Lets Play Clash of Clans Rushed Town Hall 10!

Rushed Town Hall 10

For my next post I'm going to bring you something a little different, the begginging of a "Lets Play" series.  A friend offered me a gift card to rush my town hall from about a third to half leveled TH7 base to TH10 when I mentioned I was thinking of moving up to TH8 a bit early.  I jumped at the chance, pushed to TH10 then used the excess from the card to level get the Archer Queen and get her to level 2 as well as bring a single inferno tower online to strenghtne my defenses otherwise all I have is the structures I built myself when I initially moved up to TH8.

So lets take a look at the damage and see what we are working with.

Level 52, Gold 3 with 1354 Trophies, and 189 Gems.  Current Clan "Outback Cowboyz"

Base Design: The Tempest TH8 Trophy Hunting Formation

This base design is by Orz from the Supercell clash forums.

Orz has obviously put a lot of time into this design, I particularly like the defensive pathing built into its outer walls to help counter Giant/Healer attacks, centralized Mortar/AD/Wizard Towers.

Obviously I have deviated from his basic design adding in the Archer Queen up top in place of one of the Elixir storages, and shifting around one of the AD/Wizard tower combos in order to get that centralized Inferno tower placement.

Before Pushing to TH10 I was raided twice while at TH8, One 53% Loss to Off Constantly of KeepCalmClashOn, and a 43% Victory vs Owen of Dragon Alliance, Post TH10 I was hit by Makoto1143g of swoosh a 59% loss.

My initial reaction is the Tempest design is extremely solid even with this shoddy material and I will probably stick with it for at least the short term while I build all the structures I'm currently missing from TH9/10.  I will say the addition of the single inferno tower was quite impressive and I credit it with holding Makoto's attack to 59%.

Defense/Offense:

Clan Castle:  Level 3, 20 troop capacity

Barbarian King:  Level 5

Archer Queen:  Level 2

Defensive Structures:

6/6 Cannons:  1 Level 8, 4 Level 7, 1 Level 2.

7/7 Archer Towers: 4 Level 6, 1 Level 4, and 2 Level 1

3/4 Air Defense:  1 each at level 1, 2 and 3.

3/4 Wizard Tower: 1 each at level 1, 2 and 3.

3/4 Hidden Tesla: 1 Under construction, 2 at Level 1.

0/3 X-Bow:  I prioritized the Inferno towers due to their ability to hit multiple targets.

1/2 Inferno Tower: 1 Level 1 set for multiple.

250/250 Walls:  Solid Core of lvl 6/7 Walls but still a substantial number of lvl 1 and 5 walls.

6/6 Bomb:  6x lvl 3

5/5 Giant Bomb:  All Level 1

2/5 Seeking Air Mine:  All Level 1

5/5 Air Bomb:  All Level 1

6/6 Spring Trap:  All have Springs

4/5 Builders Huts:  Fat boys gotta build.

Offensive Considerations:

200 Troop Capacity

Lvl 3 Clan Castle (20 spaces)

2 Lvl 9 Barracks, 2 Lvl 8 Barracks.  I can produce 2x Dragons 2x Healers simultaneously or 4x healers as my highest troops.

2 Dark Barracks, 1 Level 2 (Hog Riders) 1 Upgrading to level 2 and currently out of commision.

Lvl 3 Spell Factory, 3x Capacity.  Rage, Lightning and Healing.

Barbarians: lvl 4

Archers: lvl 4

Goblins: lvl 4

Giants: lvl 4

Wallbreakers: lvl 4

Balloons: lvl 3

Wizards: lvl 4

Dragons: lvl 1

Healer: lvl 1

Lightning Spell: lvl 3

Healing Spell: lvl 2

Rage Spell: lvl 1

Minions: lvl 1

Hog Riders: lvl 2

Currently Unable to produce:

Jump Spell, Freeze Spell, PEKKA, Valkyrie, Golem, Witch.

So that is my current starting point, essentially a slightly tougher then normal TH7 but in trade I suffer a loot handicap when attacking anyone other then TH10 bases.  My current plan is to use what ever Gems I get from mowing my bases lawn to boost my 4 primary Barracks, Queen/King, and Spell factory once or twice a week when I have a couple hours to myself to raid hard and build up resources to upgrade this abomination of a base from its current ungainly mess to a solid Crystal 1 / Master League Base.

With 4 available builders and many structures still needing to be built I believe my first priority will be to get the other 2 Dark Elixir Drills built as fast as possible as well as building the remaining Air Defense and Wizard Tower.  The AD and Tower are both fairly quick builds so Once those are done I will probably prioritize getting the pair of low level Archer Towers and Cannon up while I save to begin construction of first my Second Inferno Tower and then First X-Bow.  I think the ability of the Inferno Tower to handle multiple attackers trumps the extra 2 million gold needed to begin construction of it as well as the X-Bows range and AD capabilities.  With 2 builders consigned to construction of defensive structures for the foreseeable future I will probably use 1 of the remaining builders to upgrade my Offensive capabilities focusing primarily on my Dark Barrack and Army Camps.  As one of my Dark Barracks is already capable of producing Hog Riders I will keep the other barrack under constant upgrade until it can construct Witches then switch to the Army Camps.  The Final Builder is going to be helping me play catch up, what ever upgrade can be finished fastest I will have him work on until all of the available upgrades are in the 1 to 2 day range, at that point I will probably utilize him for what ever upgrade feels most imperative to me at the moment though I see him spending a lot of time working on Walls lol.

To get the vast amounts of resources I need for all of this production I currently intend to run a mixture of BArch and BAG armies, probably with a few Giants and Wallbreakers to open a few doors and 3 Lightning Spells to ring the bell.  That Army Comp costs 18.5k for the basic BAG troops, 54k if I use all 8 Wallbreakers and 4 Giants, and an ungainly 109k elixir if I also use all 3 lightning spells.  The spells take 90 minutes to produce so I can use about 2 of those an hour, the Basic Army takes approximately 18 minutes, 24 if i need to replace Giants/WB's.  This allows me to raid about 3-5 times an hour depending on how frugal I am with my troops during heavy raiding sessions.

I currently plan to switch to the BAM composition after I research Minions2 and hit about 1500 Trophies though I don't think that will happen for at least a week, possibly 2.

So that is it folks, My current situation, the plan to dig my way out, and a look at my ugly base.  I currently plan on updating this series Once a week though I may put up more frequent updates depending on if any interesting things are happening.

Until then this is Rev signing off, and get your clash on! 

World of tanks Xbox 360 Edition: Premium Rounds

While playing on my Revanche123 World of Tanks Xbox 360 account I recently acquired the T29 in preparation of writing a Blog post about it next week, while "hulk smash"ing through the opposing team I found myself on the receiving end of quite a few premium (henceforth called "Prem rounds") AP/HE rounds. The T29 is my only really fully equiped tank as I think I'll be keeping it for awhile so it has 10 Prem rounds on board for emergencies of which I have used so far 2 perhaps 3 of them, more to try them out then to actually Pen an opposing tank.  The excellent penetration characteristics of the 105 mm gun on final T29 package really negates any need for them as a general rule.  I found myself wondering while under a particularly aggressive bit of Prem fire how much each round actually cost in real world money.  How much, in real world terms, was this guy throwing at me in a vain effort to kill my tank or at least force me out of the choke point I was securing?

My understanding is World of Tanks for the PC currently allows players to purchase Prem Rounds at an inflated Silver cost in addition to or instead of using Gold for what I'm sure are fairly complicated in game and real world economic reasons.  As anyone who has played World of Warcraft or EVE can attest, in game economics are an extremely touchy and important part of controlling how the players play the game, what they have ready access to and can significantly affect their enjoyment of it.  Regardless, as of right now this is not an option for World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition players to purchase Premium Ammunition.

Ignoring the sticky issues of Taxes based on region, Differing currencies etc and using the American Dollar as my meter stick; Our current options for buying Gold are;

• 1,250 Gold for $6.99 + Tax or 1.788 g per $0.01
• 3,000 Gold for $14.99 + Tax or 2.001 g per $0.01
• 6,500 Gold for $29.99 + Tax or 2.167 g per $0.01
• 12,000 Gold for $49.99 + Tax or 2.400 g per $0.01
• 25,000 Gold for $99.99 + Tax or 2.500 g per $0.01

So clearly you do get a big more bang for your buck as you buy the larger bundles though for the sake of this article I'm going to assume the average player buys the 12,000 bundle paying about what you would pay for a new game for my estimates.

Prices per tank can very significantly based on tier and package chosen but;

Using the T29 as an example;

The Stock T29 package uses the 76 mm Gun M1A2 Firing Composite Rigid HVAP M93 Prem rounds at 7g per round or 70g for a solid core of 10 shells.  That comes out to $0.0291 per shell, nearly 3 Cents every time you fire, $0.29 if you go through all 10 rounds.

The T29's final package T29E3 uses the 105 mm Gun T5E1 firing Composite Rigid APCR T29E3 Prem rounds at 12g per or 120g for a full 10 shots.  That comes out to $0.05 per shell or $0.50 for a full compliment.  Or, as I like to think of it, a can of coke every 10 rounds.

Or perhaps My favorite Tier 5 Tank the venerable M4 Sherman using my prefered M4A1 (105) package is firing HEAT M67 rounds at 10g per or 4 cents every time you pull the trigger.

Now I am not suggesting based on cost that you should never use Prem rounds, this is after all a Free to Play game and frankly every time you pull the trigger on one you are helping insure that new content will be coming out in the future.  What I am trying to illustrate is the otherwise somewhat nebulous cost in real world terms when you use any of the Gold features of the game.  It is this lack of transparency that helped force Xbox from using points to using actual monetary values so that players could make more informed decisions about their purchases rather then forcing them to muddle through what were essentially currency conversions.

Armed with this new knowledge the more scholarly portions of my brain find themselves being a bit more careful about my in game purchases to maximize my moneys value while the jackass part of me takes a great deal of delight when someone obviously gets frustrated trying to pen my beloved T29 and starts flicking pennies at me instead.

Rev Signing off, See You on the Battlefield!