GregR
Footballguy
Per requests, this is a new thread for the Clash of Clans app game available on Android and Apple where we can have the first few posts for useful links, etc. The original thread can be found here.
Brand new players, be sure to check post #3 for Culdeus's newbie build order. It is a way of advancing quickly to a level where it is easiest to earn resources, and then stopping to catch up before the game gets more difficult.
What is Clash of Clans?
Clash of Clans is a game played on an app on Apple or Android phones or tablets. It is also possible to play it from a PC using the BlueStacks Android emulator, though technically it is against the Clash of Clans terms of service. See this post for details about using BlueStacks.
In the game, you have a village in which you build defenses, gather resources, and build an army. You can raid the villages of other players through random matching. The attacker uses his army and is in control at the time of the attack. The defender's defensive buildings fight back on their own, the defending player is not involved in the fight directly. In fact you can only raid a village whose player is offline. You can steal resources from him with which to build more buildings and units, and upgrade both. If you are attacked and the attacker achieves certain victory conditions, your village can gain a 12 or 16 hour long shield during which you cannot be raided by other players.
You can also gather into clans and have clan wars against each other (details to come).
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How do I join a clan with other FBGs?
There are currently 4 FBG clans. To join you first must play the game long enough to unlock your Clan Castle to be able to join a clan. We suggest you do not spend gems to speed things up as the introduction will advise you to do, as those can be spent better later on. if you alreay did though, not a big deal.
It takes 10,000 gold to unlock your clan castle, so you will need to play for a little while after the introduction to make enough to unlock it. Once you have, go to clans and choose Search Clans. Searching for the first four letters is enough to find our clans. Request admission and change the text of the request to state you are from the FFA, or else you will be rejected. Note that there is no way for the clan to search for a new player and send you the invite... you must initiate the request. The four clans are:
War Schedule
The new schedule we're going to is approximately as follows. Exact start times may vary, especially as we try to have a full 50 or at least an even increment of 5 before we declare war. Times are eastern time. FBG1 is rolling wars constantly so schedule may vary.
FBG1
Wars continuously with only occasional breaks as the group desires.
FBG2
War 1 - start 9 am Thursday / end 9 am Saturday
FBG3
War 1 - start Thursday afternoon / end Saturday afternoon
FBG4
War 1- start Saturday evening after FBG2 and FBG3 end.
War 2- start Monday evening after War 1 ends.
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How does a Clan War work?
Attack Day
This is what we call a base that left it's Town Hall unprotected during a war. We normally have one of our high level bases with a big loot bonus leave their Town Hall exposed hoping that while the war is still in doubt, the enemy will spend multiple attacks getting the big loot bonus rather than using those attacks to accumulate stars that might help defeat us.
On the other side of the coin, once we feel very confident that we will win a war, then we will look for the enemy base that is easiest to 1 star with the biggest loot bonus, and people will start cashing in to maximize their money. Realize this only works if we behave as a team... if people use their attacks to go after loot when we aren't sure we'll win, we could lose the war and have it cost all of us 2/3 of our loot. If everyone waits to use their attacks, saving them until we think we'll win so they can use them for loot, we won't reach that point or it will at least put a burden on the clan members who are attacking for the good of the clan. So please, always use your 1st attack to accumulate as many stars as you can, before even considering worrying about loot bonuses, and if we haven't locked up a win and your 2nd attack can advance our score, do so. We'll prosper as a clan if everyone follows this, and so far everyone have been team players.
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Things It Often Takes People Awhile To Notice Or Figure Out
Brand new players, be sure to check post #3 for Culdeus's newbie build order. It is a way of advancing quickly to a level where it is easiest to earn resources, and then stopping to catch up before the game gets more difficult.
What is Clash of Clans?
Clash of Clans is a game played on an app on Apple or Android phones or tablets. It is also possible to play it from a PC using the BlueStacks Android emulator, though technically it is against the Clash of Clans terms of service. See this post for details about using BlueStacks.
In the game, you have a village in which you build defenses, gather resources, and build an army. You can raid the villages of other players through random matching. The attacker uses his army and is in control at the time of the attack. The defender's defensive buildings fight back on their own, the defending player is not involved in the fight directly. In fact you can only raid a village whose player is offline. You can steal resources from him with which to build more buildings and units, and upgrade both. If you are attacked and the attacker achieves certain victory conditions, your village can gain a 12 or 16 hour long shield during which you cannot be raided by other players.
You can also gather into clans and have clan wars against each other (details to come).
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How do I join a clan with other FBGs?
There are currently 4 FBG clans. To join you first must play the game long enough to unlock your Clan Castle to be able to join a clan. We suggest you do not spend gems to speed things up as the introduction will advise you to do, as those can be spent better later on. if you alreay did though, not a big deal.
It takes 10,000 gold to unlock your clan castle, so you will need to play for a little while after the introduction to make enough to unlock it. Once you have, go to clans and choose Search Clans. Searching for the first four letters is enough to find our clans. Request admission and change the text of the request to state you are from the FFA, or else you will be rejected. Note that there is no way for the clan to search for a new player and send you the invite... you must initiate the request. The four clans are:
- fbgs which we refer to as FBG1. Search for "fbgs" and we are the invite only clan with igbomb as a leader. Constant war most of the time.
- FBG2:ElecBoog which we refer to as FBG2. Search for "FBG2", it is the invite only clan with Bogart as the leader. 1 war a week.
- FBG3: *Honda* is a newer clan, serving as both overflow and a place that lower level guys can join to be in a war with opponents closer to their own level. 1 war a week.
- FBG4:SeriousBus is a two war a week clan that asks for participation similar to FBG1.
War Schedule
The new schedule we're going to is approximately as follows. Exact start times may vary, especially as we try to have a full 50 or at least an even increment of 5 before we declare war. Times are eastern time. FBG1 is rolling wars constantly so schedule may vary.
FBG1
Wars continuously with only occasional breaks as the group desires.
FBG2
War 1 - start 9 am Thursday / end 9 am Saturday
FBG3
War 1 - start Thursday afternoon / end Saturday afternoon
FBG4
War 1- start Saturday evening after FBG2 and FBG3 end.
War 2- start Monday evening after War 1 ends.
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How does a Clan War work?
- One of the clan leaders initiates a war. The game will reduce the war participants to an even increment of five and set the rest to spectators based on trophy count. I.e. if we have 48 members and go to war, the 45 highest trophy count will participate and the final 3 will be spectators.
- The game computes an average level based on things like number of defensive buildings, building level, and troop upgrade level. It does not include trophy count. It then finds us a clan of the same size and same average level to fight.
- During a war, each participant can launch 2 attacks against any 2 opponent bases trying to accumulate stars (1 for 50% destruction, one for destroying Town Hall, 1 for 100% destruction, same as normal raids). An individual cannot hit the same base twice, but other clan members can attack a base that has previously been attacked.
- The scoreboard counts the best single result against each enemy base, so if you hit someone for 2 stars and another of us hits the same base for 3 stars, we get a total of 3 stars on our final score. The clan with the highest final score at the end of the war wins.
- A war has almost no impact on the "normal" game. You can still raid normally during a war and be raided, and you can still accumulate a shield against normal raids that has almost no impact on the war.The slight bit of impact is that you use your normal army, spells, heroes and village clan castle for your war offensive attacks, while that same clan castle defends you against normal raids if you are offline. So in other words, if you request our best attack troops so you can use them in the war, then go offline, they might have to defend you from a raid and potentially be killed. So most people will wait to request our expensive troops until shortly before using them, or may request them earlier if they have a shield to protect them in the normal game.
- The first 24 hours after war is declared is Prep Day. There is a timer counting it down in the war prep screen.
- You can enter the war prep screen and click edit base and edit a separate copy of your village used in the war that does not affect your normal village.When the war actually begins, any buildings still in upgrade will be active at their previous level.
- Any brand new buildings you started construction on but haven't finished will be completed as a level 1 building.
- If you build a new building in your normal village, you must go to the war base to place it in your base as well, that doesn't happen automatically otherwise.
- You do not need to rearm traps in a war base, that happens automatically.
- You do not need to load Crossbows or Inferno Towers with elixir or dark elixir, that happens automatically.
- For buildings like the Crossbow and Inferno Tower that have modes that can be toggled, you can toggle the mode for these buildings in the war base editor screen as well.
- These units are only used to defend the base against war attacks, they are not used on offense, and do not affect raids in the normal game play. The normal village clan castle defends against normal raids still.
- They respawn between attacks so only need to be filled for each base once.
- If someone gives you the wrong troops, you can drop all the units of that type. If you are given 5 and only wanted 4, you have to drop all 5, you can't drop just one of the type.
Attack Day
- After the 24 hour war day ends, the 24 hour attack period takes place during which you can launch 2 attacks against 2 different bases.
- Your attack uses your normal army camps in your normal village, your normal spells, your normal village clan castle troops (not the war ones!) and any heroes (Barbarian King, etc).
- If your Barbarian King or Archer Queen is upgrading, or still sleeping off damage, they will not be available if you make a war attack.
- If your spell lab is upgrading, it will not be available for the war. However, any spells that you had created in the lab prior to starting the upgrade can be used. But they cannot be replaced once used until the upgrade is finished.
- On attack day, when you first click on a base in the war screen, it will show a loot bonus. If you gain at least 1 star against that base, regardless of how many stars we might already have on the base, you will gain that loot bonus at the end of the war if we win the war. If we lose the war, you get 1/3 of that bonus.
- You can click on an enemy base to Scout it, during Prep Day as well as during the war. Clicking on a building such as the Clan Castle will show you the range at which units will set it off.
- At war's end, the war loot is placed into your normal village clan castle and can be collected from there to move it into your storages. The amount of loot the clan castle holds is dependent on its level, if you gain more than fits, you lose it. Be sure to collect your loot from a previous war before a new war ends if it will overfill your castle.
- The clan castle's stored war loot can be looted by enemies in a normal raid, but only half as much can be looted from the clan castle as could be taken in a raid if the resources were in your normal storages instead. So it often makes sense to leave the loot in your clan castle until you plan to spend it, or until you will have more coming in that will overflow it and be lost. However... there is a cap of how much can be taken from your resource storages. For a TH9 for example, 12% of your storage can be taken with a cap of 350k (not counting collectors or clan castle). The cap is reached when you have around 2.9 million of a resource. So for a TH9 with 2.9 million in his storage, he'd be better collecting his war loot since adding more resources there won't allow any additional to be stolen by a raider.
This is what we call a base that left it's Town Hall unprotected during a war. We normally have one of our high level bases with a big loot bonus leave their Town Hall exposed hoping that while the war is still in doubt, the enemy will spend multiple attacks getting the big loot bonus rather than using those attacks to accumulate stars that might help defeat us.
On the other side of the coin, once we feel very confident that we will win a war, then we will look for the enemy base that is easiest to 1 star with the biggest loot bonus, and people will start cashing in to maximize their money. Realize this only works if we behave as a team... if people use their attacks to go after loot when we aren't sure we'll win, we could lose the war and have it cost all of us 2/3 of our loot. If everyone waits to use their attacks, saving them until we think we'll win so they can use them for loot, we won't reach that point or it will at least put a burden on the clan members who are attacking for the good of the clan. So please, always use your 1st attack to accumulate as many stars as you can, before even considering worrying about loot bonuses, and if we haven't locked up a win and your 2nd attack can advance our score, do so. We'll prosper as a clan if everyone follows this, and so far everyone have been team players.
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Things It Often Takes People Awhile To Notice Or Figure Out
- Rearming Traps: Once sprung, a trap is out of action until you rearm it by clicking on it and spending gold to Rearm it. You can also click on any trap and choose to Rearm All. So always remember to rearm traps after you've been attacked. Due to the cost in gold, many people prefer to move their traps inside their walls so insignificant attacks don't cost them a lot in rearming fees.
- Dumping Troops: If you want to remove units from your army or your clan castle, you can now just click on your CC or your camp info and select units to remove, without needing to dump them in single player. You can also remove them from your war CC during prep day, but it will drop all units of the type, while your army camp and normal village CC you can drop units one by one.
- Barracks UI: When in the barracks screen where you choose units to build, to the left and right of the main window there are arrows. Hitting these will take you to the next barracks, dark elixir barracks, and your spell factory. So you needn't click on each barracks one by one to queue up troops.
- Troop Stats: In the barracks you can click on the Information button for a unit. It will show what it costs to build him, how much space he takes up, and will even tell you if he attacks ground or air targets, and whether his preferred targets are defensive buildings, resource buildings, or any building type.
- Crossbow mode: A crossbow can be set to attack both ground and air targets at the same range as an archer tower, or can be set to attack ground units only but at a much greater range. You can tell visually by how much the crossbow is pointing up. If visiting a base or scouting it during a war, you can also just click on the building and check its info and it will tell you how it is set.
- Inferno Tower mode: Inferno towers have two modes as well. One will target a single unit and the damage done increases drastically over time. The other will target multiple units at a steady damage rate. You can click on the building when visiting or scouting to tell which it is set to. You can visually tell the Inferno Tower's mode by whether the top is a single ring or a multi-faceted ring. Sample pictures of a level 3 in the two different modes can be found here: http://oneandonlykemal.com/clash-of-clans-update/
- Single Player and Balloons: Many of the early single player maps are trivial to beat if you wait until you have balloons available, as many either do not have any air defense/archer towers, or have ones that are easy to kill allowing a single balloon to then finish killing the entire map. Some higher level maps are also easy to beat by destroying air defenses then dropping dragons
- Single Player and 3 minute idle timeout: While there is no time limit on a singe player mission, if you do not at least touch the screen every 3 minutes, the game will time you out and you'll lose the mission. So if letting a lone balloon finish off a lot of buildings, just touch the screen every once in awhile.
- Judging Collector fullness: Collectors (gold mines, elixir collectors and dark elixir drills) have a visual cue how full they are. Gold mines have a little box beside the mine that will have differing amounts of coins based on what percentage full it is. Elixir collectors are easier to spot as they fill up with bright pink elixir. Dark elixir drills have a little box on top that fills up with dark elixir. This page contains pictures of the different visual clues for collector fullness about halfway down the page: http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Flammy%27s_Strategy_Guides/Attacking:_How_To_Raid_-_Goal:_Get_Resources
- Empty/Inactive Crossbows: Much like traps requiring gold to rearm, Crossbows require being filled with elixir in order to be able to fire. You can visually tell if the Crossbow is empty by looking at it and seeing if there is a box with crossbow bolts on top. If it is there it contains at least some elixir and will be active. If not, it is empty and won't shoot back. You cannot tell exactly how much is left, only whether it has some or none. Sample images of empty versus loaded can be found here: http://forum.supercell.net/showthread.php/8999-X-Bow-Loaded-or-empty
- Empty/Inactive Inferno Towers: Inferno Towers require Dark Elixir to function in the same way that Crossbows require elixir. Empty inferno towers have no fire showing at all. Images of empty level 1 and 2 towers can be found here: http://forum.supercell.net/showthread.php/121690-Need-confirmation-regarding-empty-inferno-tower
- Seeing Drop Zone for your village: Attacking units cannot be dropped within 1 tile of any of your buildings or walls. When editing your war base, there is a white aura always on showing the boundary between areas that can have troops dropped or not. In your normal village, you can see this briefly every time you move a building. To see it better, go to the Village Edit Mode and just hit "Save Village". The aura will stay on until you do something major like move a building. Note that traps do not restrict troops from being dropped near them, and if you have a gap in your base where troops can be dropped, but have something like a big bomb sitting on top of it, you probably will not be able to see that it is a drop zone because the bomb blocks view of the aura. In general, any 3x3 area can be dropped into. Also, hidden teslas do not restrict troops from being dropped, though the walls around them may still be close enough to prevent it.
- Drop Zones and the grass bordering the map: Troops can always be dropped in the green grass that borders the map, even if that means they are flush against one of your buildings. It is a particularly bad idea to put walls right up against the grass, as wall breakers can spawn right against the wall and detonate before even the nearest building's shots can hit them. On the war maps, the same is true except the border is crushed rock, not grass.
- Trophy Drop for Free with Barbarian King: There are times people may wish to lose trophies for various reasons. For TH7 and up, you can attack someone, drop your Barbarian King and immediately quit... losing trophies without expending elixir on troops. Just drop him where he won't get shot before you can hit quit.
- Graphical Goodies: When you click on your army camp, different units will wave or salute in different ways. When donating troops to someone else, you can watch the troops walk away from your camp and off the map. When someone else gives troops to your Clan Castle, you can watch the troops walk in from the edge of your map. When a unit is created by your barracks, a little cloud of smoke rises up from the campfire at the camp the unit will end up in.
- Minions don't trigger black Seeking Air Mines: Minions are not attacked by seeking air mines, the black ones. They are attacked by the red ones, whose area damage can wipe out a lot of minions at once if they get clustered. So minions are not good for luring the black mines that do much more damage and pose a threat to healers and dragons. Balloons can be used to try to close the more dangerous mines.
- Clan Castle works even while upgrading: Unlike most other buildings, your clan castle functions normally while it is being upgraded. You can still request troops from your clan, and use it in attacks or have it defend you on defense. The timer may not display as normal, but it still works if you request.
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