Clash Of Clans in a nutshell
Clash of Clans is a real-time strategy game that allows players to build their community, train troops and attack other players to earn gold and elixir while building their own defense to protect themselves from attackers. As a multiplayer game, players usually do not get very far if they try to play the game on their own.
Success in Clash of Clans is measured in trophies, achievable through attacking other players for their resources and defending your own resources. An attack is counted as a victory if 50% of the opponent’s base or more is destroyed. You will receive one trophy for a successful attack. If you can destroy the opponent’s Town Hall in the attack, you will receive additional trophy. In case the whole opponent’s base is destroyed, you will be awarded 3 trophies. If you fail to destroy 50% of the opponent’s base in an attack you initiate, you will loose trophies.
While you can control an attack in real time, you cannot do so with defense. Rather, you have to set your base up in the best way you can to protect it when you are offline. In a defense, you need to have cannons, walls and traps available to force the enemy into a certain area where you can take them out before they can reach the main part of your base. If you fail to protect 50% or more of your base from destruction, you lose.
Clans
Clash of Clans is a multiplayer game and clans make a major part of it. In a clan, multiple players can combine their trophies and fight against other clans to get the most resources. Each clan has three ranks: Leader, Elder, and Member. Both Leader and Elder can accept or decline a request to join the clan. Only Leaders can demote themselves to Elder and big a new clan Leader.
Clans have their own number of trophies that you should have in order to join. When you have that amount of trophies, you can send a request to join. However, before you can send a request, you need to repair the Clan Castle – a ruined structure that will be used to house your troops and other clan’s members’ troops if you join any clan. Clan Castle is an important part of defense. We will cover more about defense and Clan Castle in the next entry.
Experiences, Levels, Trophies
Experience points are required to level up in Clash of Clans. The higher the level you are at, the easier it is to recruit players into your clan. Levels, however, are not used to rank players. It only shows how much someone has been playing Clash of Clans. Experience points are awarded by performing upgrading, completing buildings, removing rocks and trees, fighting, destroying enemies’ Town Halls, and donating troops.
Trophies, on the other hand, are used to identify how skillful a player is, and thus to match up with opponents when playing in multiplayer mode. You earn trophies by winning attacks you initiate or successfully defending against attacks. The important target to earn a trophy is 50% of damage of enemy in an attack or of your base in a defense.
Army Camp & Unit
Army Camp, as the name suggests, is where you house and train your troops. The more Army Camps you have, the more troops you can house and train and therefore take into battles. Army Camp has several levels and certain troop capacity and Town Hall for each level. In order to get more Army Camps, you need to upgrade your Town Hall according to a preset rule. For example, you can build a second Army Camp when your Town Hall is at level 3.
Unit in Clash of Clans can be considered type of troop you can have. Each unit has its own pros and cons about the range their actions can be effective, type (air or ground unit), favorite target, damage per second, housing space they would occupy and the cost of acquisition and training. You need to learn these features carefully before making any decision on troop building and attack planning as you cannot get your unites back after a battle.
Below is the summary of pros and cons of each unit. For more strategies on how to use each unit in attack or defense, please stay tuned for coming entries.
TIER 1
Barbarian Barbarian is the starting unit of Tier 1 troop in Clash of Clans. It has average strength, does decent damage per second and is close-range unit. Given these features, it is quite cheap to acquire and train them. Barbarian does not have any favorite targets and usually attacks the closest structure to it.
Archer Archer is another Tier 1 unit. It is relatively weak so you should try to keep them out of harm as much as possible. However, it has the best range of all unit and can perform medium damage. It also does not cost a lot. Archer, like Barbarian, will attack the closest structure to it. It especially can attack over walls.
Goblin Goblin is an interesting unit in the sense that they focus steadfastly on getting you resources. It is the fastest unit in the game and can perform very high damage per second. It is also very cheap to train. However, Goblin has pretty low health.
TIER 2
Giant Giant is a Tier 2 unit which has massive health and are excellent at attacking enemy’s defense. On the other hand, it is quite slow (because of its mass perhaps), occupies a lot of space and is quite costly to train. Each Giant also performs average damage per second.
Wall Breaker As its name suggests, Wall Breaker’s target is breaking walls. It is another Tier 2 unit that has low health and is quite slow and costly to train. One interesting thing about Wall Breaker is that it kills itself once reaching the targets, thus breaking down walls of enemies.
Balloon Balloon is the one of the two air units in the game. It is great at attacking enemies as ground units cannot touch it and it can perform high amount of damage per second. However, it is prone to air defense by Archers and Wizards. It is also very slow to train and occupies quite some space. While it is excellent at attacking, it is considered one of the weakest defensive units in the game.
Wizard Wizards are quite similar to Archers in terms of ranged attacks. They can fire over walls with high damage. However, they are quite weak and take a lot of time to train. In terms of cost, it is quite affordable considering the impressive range and high damage they can perform.
TIER 3
Healer Healer is a Tier 3 unit whose main function is to heal all units but flying one and structures. It is actually a flying unit that takes up a lot of space though quite cheap to acquire.
Dragon Dragon is my favorite unit in Clash of Clans. It is a flying unit that has massive health and can do very high damage as well as powerful ranged attacks. On the other hand, it is quite costly and extremely slow to train Dragon. Additionally, it takes up a lot of space in your Army Camp.
PEKKA PEKKA is very similar to Dragon, except that it is a ground unit. It is very strong and deals with huge damage and impressive range. But it is very costly and slow to train PEKKA.
DARK ELIXIR TROOPS
Minion Minion is a fast flying unit that can provide average damage. It is cheap and fast to train and does not take a lot of space. However, it is rather weak and is very vulnerable to Air Defenses and Air Bombs (though Cannons and Mortars cannot touch it).
Hog Rider Hog Rider is extremely healthy and can provide large range damage. Additionally, with the hog, he can jump over Walls, providing a great advantage. It also does not take long to train Hog Riders. Hog Riders’ target is defensive troop.
Valkyrie Valkyrie is extremely powerful and does a lot of damages though it is short range. She is not as strong as Dragon or P.E.K.K.A and takes up quite a lot of space. Her splash damage makes her a wonderful Clan Castle unit.
Golem Golem is similar to Balloon in the sense that it does splash damage when destroyed. Like Giant and P.E.K.K.A, Golem is very healthful. Its favorite targets include Giants, Hog Riders, and Balloons.
Witch Witch is usually compared to Healers and used as a support troop. It can summon dead warriors and wipe a battlefield with ease if used correctly. However, Witch is very vulnerable to Mortar.
HEROES
Barbarian King Barbarian King is basically a larger, more powerful and immortal Barbarian. If Barbarian King is injured or falls in a battle, he will need some time to sleep and regenerate (the time depending on how much energy he has left after the battle).
Archer Queen Archer Queen is a larger, more powerful and immortal Archer. Like Barbarian King, if Archer Queen falls or is injured in a battle, she will take some time to regenerate. Both Barbarian King and Archer Queen has long range of damage and attacks very fast.
Resources
Clash Of Clans is a freemium game in which you are required to have resources to move further quickly. There are three types of resources in Clash Of Clans: Elixir, Gold, and Gem
Elixir
Elixir is essential to train troops and build/upgrade many structures in the game: Barracks, Gold Mines, Gold Storage, Army Camps, Spell Factories, and Laboratories. It is also used to buy, build, and upgrade Gold Mines, Gold Storage. To obtain Elixir, you need to extract it from the Ley Line through the ground using a resource extractor. Once the Elixir Collector is ready, you will see a big Elixir symbol (purple droplet icon) next to it. When the Elixir Collector is at maximum capacity, you should consider building an Elixir Storage.
Dark Elixir
is part of Clash Of Clans update. The ways to get Dark Elixir include using Dark Elixir drill and stealing it from others. Dark Elixir is used to buy and upgrade Hero troops and Dark Elixir troops.
Gold
Gold in Clash Of Clans is used to buy, build and upgrade your defense, including Town Hall, Walls, Traps, Clan Castle and other structures such as Elixir Collector and Elixir Storage. Gold is also used to purchase Spells. Gold is collected from Gold Mines where the Gold symbol (golden coin icon) shows.
Gem
Gems are usually used when you do not want to wait for things to finish production. You can use it to buy a Shield, buy Resources, boost Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors, instantly train troops, boost training rate for troops or buy Decorations. Gems are also required to purchase more builders and by far, that is the best thing to spend Gems on because this brings permanent benefits to your base. Other boost or instant-completes will only last for a few hours. Gems can be obtained by completing achievements such as clearing up stones, trees, mushrooms and stumps around your village. As you level up, you will find that the demand for Gems will greatly exceed the supply.
As a result, Gem is the premium resource and Clash Of Clans is very stingey with this. You usually need to spend real money to get them. For example, if you are playing Clash Of Clans on iOS devices, you can use US iTunes gift card to make in-app purchase for Gems.
The tutorial
As you finish installing the game, you are taken to a friendly tutorial stage where you get to know the overall story and perform some simple tasks to get yourself familiar with the functions and earn some resources. You have to build a Cannon to defend your community. The tutorial suggests you use Gems to expedite the construction process. DO NOT do this because Gems is in extremely short supply as you move on. It is wise to save it.
Once the Cannon is placed in the position you like, the Goblins will attack. Take this opportunity to learn how combat, Cannon and unit healing work. After that, you got to experience an attack that is initiated by you. There is no danger of failing this tutorial. At the end of the attack, you will be awarded 500 Gold and 500 Elixir. That sounds a lot but trust me, this reward cannot survive you for long!
Following this, you are recommended hiring a second builder for 250 Gems. Though we suggest saving Gems earlier, this is an essential purchase. Having done this, you are asked to build Elixir Collector for 150 Golds, followed by Elixir Storage to store overflow Elixir that exceed your Elixir Collector’s capacity. The next task in the tutorial is increasing storage for Gold. This is similar to what you have done for Elixir Storage.
Finally, you have to build a Barracks to fight against future Goblin threat. Once it is built, you need to train your troop – only 20 Barbarians allowed at this point. You will see your Barbarians spilling out of the Barracks and waiting around the campfire. Once all the 20 Barbarians are there, you can start an attack against the Goblins.
When the battle is done, you are asked to choose your name and upgrade the Town Hall. These two tasks conclude the tutorial and you are now free to do anything you want.
Reset Clash Of Clans In order to reset Clash Of Clans, you will need two iOS devices, one of which must not have Clash Of Clans installed. Then you follow the following steps:
- Create a gamecenter account on the second device
- Download Clash Of Clans on the second device
- Log on to that gamecenter account created in step 1 on the FIRST device
- Answer YES when asked if you want to reset Clash Of Clans
I hope this Clash of Clans Beginner Guide has provided some useful information that helps you understand more about this interesting game. In the next entry, we will go into details of what beginners should do in the first three days of joining. It’s crucial! So stay tuned!
