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Clash of Clans is an extremely popular, online multiplayer game that is available for free download on both Apple and Android devices. In the game, you control a single village with the goal of building it bigger and stronger. Within your village, you will control buildings and troops. Your buildings are used to upgrade and defend your village from attackers, while your troops are used to attack other villages. Although other players can attack your village, your village can never be permanently destroyed and your village will always remain intact.
Clash of Clans is a time-based game, meaning that you must wait certain time intervals in order for your buildings or troops to be constructed or upgraded. These time intervals can range anywhere from 10 seconds to 14 days, depending on the importance of the task. This can be superseded by the use of Gems, the game’s in-app purchase mechanism. No purchases are needed to play however, and game can be played enjoyably and for a long time without spending any real world money.
RESOURCES
Why then would someone want to attack you and why would you want to attack someone else? Resources, and to a lesser extent, trophies (which we will learn about later). Resources are the “currency” of Clash of Clans, and are used to upgrade your buildings and troops to make your village stronger. In order to perform an upgrade in your village, you must have an available builder and obtain the required amount of resources needed for that particular upgrade. There are three (3) types of resources in Clash of Clans: (1) Gold; (2) Elixir; and (3) Dark Elixir. While you will begin with ability to obtain Gold and Elixir resources from the very beginning of the game, Dark Elixir will not become available until your village becomes bigger and stronger. Almost all the resources you obtain will be contained within your Storage buildings.
So how do I obtain RESOURCES?
Resources are obtained in four (4) ways:
So what exactly is GOLD used for?
ATTACKING
If you are a passive and beginning player, you may be able to obtain enough resources to make your early upgrades by simply collecting the gold and elixir from your mines and drills. However, you will quickly realize that this is a slow process that does not produce enough resources. The quickest way to obtain resources is by attacking other villages.
Preparing the Attack
Attack Mechanics, Strategy and Gameplay
TROPHIES
Trophies are awarded to you in two (2) circumstances:
What are the point of trophies? Are they important?
Yes and no.
In order to protect your village from attack, you must have a shield. Shields are obtained in only two (2) ways:
That’s it. Now that you know all the basics to Clash of Clans, you can delve a bit deeper and learn more about your troops, buildings, base layout, or learn the best strategies to Trophy Hunt or Farm.
Clash of Clans is a time-based game, meaning that you must wait certain time intervals in order for your buildings or troops to be constructed or upgraded. These time intervals can range anywhere from 10 seconds to 14 days, depending on the importance of the task. This can be superseded by the use of Gems, the game’s in-app purchase mechanism. No purchases are needed to play however, and game can be played enjoyably and for a long time without spending any real world money.
RESOURCES
Why then would someone want to attack you and why would you want to attack someone else? Resources, and to a lesser extent, trophies (which we will learn about later). Resources are the “currency” of Clash of Clans, and are used to upgrade your buildings and troops to make your village stronger. In order to perform an upgrade in your village, you must have an available builder and obtain the required amount of resources needed for that particular upgrade. There are three (3) types of resources in Clash of Clans: (1) Gold; (2) Elixir; and (3) Dark Elixir. While you will begin with ability to obtain Gold and Elixir resources from the very beginning of the game, Dark Elixir will not become available until your village becomes bigger and stronger. Almost all the resources you obtain will be contained within your Storage buildings.
So how do I obtain RESOURCES?
Resources are obtained in four (4) ways:
- Gold mines and Elixir drills
You will be able to build mines and drills in your village which will produce a certain amount of gold and elixir every hour, which you can collect by tapping the logo that appears every few minutes above the mine or drill. - Attacking enemy bases
- You will be able to use your troops to attack enemy bases and steal their gold or elixir out of their storages, mines and drills.
- Your troops must attack the actual storage or mines/drills in order to obtain their resources (e.g. if your troops attack a cannon, you will not obtain any enemy resources.)
- As you attack another village, the amount of resources that you can raid from the village will be displayed on the top-left portion of your screen. The amount you can steal is determined by how much resources your opponent has, and a formula involving your village strength and theirs (if you are stronger than the opponent, then you will only be able to steal a % of the resources that is less than if you were weaker than the opponent).
- If you win your battle by gaining at least one star (stars are discussed later), you will also be awarded a win bonus that is dependent on which Trophy League you are in.
- Keep in mind: just like you can steal resources from another village, someone else can steal resources from you. Unless you have a shield up, your base is vulnerable to attack and you should make sure your storages are adequately defended. - Clan War bonuses
- After you re-build your Clan Castle, you will be able to join a clan and declare war against another clan. Depending on whether you win or lose the war, you will be awarded a certain amount of resources at the end.
- You will be given more resources if you win your individual battles in the war AND your clan wins the war, versus less or no resources if you lose your battles or your clan loses the war. - Gems
- Gems can be used to fill storages and obtain resources. Gems are either purchased with real world money or harvested by removing obstacles in the village (such as trees and bushes).
So what exactly is GOLD used for?
- Gold is used to build upgrade your Town Hall, Clan Castle, and the defensive structures in your village in order to protect it from attackers.
- Examples of defensive structures that gold is used to upgrade include: cannons, archer towers, mortars, and walls.
- Elixir used to upgrade your troops and troop-based buildings.
- For example, elixir is used to build/upgrade your barracks (which train troops), and eventually to build your laboratory and upgrade your troops.
ATTACKING
If you are a passive and beginning player, you may be able to obtain enough resources to make your early upgrades by simply collecting the gold and elixir from your mines and drills. However, you will quickly realize that this is a slow process that does not produce enough resources. The quickest way to obtain resources is by attacking other villages.
Preparing the Attack
- After training troops in your Barracks, they will be stored automatically in your Army Camps. Army camps can only house a certain number of troops, so you will need to upgrade them using Elixir in order to increase the amount of troops they can hold.
- After you have a good amount of troops in your Army Camps, you can press the “ATTACK” button in the bottom left of your village screen.
- In order to view an enemy village to attack, you will need to spend a certain amount of Gold which is dependent on your Town Hall level. If you do not like the enemy village you are given to attack (because they have to little resources for you to steal, or they are much stronger than you), then you can hit “NEXT” and spend more gold to view another village. You can flip through as many villages as you like (as long as you have the gold) until you reach one you think is good to attack.
Attack Mechanics, Strategy and Gameplay
- Many beginning players are confused by the attack mechanics of Clash of Clans.
- You cannot instruct your troops to attack a specific target. Instead, troops kind of have a mind of their own, and this creates a lot of the strategy for attacks in Clash of Clans.
- For example, if you drop a Barbarian, his preferred target is “Any” and attack method is “Ground”. Therefore, the Barbarian will attack any of nearest structures to him that he can reach on the ground. If you drop a Goblin, who’s preferred target is “Resources,” then the Goblin will attack the nearest resource structure (mines, drills, storages) and ignore everything else.
- Troops can have any of three (3) preferred targets:
(1) All;
(2) Resources; or
(3) Defenses - Troops can have two (2) methods of attacking:
(1) Ground only; or
(2) Ground and air - You must understand each of your troops and their preferred targets and methods of attack in order to properly strategize attacks. Luckily, you can learn all of this information on our Troops pages.
- As you progress through the game, you will unlock different kinds of troops by upgrading your Barracks. Each troop in Clash of Clans has unique abilities that can be used together to formulate your strategy.
- In order to win a battle, you must gain at least 1 out of 3 stars. Here is how you gain stars in battle:
Destroy 50% of your opponent’s buildings (1 star)
Destroy your opponent’s Town Hall (1 star)
Destroy 100% of your opponents village (1 star)
If you do all these things, then you will obtain 3 out of 3 stars.
TROPHIES
Trophies are awarded to you in two (2) circumstances:
- You win an attack against an enemy village by obtaining at least 1 star
- You successfully defend against an attack by not allowing an attacker to gain at least 1 star against you
What are the point of trophies? Are they important?
Yes and no.
- Yes, they are important because the amount of trophies you have will determine which Trophy League you are in. The Trophy League you are in will largely determine the competition and strength of the opponents whom you will be attacking or who will be attacking you.
- Additionally, your trophy count will help with the prestige of your village, and allow you to become recruited more easily into a Clan. Most clans have a minimum trophy count required to join.
- No, because you could hypothetically have a fully upgraded base with 0 trophies. Trophies have no bearing on when you can build or upgrade, only Resources do.
- However, it is important to balance obtaining Trophies and obtaining Resources, If your trophy count slips too low, you may only be matched with smaller villages with less resources to steal. On the other hand, if you are confident that you can steal a lot of resources but will likely lose the battle (and therefore lose Trophies); that is almost always something you should do.
In order to protect your village from attack, you must have a shield. Shields are obtained in only two (2) ways:
- You are attacked and at least 40% of your village is destroyed.
- You purchase one using Gems.
That’s it. Now that you know all the basics to Clash of Clans, you can delve a bit deeper and learn more about your troops, buildings, base layout, or learn the best strategies to Trophy Hunt or Farm.