Clash of clans(COC) is a great Strategy game available to play for all the smartphones users with Android and iOS platform developed by Supercell in 2012/13. Sad thing is Windows does not support COC. I have been playing this game since 2015 till Oct 2017, then from Nov 2019 till date(almost 3 Years I guess).
About the game play -
The game is a kingdom kind of game with our kingdom called as Village where you need to update/upgrade it to protect your village. So actually it has your own map which you can design the way you want you village to look with all the buildings in it like - Defense buildings, non defense buildings, other buildings and troops.
Your map is called Village with Townhall(TH) as the main building and you/player as the chief of the village who controls it.
The basic village has - Defense buildings like Archer tower and cannon to protect your base and non defense buildings like Gold mine and elixer collector with which you can upgrade your village and its troops. There will be other building like Research too.
The game will have 4 resources - Gold, Elixer, Dark Elixer and Gems, with precious being Gems which is hard to get. Gold is used to upgrade all the defense building including Townhall itself and Exiler and dark elixer is train troop in Barracks or to upgrade your troops in research building. Also to upgrade Gold based goldmines and gold storage you need to use Elixer and for upgrading Elixer collector, elixer storage including dark elixer you need to use Gold.
In fact next to Townhall, the main building in the game play is "Builder hut" which is small but very important and you can buy this Hut with only Gems. COC will not exist without builders and its huts!
Now how do you play the game -
Well you need to upgrade your village. That means you need to upgrade you townhall to get to next level, and with upgrading the TH you will keep unlocking new things. So to upgrade your village you need Gold which can not be relied just with Gold mines, so you need attack an another village. Because you can collect a lots of Golds and Elixer at once only by attacking another village. Now to attack an another village you need a good amount of troop. To train the troop at Barracks, you need a lots of Elixer, so you need to attack an village to get the same too.
Remember, you need elixer to train and upgrade you troops. And you need gold to choose which map you want to attack.
Types of troops -
Elixer type troops.
Dark Elixer type Troops.
Elixer type spells(Just like air support)
Dark elixer type spells.
Heroes(Kings, queens, etc). These heroes dont need gold or elixer but only drink a lots of Dark Elixer. And does not need Dark elixer to train but can be upgrades only with Dark elixers.
Seige Machines.
Now Whats is the meaning of Clash of Clans -
Well you can join a clans which will have a group of villagers. So you can vouch for a war and get a lots of loots and benefits if you win the war.
You can either donate troops or request troops for you village, which will help your village protect along with your defense building when other villagers attach yours.
This can be done with a building called "Clan Castle". Clan Clastle no only helps send/receive troops but acts a storage when you win a 5 star bonus everyday.(Explained below)
How to play -
The Strategy is 3 Stars(counted in percentage w.r.t. damage to village attacked). There is victory and Defeat. You will have 3 minutes for one play. If you do less than 50% damage but have destroyed the TH, then you win, Or you had destroyed 50% of village, then you will. Or else you loose.
There is trophy for every base which is determined by Supercell(Developer of the game) or by how the Player map is determined. So by which method you destroy the village, the trophy is determined.(Which I haven't known so far). If you get 3 Star, you get all the trophies determined for that village. Or else the trophy will be determined by the% of attack calculated by Supercell.
The same goes, when some one else attacks your village when you are gone away. Its called defense. So if they loose, you get plus trophies or if they win, then you lose some trophies eventually loosing trophies from your total trophies.
Clan Wars -
Just like I said above, you need to be part of a clans to play clan war. Then your team leader will request for war with another clan or vice versa, when mutually accepted, you will participate in the war and will get exiting benefits like loots for entire, etc.
The Strategy -
First with defense - UPGRADE you defense buildings is the key. Upgrade everything like Archer tower or cannon, etc to maximum levels allowed by your TH which includes the walls and traps too. Design your village buildings and walls in such a way that your TH cannot be destroyed or the attacker cannot destroy you village to 100%, so that you wont loose your trophies.
Only upgrade to next TH when you know that all the defense buildings including walls and Traps are updated maximum levels allowed by the townhall.
Now with Attack - UPGRADE your troops is the key. So you need to upgrade your troops at research building, update barracks to unlock you next level troops(Max allowed by current TH Level) and also you Army Camp, so that you can accommodate max number of troops.
The best troops for attack or Farming as per my preference -
I currently have 2 phones with 2 maps. One with TH 10 and another with TH 7.
With TH 10, my preference is PEKKA, Wizards, Valkirye, Dragons along with King and Queen. For Spells is Rage and Close with Haste and Skeleton dark spell.
People would go with Dragons and ballons with Earthquake and lightning spells. But I dont prefer that as that might not give a good attack results all the time, unless you have Electro dragons.
With TH 7, my preference is Gaints, Wizards and Dragons with Rage and healing spells. I also take Castle received troops for more support.
My Strategy -
I usually select a TH after a long spend of time and gold for best map. I select a TH is such a way that its TH is easily destroyed. And then do the farming to loot the rest to get upto 50% total to get 2 Stars which will give decent trophy numbers too. Or if I get a map with TH set outside the walls, I attack it will queen and walk away with 1star victory and few trophies without loosing any other troops.
I first deploy king closer to Clan castle to see if any defense troops pops out to kills us, if yes, then I first destroy it and then deploy PEKKA at all corners along with wizards and take out the first line defense. then use gaints and queen along with Valkyire to peep into until the TH to destroy. this is will give minimum 50% with most of attacks with victory and decent trophy number.
I also select TH 11 or 12 maps, which is inactive with dead x-bows and infernos, so that I can do maximum damage and get victory.
There also some idiots who some do unpacking of their map left unfinished to rebuild their map which makes attacker to easily attack and destroy the village without any effort and gain a lots of loot. Their do not know there is called edit option in the game.
My preference is always Loot and stars. My max loot so far is upto 1, 000, 000 Gold and Elixer just with on village, I probably would have won or lost but got a lots of loot.!
Along with all this, there is also sister village of your own, where you need to quickly sail to access it. Its called builder base.
Its also similar to just like Home Village. With few differences in the graphics and design of the building and troops.
The only differences are -
In Builder base, you will only one builder(with extra builder arriving at Builder base level 8) against 5 builders at Home base.
Home village is multiplayer platform which allows you to select different maps at the cost of gold. But in Builder base, its a verses battle, and you dont have option to select a base and you have to attack a base which supercell selects. Otherwise the game play and strategy is almost same with both base have some difficulty gameplays and strategy.
Builder base doesnt have Dark Elixer.
Magic items -
There is something called magic items, which can be purchased from Daily deals(available at TH8), by completing special tasks, by spending Gems or by purchasing with Money(at Buy section)
Clan and player profile page -
This gives you update about you gameplay levels, clan details, players details and your achievements at both the villages. Completing achievement gives you Gems. Note - Gems is common for both villages. You can collect gems from Builder base and use it at home village and vice versa.
Apart from this there is something called COC Monthly Season Challenes, which gives you lots of perks. You can buy Gold Pass to access more perks. One gold pass will cost you Rs. 399. You can buy using credit cards or Google pay.
Also you can buy Gems, gold, elixer and other magic items by spending money at buy page.
You can save and protect your Game too with Googleplay. So that you can retrieve your Village if you have lost/changed your phone.
The Things I dont like in COC gameplay -
- Upgrading is a pain. Even Upgrading building is acceptable because you will have 4 to 5 builders to complete the upgrade. If one finishes, you go with another with loot you collected.
But Research upgrade is really a pain. Only one troop can be researched at a time, which takes a lots of time. Atleast there should two windows, one for troops and one Spells. OR One elixer troops and another for dark elixer.
Upgrade building cost is not constant for all the buildings. For example, most effective defense Archer tower at TH 10 takes 1 day and few hours and more gold but mortar which not much effective takes more than 2 days with less gold. This is annoying.
Supercell is annoying in term of giving us the type of maps we should select to attack. I am currently at TH10 and when I attack, I mostly get TH 11+ maps which is very hard to attack. Attack should be equal. TH10 Vs another TH10.
Trophies is also annoying. Its still not clear how trophy is determined by Supercell for a particular map.
Also Trophies should be same for either victory or for defeat. Meaning if a map has 20 Trophies, victory should give 20 Trophies and defeat also should remove 20 trophies or equivalent wrt to damaged caused. But win gives 5 trophies and loss reduces 20+ trophies is utter cheating. Sometimes, I give damage of about 80% I get only about 2 to 3 trophies and if lose for same map, I lose more than 20 trophies. This Gives a lots of angryness. Very unfair. I hate supercell just for this. I sometimes lose my interest playing the game just because of this, because we spend a lot of time collecting the trophies, and lose the trophies just like that!
Advantages and good things of COC -
The game needs to be played from Phones. So it can be played anytime you want. You dont need a PC.
Very Strategic game and you dont need to play this game all the time like other reviewers mention. You just need 1 hr per day to get 5 Star bonus and use that loot to upgrade any building with that loot. So until the upgrade is completed, playing the game for loot is waste of time. Hence, you need not to play all the time like you do with racing games and PubG. Also you can play for long time in terms of days and years. Its Addiction if you want to get to TH 13-5 within just 3 or 5 Months. Play it slow and its not addiction.
Its Free available at Playstore for close to 250 MB.(Not sure)
I am playing on my Oneplus and it doesnt use much battery too and the gameplay is smooth.
Disadvantages or Bad of COC -
Just like I mentioned above, sometimes the game get annoying you feel like getting cheated.
The game is not available for Windows phones!
Also playing this on iphone drains a lots of battery. My mom has iphone 5s. I attacked one village and it drains 32% of battery!
Yes the game is addictive. but you need to decide when to play, how to play. This game is best to plays during holidays or long leaves.
No support from Supercell for Players from India.
All above, this game requires internet to play. Or else you cant play offline.
Verdict -
Overall a great game for phone gaming lovers and a great game for people who love to play a game for longer duration in terms of days and years. But if you feel addicted, please leave the game and play PUBG and die eventually!
