Our latest clan wars match up was one of the worst that I have personally been involved with from a balance standpoint. Generally when you have the top bases, the other clan is stronger in the middle, or somewhere else in the match to balance the weighting. For those that don't know, you can see your defensive weight by adding up all of the storages and townhall resources on your map during battle day. It will not display the weighting until battle day, so ignore the amounts during preparation day. The amount will vary based on your clan's perks, as well as based on your townhall level. So with that in mind, as long as one person looks at all the weightings, it will be accurate. So for instance our number one base is Tpchid. He has 23,250 gold in each of his four storages. He also has 1,000 in his townhall. This means he has 94,000 gold available. So for the purposes of his defense rating he is 94,000 or for convenience 94. This means an equal match for him would be another base of 94. Let's start with a look at the top five bases of this clan wars match. I will display our war bases on the left and theirs on the right.
So the breakdown for the top five bases is as follows. Evil Queso has Tpchid, Daan, Ms. Taco, Kletus, and Bdizzle with weight ratings of 94, 93, 93, 92, and 88. The combined royal levels for the top five in our clan is 270. The opposing clan's top five base defensive base weight ratings were 100, 98, 97, 95, and 95. Their combined royals were 359. This gave them five bases better than our number 1 defensively as well as a 89 hero level advantage just in the top five. Generally, this means that they will be weaker than our clan lower down in the match, so let's look at the next five bases.
So our 6-10 have defensive base ratings of 87, 85, 82, 70, and 70. They have combined hero levels of 154. The opposing clan's 6-10 have ratings of 94, 94, 93, 91, and 90. They have combined hero levels of 278. That gives them a huge defensive advantage from 6-10 and a 124 hero level advantage. In fact their 6-10 has higher combined heroes than our 1-5. So after reviewing the top 10 bases for each clan they have a 213 hero level advantage. I'm sure their advantage will go away lower in the match in order to balance this 30 vs 30 clan war. On to the next 5!
So the base ratings for our 11-15 go as follows: 68, 68, 68, 67, and 66. Our combined hero levels for 11-15 are 130. The enemy clan is 84, 73, 71, 70, and 66. Their combined hero levels are 173. The enemy clan still has a huge defensive advantage for 11-15, but the good news is we are tied at 15th place. They still have a 43 hero level advantage at this base range. I'm sure that the next five bases will be the turning point. I will however list the bases and hero levels for comparison.
Looking at the final 15 bases we have one base that has a higher weighting than the opposing clans lateral base. That is at base 24. For the last 15 bases we have 75 total hero levels. The other clan has 112 hero levels.
In conclusion our overall defensive weight for the entire war is 1,729. Our total combined hero levels is 629, Their overall defensive weight rating is 1,955. Their overall hero levels is 922. So this "fair match" gives us about 88% of the defense that they have and 68% of the hero levels that they have. It makes the opposing clan significantly better on offense and defense. I personally haven't previously witnessed a war this lopsided. We lost the war 79-64. I will leave you with this one replay versus their maxed base.
I have say I have been a bit behind on the war updates but I will try to get back on track today! First I will say that we have completed two different wars since the last update. The first war was versus a Chinese Clan that I do not know how to type the name. We were able to come out ahead and win 73-70. Here is a look at our war log to show the victory!
The next war was versus a clan named Jr. Gladiators. We were please to not have to fight the Sr. Gladiators because I'm sure they were much better. The Jr. Gladiators had 52 prior war wins and were a level 5 clan. They say that they war always which based on their clan level we felt it safe to assume they weren't very good. We ended up being right! As you can see above, we were able to win pretty easily by a score of 76-58. We ended up getting 21 three star attacks in the match. We were able to three star every base they had that was townhall 9 or below as well as one of their townhall 10's. This was despite them having 2 more townhall 10 bases than us. Here is a look at the slaughter.
I think they gave up pretty early in the war. They weren't very good at attacking, some of their top bases were attacking bases in our lower teens. At any rate we just scored two straight victories! We have another match in progress now that I am going to do a big post about as it's one of the largest mismatches I have ever seen. Look for that later on tonight!
It happened again, we lost by only one star. The final score in the match was 75-74. We actually beat them in three star attacks 21-19, which marks the second straight loss where we out 3 starred the opposing clan. We struggled against their maxed bases at the top which led to us losing. Here is the tale of the tape:
It's the weekend again and that means it's time for war. We matched up with a clan named **CAO*** for our weekend war. They look like they are serious because they have 6 bases that are townhall 3 with no added defenses other than the original canon. They are doing this to artificially lower their clan's value and to give their top and middle bases a huge advantage in the war matching. It doesn't look to have worked to its full effect this war because it seems like it is not going to be a huge mismatch. The clan is a Russian clan that wars twice a week and is clan level 5. They have won 65 wars to date. Here is a look at the opposing clan:
The war has just begun and will conclude tommorow night! Time to go watch some battles :)
It happened, we lost a war to Tawkeht 2014. We struggled versus one base design that the top three players in their clan had netting only 1 star for our efforts. We also could have gotten more stars against their townhall 9s but we did not manage to do that either. In the end we came up short 71-70. It is always disappointing to come up on the wrong side of a close war. Let's take a look at the star count to properly understand how we lost:
The first thing of note is that we won the three stars by a total of 16-15. We still lost the war because they managed to get stars on every single base we had, while we had two bases that we got no stars on. So while we lost less attacks and had a higher average destruction they won by outpointing us at the top of the map, and defending well enough at the townhall 9 level to keep us from winning. Essentially, there was at least 3-5 bases that we should have three starred but we did not. It's time to go back to the drawing board. We have another war starting tonight so we will have to dust ourselves off and get after it!
It's that time again, Preparation Day! This war we have matched versus a clan named Tawkeht 2014. I assume that means the clan was made in 2014 but I'm hoping it's their birth year. They are a level 6 clan with only 39 war wins. They have several members with over 500 war stars and some in the mid 600s which leads me to believe that they could be a new clan with serious war members. They hail from a little place called Uzbekistan. They have 48 members in their clan which makes me wonder if they usually war at a higher number of players. This war is 30 versus 30, so they have 18 members sitting out.
We appear to have the advantage at the townhall 10 level with eight townhall 10 bases to their 5! They however have way more maxed townhall 9s than we do. They have five maxed townhall 9 bases to our two, assuming the teslas are maxed, since we can't see them. They outnumber as 12 to 9 in total townhall 9s. I have a distinct feeling this will be a hog clan based on their profiles, so it will be a interesting war as we do have some bases susceptible to hogs despite my warnings about proper placement of double bombs. Either war I expect us to pull out the war win but only time will tell. Here is the profile of our latest matchup:
Each townhall level has a variety of popular attacks which are commonly used in an attempt to get three stars. Townhall 8s generally like to use hogs, gowipe, or dragons in their three star clan wars attempts. Townhall 9s like to use a various of air strategies as well as gowipe, gowiwi, and hogs. One of the common strategies between townhall 8 and townhall 9 is the use of hogriders.
In creating or modifying your base layout, you should give heavy consideration to the type of attacks you will typically be facing. For instance as a townhall 8 you should not prepare your base to defend against level 30 heroes and quadlavaloon. This is because if a townhall 10 is attacking you in war, the war is already won by your clan! So with that in mind let's consider hogriders for those townhall 8 and townhall 9 bases out there. Hogriders' biggest weakness at these townhall levels are giant bombs. This is in part because of the giant bomb does 1.5 times as much damage versus hogriders. If two giant bombs explode it instantly kills even a maxed level 5 hogrider.
Now that we know a pair of giant bombs can wipe out an entire group of hogriders, we must figure out how to place them in a manner that works best for our defense. I would list several key factors in placing a set of double bombs in the base. First, consider where your enemy will most likely attempt to lure the castle. Second, note that the bombs must be directly between two defensive structures. Third, understand that the bombs must not have additional defensive structures too close to them as that could change the pathing of the hogs away from the bombs. Finally, the bombs must not be in front of the archer queen.
So let's consider your clan castle. Click on your clan castle and view its range. Plan how you would lure the castle troops with hogriders. Ask a few people in your clan as well. Most of the time all of the players will pick the same location. You want to avoid using your double giant bomb in that location so as to avoid getting it triggered before the main army is deployed.
Next let's consider where they are placed in relation to defensive structures. They must be placed in between defensive structures to ensure that hogrider pathing takes them from one defensive structure directly through the two giant bombs and into the second defensive structure. This will allow both bombs to hit all of the hogriders. Placing them between regular building units will allow hogs to either avoid the giant bomb, or run through it before it blows up.
Now that we have established the two defensive structures that they will be between, we must make sure that those two structures are the closer to each other than anything between them. They must be two tiles away so we must ensure nothing is adjacent or one tile away in a manner that would navigate the hogriders away from our double giant bombs.
Finally, and perhaps the most important. Keep the double giant bombs away from your archer queen (townhall 9). Your archer queen is going to be a prime target for them to kill in order access the second and third star on your base. They will most likely use a golem, a couple wizards and their heroes to attempt to get to your archer queen. You do not want the golem absorbing your double giant bomb.
Here is a video illustrating most of the main points that I have listed, for those of you that are most visual:
In closing, hogriders are still a powerful force to be reckoned with at townhall 8 and 9. You can however, vastly reduce their effectiveness with proper defensive planning. Good luck making your next base!
Let's talk about hero levels. Many people believe the reason they don't three star in their war attacks is because their heroes are lower level. I will always agree that the higher level your heroes, the easier it is to win, but often times people assume that it is solely the hero levels that dictate the success of the attack. Under this logic, we should never war while a hero is upgrading and definitely not while two heroes are upgrading. Enter Burrito, my iPad account!
If you have read the most recent blog post about our war with Kernow Clan, you know we won by only two stars. Burrito got two three star attacks and did so with both heroes upgrading. Both attacks were versus other townhall 9 bases. Without these attacks we may have tied or lost. It goes to show that with proper planning, proper troop selection, and a bit of luck you can still be successful in your clan war attacks regardless of the level of your heroes. Take a look at the first attack which featured a quadlavaloon strategy. I picked this strategy because the base had already been attacked and I knew what was in the castle.
As you saw, the three star attack was never in jeopardy; it was a solid victory. Many people would say that because the clan castle had a pekka it was similar to attacking a base with no clan castle. The next battle featured a level 5 dragon in the clan castle and I attacked it blind with no idea of what was in the castle. In this battle I used a golem and wizard kill squad and lavaloons to get the three star. It is also a higher level base on the war map.
By watching the video you can see that I was able to destroy one air defense and lure the castle with the kill squad, but was unable to immediately kill the dragon. I was still able to three star the base because lava pups killed the dragon, where as I mentioned before a little luck comes into play.
In closing I would like to point out that while I was successful with Burrito in the clan wars, I did one star my second attack with my main versus their number 2 base. If I had gotten the second star it would have put the match out of reach and by not achieving it I put the clan at risk of a tie or loss. I wanted to use that attack to point out that every attack is not going to be perfect but they all matter. Just because you are not at full strength does not mean you cannot be a valuable asset to your clan.
We got matched with a nine win clan for our weekend war. The clan is named Kernow Clan. Kernow seems to be a place in Great Britain, but I don't know if that's where the clan is from. They are listed as an international clan that wars only once a week. They are a level 3 clan right now so it does appear that they are either new or don't war very often. The match is slightly in their favor at the top; they have twelve townhall 10s to our eight. We had nine townhall 9s to their seven.
We performed pretty poorly against this clan but were able to take advantage of their lack of experience to squeak out a 68-66 win. It is one of the lower scoring outputs that we have had and actually won. We were able to outscore them with 14 three star attacks to their 13. We also got one more one star attack than they did. They had a chance at the end to go for an easy tie but instead tried to attack for the win which resulted in them failing their last two attacks. We didn't play up to our ability and probably didn't deserve to win, but we will take it. Our next war will be in the middle of the week. Until then it's time to upgrade some heroes and walls!
We won our clan wars match over Elegante. The final score was 73-65. We were able to defeat every base they had and achieved maximum experience. We are over halfway to Clan Level 6, despite only warring twice a week. It doesn't hurt that we are on a 18-2-1 streak! Here is a view of the final score and my huge loot bonus:
We won on the strength of three more three star attacks than they had. We also defeated more bases than them which lead to the comfortable win! One thing I'd like to point out about this war is that one of their top three bases attacked our 10th and 14th base. This is no war to consistently win wars, but it is a great way to get individual war stars. So for all the people out there recruiting solely on war stars just remember that you may actually be hurting your can by getting that individual player as opposed to a team player. Either way, Evil Queso is going to enjoy the loot and start another war later today!
Well after the short maintenance break today we started a war. We got matched with a clan named Elegante. They have 125 war wins so far and are a level 5 clan. They are based out of Turkey. It seems as though we have been getting a lot of foreign clans of late! This clan has one more townhall 10 than we do. They also have two more townhall 9s than us. Hopefully we can overcome the townhall advantage. As always we are fighting 30 vs 30. The last two wars my barbarian king was upgrading, so I'm ready to go tomorrow at full strength!
We had a couple members opt out for war this weekend. This is unusual for Evil Queso so I thought I’d talk about it.
With very few exceptions, all members participate in clan wars. Before the opt out feature was implemented this was because I got tired of remembering who would be in or out, reminding people to leave or, more often, kicking them before war prep, and, if applicable, recruiting a replacement. After the opt out feature was implemented, people started to use it and I decided pretty quickly I didn’t want to go down that path, mostly because every time someone opts out I have to recruit, recruiting is annoying, new members who can’t get it together to follow our strategy and help us win make me cranky, and when I’m annoyed and cranky I don’t enjoy the game. When I stop enjoying the game I clean house and I start with those who aren’t helping the clan.
Now that clan perks are in play, I feel more strongly than ever that everyone should battle. Check out the perks that come with level 5 status:
We get and can hold more war loot, request troops more frequently, donate more and better quality troops, and we get a donation refund. These are awesome perks, they are earned by participating in war, and they are only going to get better. Anyone who wants to enjoy them must help earn them, period.
There are really only a couple of scenarios where I think it’s okay to opt out: 1) international travel that limits access to a data plan and…. uh, that’s about it. Even so, we have had members opt out for camping, illness, family trips, etc. and as long as it’s not a regular thing it’s not my hill to die on, but people need to remember it’s a burden and I will not drag anyone through this game. If our clan culture changes over time I might look at opting out differently, but right now we only war twice a week and we have a bunch of members who have never once opted out of war (or even missed an attack) since clan wars came along over a year ago. I feel pretty comfortable with our approach for now.
PS. Every now and then a noob comes along and argues that players should be able to opt out when heroes are upgrading. Hell. No. Heroes should be upgraded whenever possible until they are maxed and planning war around the hero upgrades of 30 different players would be a logistical nightmare. Also, people need to harden up! This is war!
We were able to achieve a victory over the Asian clan with 139 wins! The score was 74-72. We had a minor scare when Daan disconnected on his first attack but due to a strong second attack by Daan and a bunch of solid attacks by everyone else, we were able to prevail.
The difference in the war came down to us getting one more three star attacks than they did. We also got one extra one star attack. Ultimately it is the small things that usually end up winning the war. Here is a view of the star counts.
You can tell by the new stars per attack they didn't use as many attacks as we did. That said, they wouldn't have gotten any more stars even if they had because they only had low level attacks remaining.
Their number two player used an interesting strategy in getting two stars from our number 1 and 2 bases. He even had an outside chance at three stars on one of the bases. It involved the use of eight healers, a golem some giants and a bunch of archers. He used the archers to steer his archer queen in the right direction and used the healers to keep his archer queen alive. His archer queen destroyed about 35% of the base before he put down his army. He ended up get 87% and ran out of time, but with more time or a bit better use of his troops he may have gotten a three star. I'm not sure if this was two lucky attacks or the sign of a new townhall 10 strategy but here it is:
We are stacked up versus an Asian clan with 139 wins for our weekend war. They have 9 townhall 10s to our 8. One of their townhall 10s does not have an inferno towers. We have seven townhall 9's and they have but four. They do have one fully maxed base with fully maxed heroes, so it will be exciting to see what they can do. The war will end Sunday afternoon. I will update you then!
