storage up to level 3
Offense Buildings: 2 barracks at level 4 and 1 army camp at level 2

Town Hall Level 3

Defense: You are allotted 2 cannons at level 4, 1 archer tower at level 3, 50 walls at level 3, 1 mortar at level 1 , and two bombs to be placed strategically throughout your base.
Resources: 3 gold mines at level 6, 3 elixir collectors up to level 6, 2 gold storage up to level 6, and 2 elixir storage up to level 6
Offense Buildings: 2 army camps at level 3, 2 barracks up to level 5, 1 clan castle, and 1 laboratory

Town Hall Level 4

Defense: You get 2 cannons at level 5, 2 archer tower level 4, 75 walls at level 4, 1 mortar at level 2, 1 air defense at level 2, 2 bombs, and 2 spring traps
Resources: 4 gold mines at level 8, 4 elixir collectors up to level 8, 2 gold storage up to level 8, and 2 elixir storage up to level 8
Offense Buildings: 2 army camps at level 4, 3 barracks up to level 6, clan castle up to level 2, and 1 laboratory level 2

Town Hall Level 5

Defense: You get 3 cannons at level 6, 3 archer tower level 6, 100 walls up to  level 5, 1 mortar up to level 3, 1 wizard tower  level 2, 1 air defense level 3, 2 spring traps, and 4 bombs
Resources: 5 gold mines at level 10, 5 elixir collectors up to level 10, 2 gold storage up to level 9, and 2 elixir storage up to level 9
Offense Buildings: 3 army camps at level 5, 3 barracks up to level 7,  1 spell factory, a clan castle up to level 3, and 1 laboratory level 3

Town Hall Level 6

Defense: You get 3 cannons level 7, 3 archer tower level 7, 125 walls level 6, 2 mortars level 4, 2 wizard towers at level 3, 1 air defense level 4, 4 spring traps, one giant bomb, and 4 bombs
Resources: 6 gold mines at level 10, 6 elixir collectors up to level 10, 2 gold storage up to level 10, and 2 elixir storage up to level 10
Offense Buildings: 3 army camps at level 5, 3 barracks up to level 7,  1 spell factory, a clan castle up to level 3, and 1 laboratory level 3

Town Hall Level 7

Defense: You get 5 cannons at level 8, 4 archer tower level 8, 150 walls at level 7, 3 mortars at level 5, 2 wizard towers at level 4, 2 hidden teslas at level 3, 2 air defense at level 5, 4 spring traps, 2 giant bombs, and 6 bombs
Resources: 6 gold mines at level 11, 6 elixir collectors up to level 11, 2 gold storage up to level 11, and 2 elixir storage up to level 11
Offense Buildings: 4 army camps at level 6, 4 barracks up to level 0,  1 spell factory up to level 3, a clan castle up to level 3, and 1 laboratory level 5

**NOTE** Please be sure to place your teslas correctly!!

Town Hall Level 8

Defense: You get 5 cannons at level 10, 5 archer tower level 10, 200 walls at level 8, 3 mortars at level 6, 3 wizard towers at level 6, 3 hidden teslas at level 6, 2 air defense at level 6, 6 spring traps, 3 giant bombs, and 6 bombs
Resources: 6 gold mines at level 11, 6 elixir collectors up to level 11, 2 gold storage up to level 11, and 2 elixir storage up to level 11
Offense Buildings: 4 army camps at level 6, 4 barracks up to level 10,  1 spell factory up to level 3, a clan castle up to level 4, and 1 laboratory level 6

Town Hall Level 9

Defense: You get 5 cannons at level 11, 6  archer tower level 10, 225 walls at level 10, 3 mortars at level 7, 3 wizard towers at level 7, 4 hidden teslas at level 6, 3 air defense at level 6, 2 XBows at level 3, 6 spring traps, 4 giant bombs, and 6 bombs
Resources: 6 gold mines at level 11, 6 elixir collectors up to level 11, 2 gold storage up to level 11, and 2 elixir storage up to level 11
Offense Buildings: 4 army camps at level 7, 4 barracks up to level 10,  1 spell factory up to level 4, a clan castle up to level 4, and 1 laboratory level 6

Town Hall Level 10: Likely coming very soon.

So, the moral of my story is to UPGRADE EVERYTHING BEFORE TOWN HALL! Good luck!

Clash of Clans: Building & Maintaining a Successful Clan

There are many different definitions of successful when it comes to clans. For this post, the term successful will be defined by a loyal, donating, active clan.

Out of the many different aspects of CoC, building and maintaining a successful clan is probably one of the most time consuming and difficult, but well worth it in the end. I started my clan because my previous clan didn’t donate, was rarely active, and not a whole lot of fun. I saw so many people playing CoC and I knew there had to be a way to get a good group of people in one solid clan.

The first thing you need to think about when starting a clan is what will the name be? I wanted people in my area to be able to find us and I wanted our name to stick out. I then took a few names to global and had them vote on it. The winner was DetroitDeath. Realistically, you need to think of a name that will be searched for when someone is looking to join a clan. I figured a lot of people in the Detroit area would type in “Detroit” in the search function… this would help me get that target audience. Something catchy makes them remember it. You don’t want to be generic, search the clan names before you make one. If you live in Minnesota and name your clan “The Twin Cities” and there are 17 other clans named the exact same thing, why would they join yours? In the beginning stages, name is key.

Recruiting:

Getting people to join is different at each stage of the recruiting process (under 10 members, under 30, and over 40). As you recruit and gain members, the types of player your are looking for significantly change. In the beginning you want anyone that will join, usually looking really desperate. Later on, you want loyal members that will contribute, not just fill the ranks, because there is nothing worse than having a clan full of non-donators. Nope, not even having an entirely empty clan. A clan of non-donators is a bummer because if you kick them all, you look like an ass and run the possibility of losing some really cool members. It’s a gamble. I have had members (you will not be named… yet) that have not donated at all, but when my bouncer (mexi) or the brains (googler) tells them they need to donate, they do. Sometimes becoming a very important part of the clan. Sometimes it’s a crap shoot when it comes to kicking.

Under 10 Members: I would suggest not creating a clan unless you have one or two trusted people that will be in it with you. Real life friends work really well. In my case, my best friend and husband also played, so they joined my clan from the start. Saved me a big hassle there. A clan with three people will gain more interest than a clan with one. On that note, don’t lie when you are pitching it in global. Tell them it’s a new clan and you are looking to build it up, that your focus is on members and not numbers at this stage. Random thought, please, please do NOT start a clan if you are under level 30. It will just frustrate you. NO one wants to join a clan where the leader is level 14 and is the only person in the clan. Patience is key in CoC, start practicing it from early levels because you will only need it more as you go on. NOTE: When you are under 10 people, the members that join will leave frequently. In the first night you will probably get 20 people that join and then leave. That’s fine, let them. Don’t get stressed out about it. If you build it they will come 😉 On that note, you will want your clan to be “open” for the first few days… with a smaller trophy count – I suggest 600. This will allow people to come and leave as they choose, instead of waiting on you to approve them. I promise you will wake up one morning with 15 members and wonder where they came from!

Under 30 Members: The people that will join you at this stage are who you need to make strong relationships with. Learn where they are from, what they like donated, etc. These are the people that are likely to stay. These people are the most important to maintaining a strong, successful clan. 90% of my elders came from this group. Recruit them by pitching your group in global honestly. My clan is mature players only. You would be surprised how many unclaimed players wanted a mature clan, but couldn’t find one.

Over 40 Members: These people will join because of your trophy score. The higher you are, the more likely you will get people to join. No offense to the over 40 crowd, but I don’t dwell too much on it. If you have 40 active, good members the other ten will fall into place. Once you get to this stage, you will see what I mean… You will go through a lot of different players, but if your core is solid these don’t matter. To recruit over 40, all you need to do is go to global and ask them (the higher level you are the more apt they will be to join you). You can also click the trophy icon and invite players of similar trophy counts to you. This works rarely, but I have gotten a few this way.

Maintaining a Strong Clan:

The best advice I can give you for this is to focus on the people and not the trophies or quantity. Everyone wants to have a full clan with awesome, loyal members that donate up the wazoo. In order to get that to be a reality, you have to cultivate relationships with each member. Make friends, learn where they live, what they like donated to them, how old they are, etc. This is the best way to create loyalty. If you are kicking people or not letting them in because they have too few trophies, you are just being one of those bullies no one likes. Each member of your clan will get better. It just takes time and if you put the effort into cultivating the relationship, they will still be in your clan when they are level 101 with 3,200 trophies.

Farming & trophying together is also important. Give your members freedom to do what they choose, but have clan “activities” to do with them. Teach the lower levels how to farm (or write a blog about it. ha) and make a craptastic amount of money, so their bases will be stronger during your trophying. Organize scheduled “Trophy Runs” (which my clan refers to fondly as trophying). I have found giving members two weeks to prepare and having the trophy run last for less than one week is ideal. It gives them a chance to prepare and farm before racing to get those trophies. Make a fail and a win for the run. ie give the winner a dragon and the loser gets kicked or demoted (or just threaten it). Also make a clan goal… each member raises their trophies by 300/we get in the top 1k! Stuff like that is fun and gives people something to work for.

Keep the clannies on their toes. Kick people that don’t donate. Kick people that bother other members, especially if the members being bothered are in your core 30.

Last one: make a Facebook group for your members to join. Give them a place to talk about stuff outside of the dumb clan chat. (hate deleting things on there). This also gives you a place to discuss with elders who you will kick that week. Giving your core 30/elders the ability to make decisions makes it feel like everyone’s clan. Which, if you agree with anything I have said thus far, is what you want. If you want to be a dictator, you should find another blog to read.

Elders:

I don’t know how many times people have to be burned by this to get it. DO NOT MAKE new people elder. You may get lucky for the first few, but you WILL get burned. It is just a matter of time. If you can only get people to join your clan because they want elder then 1. They probably aren’t the type of person you want in your clan and 2. you must make everyone elder. If no one can kick anyone else out, then you are covering your a**. So either do NOT make new members elder (until they are trusted) or make everyone elder. Worst thing ever is to wake up to 3 people in your clan because one of your noobs kicked everyone out. (this hasn’t happened to me, because I am not an idiot, but it happens all the time).

Bio:

Be sure to keep your bio updated, informative, and different from the 198,090,339 other clan bios out there. If you are farming, put it in the bio. If you did a trophy run, put who won it in the bio. Keep people updated this way, because this is the only thing they all see when the look at the clan.

Questions? Comments? Need help with your clan? I am here to help!

CoC – Troop Guide

There are many different troops in CoC, as you can see above. The troops range greatly in price, training cost, training time, hit points, and damage per second. See below for a detailed explanation of each troop.

Barbarians

Barbarians are a favorite of many because of their quick training time and low cost. A large mass of Barbarians are very effective and can destroy objects quickly. A big drawback I have seen is that their AI is not very high. They will often go in the wrong direction or target walls for much too long. Be sure to deploy small hoards all around the camp because they can easily be picked off by mortars, wizards towers, and teslas.

This table is from the Barbarian Wiki page

Archers

Archers are a favorite among many players, they are one of the cheapest to train, available from the beginning, and have a long range that helps get items while still outside of the walls. As with Barbarians, Archers can be killed easily with splash defense. Be sure to spread them out when you deploy them. They do a lot of damage when deployed in large numbers, but will be killed almost instantly, no matter what level.

This photo is from the Archer Wiki Page

Trivia:

• It’s unknown why she has a small bag at her belt, though it’s likely supplies such as bow strings and water.
• As of now, the polls are showing that this unit is the most favored by the players when raiding a base. This is why Supercell increased the prices to upgrade them.
• Archers are commonly the most popular requested troops.
• The most notable cosmetic changes for an Archer being upgraded is the color of their hood and arrow type; a level 1 or 2 Archer has pink (default) hair and default arrows, a level 3 or 4 Archer has purple hair and flaming arrows, and a level 5 Archer has a green hood and elixir arrows.
• when you tap on the Army Camp the Archers all pump their right fist into the air three times.
• A archer tower has an archer on top too, but as you upgrade it, you can have multiple archers on it that look the same as level
• There is a new glitch where you can have level 5 archers with a level 4 Laboratory. If someone hasn’t upgraded there archers to level 3 yet, you press upgrade and in a few days you’ll have level 5 archers. (from Wiki)

Goblins:

Goblins are a favorite for many players that are farming or looking to steal resources quickly. They are the fastest troop in CoC and the only troop who targets resource buildings first. As with archers and barbarians, Goblins tend to group together, making them highly suseptable to mortars and bombs. Goblins should never be deployed without another type of troop because they are very likely to be killed quickly. With another troop type to distract defenses, your goblins will be most effective.

This photo is from the Goblin Wiki page

Giants:

Giants are very large, ogre-like troops. They are very slow and, by themselves, cannot deal much damage. If you release them in a group, they are much more effective. Giants have a very high tolerance and do not die easily. They also target defense, so they can be very useful for all levels of players. A popular way to utilize giants is to release a few at a time, so the opponents defenses target them, simultaneously protecting your weaker units.

This photo is from the Giant Wiki page.

Wallbreakers:

Wallbreakers are a very important troop in CoC. Without wallbreakers, many more of your troops would perish while trying to get through the walls. Wallbreakers can only be used once. When they blow up the targeted wall, they blow themselves up in the process. Wallbreakers will target the wall that is closest to them, if the wall has three or more segments. Many players think that putting a single wall piece outside of their base will deter Wallbreakers, but that actually doesn’t work. It just serves as a buffer so the troops will deploy further out. You can, however, deter wallbreakers by spiking your outside wall. Wallbreakers also have low HP, so it’s important to distract the enemy’s defense before releasing your wallbreakers.  A giant or barbarian works well for this. If your opponent has two sets of walls, you must time your release perfectly, so your three or four wallbreakers will break the second set of walls as well.

You can watch this video for a visual explanation:

This photo is from the Wallbreaker Wiki page

Balloons:

Balloons are also an air unit. Like giants, balloons target defense buildings first. Balloons move very slowly and can be killed easily. Be sure to destroy all air defense before releasing balloons. Balloons do have a high DPS and when used in groups can be deadly. You need to move very quickly in multi-player battles for balloons to be effective. Balloons are much better utilized in single player battles because there is no time limit. In my opinion, Balloons are the worst unit. Don’t waste your time or money!

This photo is from the Balloon Wiki page

Wizards:

Wizards are a favorite for many high-level players. They deal a significant amount of damage and, like archers, can fire over walls. They do have a relatively low HP, but upgrading them to level 5, in the laboratory, dramatically increases their HP and DPS. As with other low HP troops, it is best to deploy another troop type with wizards. Giants, barbarians, or P.E.K.K.As work well when deployed right before your wizard.

This photo is from the Wizard Wiki page.

Healers:

The healer does exactly what it’s name implies. It does not attack at all, but does heal ground units. She can also repair buildings if she is in your clan castle when you get raided. Healers can perish like any other troop, but only air defense can hurt her. Please remember that the healer can not protect your flying units. You can, however, heal the healer and other flying units with the healing spell.

This photo is from the Healer Wiki page

Dragons:

Dragons are a ranged unit that targets ground and air defense.  They are significantly more expensive to train and take 30 minutes each. Many high-level players stock their camps with wizards and dragons because together they are a deadly combination. As with all troops, level 3 dragons are hard to get, but well worth the wait.

This photo is from the Dragon Wiki page

P.E.K.K.A.s:

P.E.K.K.As are an unknown speciman. No one really knows what they are supposed to be…. CoC loading screens poses this question, “Is P.E.K.K.A a robot? A warrior? A samurai? Nobody knows!”

Not many players unlock these creatures. They require a level 10 barracks and a LOT of money. This is the most coveted troop in the game because it has such high hit points and is so difficult to get. As with dragons and wizards, high-level players often use these bad boys to destroy many villages. A level 3 PEKKA is a force to be reckoned with.

This photo is from the P.E.K.K.A. Wiki page

Check our this super neat Troop Calculator: http://mkln.ru/clash-of-clans/

HELP! (Your questions answered by Supercell)

Try this: Quit all other apps! Return to your home screen and double tap the home button. Tap and hold any app on the bottom bar until a red dot pops up on each. Close apps by clicking this. Once all apps are closed, restart your device and try to run CoC again! If that doesn’t work, repeat the same steps and also delete and-reinstall the app. If you still can’t open the game, try disabling your WiFi and using your data connection instead. If your device has no data connection, try using a different WiFi network. Firewall settings can interfere with your game!

Yes you can. Remember that the only way to transfer your account to a new device is to have it linked to a Game Center account. Login to Game Center on your new device and the game will ask if you want to load your village on the new device!

On some devices, the operating system doesn’t inform you when you run out of storage. Please check that you have enough space on your device for Clash of Clans. You need at least 60mb in order to install the game. If you have less than 60mb available, please delete old or unused applications, music files, photos, etc. before attempting to install Clash of Clans.

The Shield prevents other players from attacking your village. Shields last until their time runs out or you attack another player. When your village is destroyed by an enemy attack, you get a new shield for 12 hours. You can also purchase one day, two day and seven day shields from the shop with gems.

If you exit the game without an active shield, your village will be vulnerable to attacks from other players. The attacking player will be able to steal some of your resources, but never all of them. You can protect your village with defensive buildings, walls and traps, or by buying a new shield form the shop. Terrain obstacles and the edge of the map do not stop attacking units!

To join a clan you must first rebuild the Clan Castle. Once rebuilt, you can tap on your castle and choose to join or create a clan. The Clan Castle can also house donated reinforcement troops from your clan-mates. Troops garrisoned inside the Clan Castle will defend your village and can also be used to attack other players.

You can invite players to join your clan from GameCenter, Facebook or global chat. In order to invite your Facebook or Game Center friends, your friend must first play Clash of Clans, connect to Game Center or Facebook with their account and have rebuilt their Clan Castle. After this, you can see your friend in the Friends menu, where you can tap their name and choose Invite from the options. Inviting from global chat works in a similar way: tap a player’s message, and choose Invite from the pop-up.

Currently it’s not possible to restart your game. However, you can start a new game on any device that doesn’t have a previous game of Clash of Clans on it.

Once deployed on the battlefield, your troops are autonomous and cannot be controlled. Each time you deploy a unit, a crosshair will highlight the unit’s first target. Different units will attack according to their capabilities and preferred targets. To optimize your attack strategies learn about how each unit works on the Barrack’s Troop Training screen. Also check defensive turrets’ info as well to learn which units they target.

After combat, all troops still on the battlefield turn back into Elixir and soak into the earth. Expending troops to win battles is a key piece in the Clash of Clans strategy. Think of your troops as resources to be spent wisely. Plan every battle carefully and try to use the right number and right type of troops. Throwing all your troops into combat without considering the cost versus benefit can lead to a Pyrrhic victory, where you end up spending more resources than you gained.

For up-to-date information on Clash of Clans, visit their Facebook page!

Clash of Clans: beginners guide

Clash of Clans is a free IOS app brought to you by Supercell. CoC (as it is commonly referred to) was released to the iTunes store on August 2, 2012 and is compatable with iPhone, iPad, and iPod. The graphics are stunning and very detailed, which can be directly attributed to Supercell’s mission to create tablet games. Creating the game on a larger scale, makes it look great on all platforms.

Getting Started: Tutorial
When you first download this game, you will be taken to a tutorial scene. In this scene, you will learn how to access many different areas in the game. Though you will be excited to get started, I highly recommend waiting the full upgrade time instead of using gems (like they will prompt you to do). The wait in the beginning of the game is very short compared to when you start getting to higher levels. Save your gems, do not use them to speed up upgrades. The only gems you should spend in the beginning is for the 2nd builder.

In case you already missed the important parts of the tutorial, here is a quick reference tool:

This is where you keep track of your builders, gems, resources, trophies, and levels.

The top left bar shows your current level and experience points. You get more experience points for each upgrade, fight, troop donation, and any other basic function of the game. Levels are not incredibly important in CoC, but the higher your level, the easier it is to recruit players in your clan.

Right below your level is where your trophy count is located. Trophies are very important in CoC. It is the measure of your worth as a player and how you are matched up with opponents in multi-player battles. You can collect trophies by winning multi-player battles and by defending your base against attacks successfully.

Below the trophy counter is your achievement menu (not pictured). This is where you can see the achievements you have accomplished and the ones that you have yet to accomplish.

The builder’s status is located in the middle of the resource bar. Here you can see how many builders are working currently. Builders are very important because they upgrade your buildings and resources. If you do not have a builder free, you can speed up their time for gems, though I highly discourage this. Patience is a virtue in CoC.

Your shield is directly to the right of your builder’s status. The shield will protect your village from attack for the allotted time given on the status bar. You receive a shield by buying one with gems or by losing enough of an attack for it to activate (40% or one star). Shields last anywhere from 12 to 16 hours. When you attack in multi-player, you also turn off your shield.

The gold status bar tells you how much gold you currently have. Gold is used for upgrades of defense, town hall, walls, and other building upgrades. To hold more gold, upgrade your gold storage.

Elixir is what you use to train troops, update barracks, level your troops up, and upgrade army camps. To hold more elixir, upgrade your storage.

The green bar below this tells you how many gems you have. Gems can be used to speed up many aspects of the game. It is also the only way you can buy builders. Oh, and the pirate flag is bought with gems too. Conserve these, you will need them later on! You can get more gems by buying them, winning them in achievements, or by finding them when you clean up your village of trees, mushrooms, stones, and stumps.

Not pictured in this photo, but newly added to CoC is dark elixir. You can earn dark elixir by stealing it and with the dark elixir drill. The storage unit for dark elixir is available at town hall level 7 and the drill is available at town hall level 8. Though a neat addition to the game, this should not be your first priority.

Shop Menu:
You will find this menu on the lower right hand corner of your screen. This menu allows you to buy structures, resources, decorations, defenses, and more.

Shop menu description for Clash of Clans

Treasure: Here you can buy gems, and also use your gems to get more gold, elixir, or dark elixir.

Resources: This section of the menu is very important. Here you purchase all of your resource-makers (elixir, gold, dark elixir, builders huts). It is crucial to get all of the resource-makers you are allotted and that you upgrade them substantially from the very beginning. This will make your playing easier when you get to be a higher level.

Decorations: There is no need for this section in the beginning of the game. Decorations just pretty up your base. Enemies cannot deploy on decorations either, so use them strategically.

Army: This section is where you will find everything offense related. Create a strong offense by updating all of these structures to the best of your ability. It contains Army Camps, Barracks, Laboratory, Spell Factory, Barbarian King, and Archer Queen.

Defenses: This is probably one of the most important aspects to CoC. Click here to start setting up your defenses to protect your village. Some players rely solely on being a defensive player (I will touch on this in the section labeled “defensive player”). You can be the best offensive player out there, but it will not matter if you cannot protect your own base. You need to protect your resources and your trophies. Also remember that when an army camp is destroyed, all of the troops in it are destroyed too. Upgrade your defenses to the max your town hall will let you. Located in this section: Cannon, Archer Tower, Walls, Mortar, Bombs, Air Defense, Spring Traps, Wizard Towers, Giant Bomb, Hidden Tesla, and X-Bow.

Shield: Here you can use gems to buy a shield. You can buy a one-day, two-day, or one week shield. The cool down time varies for each shield.

**Note: Town hall levels determine what items you have at any given time and the level to which you upgrade them**

This is just a quick step beginners guide to CoC, for more detailed explanations on different aspects of the game, visit the rest of this site.