(SmoothJK/Sponki) Back in the saddle

Wow, has it really been 7 months since I last updated here??

Things have really been crazy in my life for a while now. There was a stretch at my job from December until about April where it was pretty much non-stop work, and on top of that, we had to move to our new home. THEN, a bundle of joy arrived in our lives. It’s been quite a ride…I don’t know how I’m still standing today. 🙂

Through it all, I have kept my progress in CoC nice and steady, even if it’s not always at the same feverish pace as before. I’d say I maintain about a 2M gold/day average, though some days it’s a little less or a lot more.

I guess since the last time I was here, a lot has changed. SmoothJK has moved onto to TH10, I turned all my walls to at least level 8, and am getting close to finishing with all elixir upgrades (max Freeze has 7 days left, and then it’s just max Lightning and PEKKA left). I’ve gotten started on max Inferno as well, and I plan to stagger my defensive upgrades so I’m never lacking any particular defensive type. So once I get to 8M gold again, I will do an Xbow, then an Air Def, then a Mortar (if my Inferno still has not completed…if it has, I’ll do the second one).

Here’s my main base in farming mode:

I had to move a couple of teslas in the middle to bolster my defenses since one of my infernos is being upgraded, and I think it’s still scary enough to deter most attackers. I rarely get hit at this trophy range anyway except from town hall snipers.

Farming-wise, I still prefer my balloonian army, though it does tend to be a little spell-intensive and not economical elixir-wise (which is another reason I can’t wait to finish my elixir upgrades…never have to worry about balloon or spell cost again). When I need to bring my elixir count up, I use either a basic army of 16 giants, 80 archers, 40 goblins, 12 wallbreakers, 4 wizards…or I use a hog army. Using DE-based armies for a little bit can make saving elixir much easier, though of course you sacrifice your ability to upgrade your heroes. Ideally, you want one hero upgrading at all times, though this is very difficult to do–and also painful, since that means you rarely get to use both in battle.

Lately in Clan Wars, I’ve gone to GoWiWi (Golems, Wizards, Witches), and I can see why it’s the most popular “pro” army. It’s very powerful, and unless you fail to take care of business in some way, you almost always net 2 stars at least.

My next post will focus in on what I think are the three most popular (and effective) armies in Clash of Clans. I’m sure you can probably already guess what they are, but I’ll rank them and go into what makes each one so useful.

By the way, here is my alternate account’s base, which has also been steadily progressing (I’m trying out an anti-hog, anti-air farming design):

It’s funny, but I almost decided to abandon this account since I was getting so busy and tired. But I decided it was easy enough to just keep collecting from my mines and pumps once a day or so. I also rearranged the base at TH8 to at least partially protect the collectors since they would usually be pretty full.

Anyhow, I kept putting the collected gold into one or two walls at a time until eventually, I got all of them blue. The elixir would pile up enough to get troop upgrades and such going. Then the base approached a max TH8, and I decided, why not raid occasionally, get it to TH9, and make it more productive during Clan Wars? So for the past couple of months, I’ve been working at this account enough to turn it into a respectable TH9. With inactives in the clan still being an issue, it’s nice to at least have two accounts that can reliably put in their two attacks each time.

Honestly, those few months where all I did was collect from the mines and pumps made me realize how easy it is to keep progressing at this game, at least until TH9 where upgrades get really expensive.

The bottomline is that I’m glad to be back, and I’m happy to see this blog seems to maintain a steady readership despite my absence. Stay tuned for future posts everyone! 🙂

(Sponki) New TH8 base layout, Crystal push coming soon?

Despite the fact that my custom base was working just fine, I decided to do a redesign. Whether or not something’s effective, it has to be pleasing to the eye.

So here’s the new layout, copied from some random clan-hopper that poked his head into our clan for a bit.

Aside from the symmetry and the protected nature of the resources, I like how the town hall is exposed…but also sort of dangerous. Not only is the Barb King hanging out up there, but it’s also a great place for hidden teslas and traps, so no one can get a freebie win from attacking this base. I’ve already been racking up a few defensive wins, which is nice for the achievement.

At the same time, trophy pushers will gladly commit enough troops to take out my town hall, giving me a free shield, while losing a lot of his army in the process. My resources will then be fairly safe unless the attacker has an overwhelming army composition, in which case my design probably wouldn’t have mattered.

I’ve upgraded all the archer towers to level 8, and the last air defense is going to level 4. This is kind of the minimum “looks good” standard for me before I try a trophy push, and I think I can easily reach Crystal for the achievement/gems. I’d prefer to wait until I had level 5 Wizards, but it’s probably not necessary. Town hall sniping can get you pretty far anyways, until about 2100+ where those kinds of opportunities really start to dry up.

By the way, I never mentioned this before, but shout-out to my clan, Kpop Nation! I’m currently acting as the stand-in leader while our founder tends to more important things in real life. 🙂 Check us out if you’re active, mature, and have level 4+ troops. No clan-hoppers please, and we don’t want people coming in with 0 donations requesting ridiculous stuff. We WILL notice and you will be gone soon.

(Sponki) Finishing crystal walls and upgrades

In my secondary account, I’m still working to bring up all the walls to at least level 6 (pink crystal) walls. This is pretty important because this is when it takes at least two wall breakers to get through…unless they have level 6 wbs, which most people at this trophy range don’t.

I’m getting close!

After my top-center wizard tower gets to level 4 and my bottom archer tower gets to 7, I think my base’s defenses will look respectable. Then, I’ll probably need to work on getting all the air defenses to level 4 so they actually look somewhat intimidating :P.  Then, I’ll feel somewhat satisfied for the time being and move onto some of the more annoying upgrades, such as barracks and then all the pumps and mines.

The big research upgrade going on right now is Archers to level 5. This is part of the reason I rushed a bit to TH8 so I could get better troops and donate these to my clan. After archers, I’ll probably do Giants, wallbreakers, then wizards. Somewhere along the line, I might try to do a push to Crystal League just for the achievement, then drop back down.

Layout-wise, I’m pretty happy with my design. I’m winning about two defenses, then losing the third…typically when some of the traps have been triggered already. It also helps a TON when I have a dragon in the clan castle.

We’ll see where things go, but I’m definitely going to stay at TH8 until it’s absolutely fully maxed. To me, this is the sweet spot, and plus, there’s no reason for me to have two TH9 bases (along with SmoothJK).

Starting point and the direction of this blog

Starting Point

A little bit of background information would probably make sense for our little journey, no?

I currently am playing on two different accounts: SmoothJK and Sponkifonkigirl (my wife’s). The former is my main, and it’s currently sitting at level 84 on Town Hall 9. My wife’s account, which is solely managed by me, is sitting at level 50 and just reached Town Hall 8 about a week ago.

Here’s my main base:

Here’s the secondary base:

Both of these bases have a ways to go before being “maxed,” especially the TH8 since it just got there. But they’re both holding up pretty well for their trophy range, which is mainly to farm like crazy.

SmoothJK (TH9) is usually sitting somewhere between 1,500-1,700 trophies. Sometimes I go higher if I’m unable to play frequently and I make slower, more powerful armies. On the lower end, I can use a whole bunch of “BAM” (barbarians/archers/minions) with consistent results. I think I’m roughly averaging about 150K per resource per raid, and over 2M in gold every day. Resources are never the issue for this account–it’s always about having builders available.

For Sponkifonkigirl (TH8), I play it a little less but still am very active. This account is usually sitting at around 1,200-1,400 trophies with an average raid of about 125K/125K. The army I use is the same almost every time: 12 giants, 4 wizards, 5 wallbreakers, 58 archers, 31 goblins, and 25 barbarians (for a total of 200). I know they’re weird numbers, but I can explain later if people are interested or I happen to get around to it.

This was just a rough sketch of what’s going on with my two bases, but further details will come. Most posts will only deal with one base at a time.

Direction of This Blog

For now, here’s what I’m thinking I’m going to do.

I plan to run three basic ongoing series and keep track of what’s going on.

For my main base, I’m probably going to do things like “Road to Crystal League” (which will be incredibly fast and easy), “Road to Masters League” (never done it before), and maxing things out…eventually getting to TH10.

For my secondary base, I’m probably going to do things like “Maxing Town Hall 8” and eventually push to Crystal League for the achievement and some gems.

I also have a third account that I’ll be starting from scratch, walking things through each town hall level. Maybe this will show new players the right way to progress, but for me, it’ll also be fun to play the simpler game and beat up on beginner bases.

And of course, I’ll also be discussing things like new updates, game balance, and other thoughts. Hopefully, you fellow nerds out there will find it worthwhile when you want to get just a little more Clash of Clans in your life.