(Text and stats by Delpez)

Supreme Cream vs. Bahia

It has been a while since I’ve done a war report, and I thought it might be worthwhile to also discuss a number of clan related topics that’s been popping up in chat and/or in my head! But first, let’s look at some numbers for the latest war, which we won by a whisker. I’ve also included the match-up stats for the war against Bandung Funjava, which we lost (the numbers in brackets are our stats in the Bandung war):

Nr of TH’s

Average experience per TH

Firstly, comparing the Bandung numbers with the values in brackets showed that we were badly outmatched in that war. They had more TH10’s and TH9’s, and the experience level of those bases were significantly higher than ours. In fact, I think we did pretty well to get as close as we did. The Bahia numbers were much closer – we had one more TH9, but the experience levels of their top bases were a lot higher than ours, and they also had three more TH8 bases. So let’s look at the actual war stats against Bahia:

They did better than us at TH8, but we outperformed them by a decent margin at TH9&10. That is important, as it allows our top bases to hit down against their TH8’s, while their TH8’s can’t really hit up against our TH9’s. This leads nicely into the first topic I’d like to discuss, which is our general war strategy:

Strategy

One of the strengths of Clash of Clans is how the complexity and difficulty of the game scales with your base. As troops and heroes unlock and level up, more and more strategies become available, which is balanced against more powerful defenses. As a TH7, getting a 3-star against another TH7 is quite easy. At TH8 it becomes a lot more difficult, and at TH9&10 a 3-star is pretty special. This means that war strategy should change as a clan advances. With the majority of clan members at TH7 and TH8, wars are decided by 3-stars. Although this may still be true at TH9, very few clans are good enough to consistently 3-star the majority of TH9 bases. In addition, the most powerful TH9 attacks are also the least consistent. Laloon and Hog variants may have the highest 3-star potential, but also a higher failure rate than solid 2-star strategies such as GoWi variants. So a clan with a significant number of TH9’s needs to decide on whether to go for solid 2-stars or try for inconsistent 3-stars.

Until recently we’ve been following the latter strategy, mimicking the TH8 approach by trying to 3-star TH9 bases. Unfortunately, most of us are not good enough (yet) to consistently pull off Laloon or Hog attacks, which resulted in lots of 1- or 0-star attacks. This meant that almost all our TH9 clean-up attacks were aimed at same level TH9 bases. Recently we’ve been toying with the idea of rather using safer attacks first up, which allows for more freedom with second attacks. If we can 2-star all TH9 bases with our first attacks, it will allow our TH9’s to hit down with high risk-reward attacks later in the war. I realize that GoWi variants are not guaranteed 2-star attacks, but they are also less likely to fail. And don’t forget that it’s always possible to get a 3-star with GoWi. To show our current TH9&10 first attack performance, have a look at the following table:

The Bandung bases were stronger, but the numbers reflect that better first attack stats make it easier to win wars. At the moment we should aim for a value of 2, which will allow our TH10’s and strong TH9’s to clean up TH9 bases, and the rest of our TH9’s to attack TH8 bases. So I’m proposing that unless a base is flawed, we use GoWi variants first up. This will allow us to master one tactic as a group – learning from and commenting on each other’s attacks (much like dragons at TH8). If this is successful, we can and should still use high risk-reward tactics for our second attacks.

TH8.5

Most of our new TH9’s are using the TH8.5 upgrade strategy, but I’m not sure if we’re getting the full benefit of it. Irrespective of any bias in the matchmaker towards TH8.5 bases, this strategy aims to pair maxed TH9 offences against low to mid TH9 defenses, with the aim of 3-starring those bases. If we move towards GoWi strategies first up, the benefit of TH8.5 will become diluted. We are deliberately reducing our 3-star chances for more consistent 2-stars, which negates TH8.5 to some extent. However, there will still be some benefit in the matchmaker and second attacks. Also, I believe it’s more fun to get access to powerful attacks before strong defenses.

Growing the clan

Up to now this clan has grown almost exclusively from blog readers and their friends. However, I think we’ve almost reached the limit of that particular pool of players. In any game there will be attrition as players get bored and/or find something else to occupy their spare time. Lately it is clear that our attrition rate is higher than our new intake, and numbers are slowly dwindling. To get some new blood in I propose that we have a look at some of the randoms that apply from time to time, but with strict rules:

Should have dragons

No rushed bases

English

No new players once a war has started

No obvious idiots – you’ve seen some of the applications!

After accepting a random, we evaluate his performance and behavior for a trial period. No missed war attacks, no requests for promotion, should donate reasonably and should behave decently. I think in this way we can start getting new blood into the clan again.

TH6’s in wars

Is there any benefit in adding players without dragons to wars? I don’t think it has much bearing on the matchmaker, since we never seem to get opponents with low level bases anymore. And it can’t be much fun for our low level players to be punching bags all war long. It also means that we are basically a player or two short in every war, and sometimes this can be significant. In the war against Bahia we flung five attacks at their lowest player (#35), a decent TH8, while they smashed our lowest two bases in two attacks (TH6 & TH7). I realize that we may not have enough players to start cutting, but if the previous suggestion regarding randoms is successful this might not be an issue anymore.

Thoughts, comments?