Clan Changes

With effect from today, our clan has a new minimum entry requirement - 800 trophies.

You will notice a few members are just below 800 trophies. I have retained these members because they have shown effort to be active and improve their scores. We should help them meet the new minimum by donating our best troops to them!

I have also retained some of our members who have not been donating well - you know who you are. You have been warned by me or the elders over these weeks. You have 2 weeks to even up the donations or I will kick.

Lastly, I am sure you will be glad to welcome t as another of our clan elders. t has been very active and responsible, giving advice, encouraging others to donate, and being a good role model by hunting trophies but also donating fiercely.

That's all for now.

Happy trails!

LT

Our Competition Winners are.....

Hurray, our clan competition is over!

Over this month, some of you have really pulled surprising improvements in your trophy hunt and donations!

***

The top trophy improver is .... Cricket1060 with  a whopping improvement of 836 trophies!!!
Second in place with another amazing win is ... Awesome with 739 trophies!

***

The top donor with a total donation of 2321 and being able to main his donation ratio, is... t!
Second in place is ... pop3t with 962 donations and a great ratio!

CONGRATULATIONS to our winners!

***

Winners, please email me (weeliangtong@icloud.com) your personal email address so I can send you the US iTunes stored value card number for you to get those precious gems!


NOTE: For the case of Awesome, I am withholding the prize for 14 days for him to prove himself and improve his donations to 1:1 ratio (i.e. to match his current reception of 419 troops) - we can't encourage winners who hunt trophies at the expense of donations to the clan! So Awesome, please take note of this. If Awesome is not able to improve donations to the required level, the second prize will go to t for being 3rd placed with an improvement of 389 trophies.

Poor Donors Face Kicking on Sept 10

Dear clan,

I noticed that there are some in the clan who are slipping in their donations again.

So I am giving everyone ONE MONTH to pull up their socks and improve donations to meet the 1:1 ratio or face kicking by 10 Sept.

LT

New Minimum Entry Requirement for Clan from Sept 11 2013 onwards.

Dear Clan,

In view of the rapid growth of our clan, the elders and myself feel it is time to upgrade our minimum entry standard for the good of all members.

Raising the minimum std will encourage existing members to raise their league/townhall levels so that they can contribute better troops to others. It will also encourage stronger players to join the clan.

As such, as of 11 Sept 0001 hrs (Singapore time), 2013, the new clan entry requirement will be 800 trophies (Silver 3 and higher). 

Existing members who currently do not meet this requirement, do not worry! You have exactly 1 month to raise your standard to meet this requirement! This should be enough time for you. PLUS - we have the added incentive of the Clan Competition to spur you along! Let's get going!

By 11 Sept, however, existing members who do not meet this new minimum standard will have to be kicked, so please take note.

LT

Clan Competition is ON!

Dear clan,

From NOW onwards until 2359 hrs (Singapore time) September 10 2013, the Clan Competition is ON!

For the top player with most improvement in trophies earned within this one month period, he/she will get a US$15 iTunes gift card. The second best player gets a US$10 gift card. (This means the winner is NOT the player with the highest trophy count, but with the MOST IMPROVEMENT.)

For the top donor with best donation ratio within this one month period, he/she will get a US$15 iTunes gift card. The second best donor gets a US$10 gift card. (This means it is not the player with highest donation, but highest ratio between receiving and donating).

You can use these gift cards to purchase gems for your game.

I am sponsoring these gift cards. Winners must give me your email address so I can email you the unique gift card number for you to redeem the card value.

I will not be part of the competition. Everyone else is eligible.

Please play fair! This competition is meant to boost the clan's spirits and competitiveness in a good way - let's not let it turn ugly! I reserve the right to suspend anyone deemed to be cheating or otherwise uncooperative, from the competition.

The results will be announced here, at our blog. The decision is final.

PLAY ON! Good luck!

LT

Farming by jamesonsky

Hi all this is Jamesonsky here and this is my first post and I plan to make it a tutorial on farming. Now for those of you who do not know who farming is, it is a way to quickly gather resources in the game. To make this clear, farming is just raiding in the game but doing it a different way, so lets jump right in.

To my understanding, there are two basic ways to farm in this game, to drop trophies, and to not. obviously not dropping trophies would be the better way to do it but it requires a bit more time, resources, and strategy. I am going to explain how to get lots of resources quick without dropping trophies. so the army that I use for this type of raid is about three to five wall breakers and the rest is barbs and archers half and half. I have about 180 army spaces available but I used to do this when I had far fewer.

The first part to choosing a successful farming raid is to choose someone who has lots of resources and has not been on in awhile. You can tell that they have not been on in a while if their storages for gold and elixer are empty and their mines and pumps are really full  and close together. This is the type of person you look for when browsing through the selection of opponents. Now when you begin the raid after you found your opponent, you want to start by deploying a line of barbs parallel to the line of mines and pumps, so that they run up and start hitting them and taking the resources. After doing that, you are going to want to deploy a wall of archers behind them.  The reason you deploy barbarians first is to take the heavy fire power off of your archers. after you break all of the collectors and mines and are happy with how many resources you have taken, you start going after some other buildings on the outside of the walls, so not to loose trophies. some good buildings to attack are barracks, spell factories, laboratories, and builders huts because of their low health. once you destroy 50% of their buildings you will be able to end the battle and gain anywhere from 4-11 trophies.

The reason for this kind of attack is because it is cheap, quick to train, and if something goes wrong you can quickly deploy your troops to turn the battle around. one thing that you try to remember when farming is that you want to deploy as few as troops as possible to steal all of their resources and gain that one star, so you don't loose more elixer than necessary. one more thing to keep in mind is that loosing a battle and loosing a couple trophies doesn't really matter because you just care about the resources anyway and there is no reason to try to get as many trophies as you can until your base is good enough to handle other people trying to tear it apart.

Anyway thanks for reading and I hope this helps you all on gathering more resources!

Quick tip from Spork: Overtraining

So I'm spork, you've all probably seen me in game chat at one point another and I thought I'd make a quick little tip for my first post. So how many times have you wanted to go on a raiding spree but hate traing troops such as wizards,healers,balloons or anything that takes a good chunk of time in your barracks? Well one thing you can do to help reduce this time waiting on those troops to train is called overtraining What you do is that once you have your army ready for an attack amd your camps are full, you continue to queue up troops. Although they don't fit into your camps when they finish training, what this will do is that the time spent training the troop will still be counting down, but the barrack will just tell you there's no room for the troop in the camp. Once you use up your army in an attack the troop that was previously stuck in the barracks can then instantly go to the camp and save you another grueling wait for your next attack. I use this method with healers and wizards in which I line em up before i go on an attack and while I'm out raiding, the healers and wizards will have been counting down and the wait time reduced quite a bit. You can use this method to save time in between raids when using higher level troops. Well that's all I got for now so ill see you all later in clan chat.

Donations, Donations, Donations

It's been a week since I did the great cleansing and kicked people out for not donating.

I am glad to see that most clan members have since then put in strong donations and are meeting the requisite donation ratio, and better! Kudos, pls keep this up! This is what will keep our clan strong in the long run!

However, there are a few recalcitrants who refuse to improve their donation ratios.

As such, I will be doing ONE MORE round of kicking, and this time, whoever is kicked, stays out, for I will close the clan to outsiders for some time.

So, by NEXT SUNDAY, 28 July, this is what will happen:

1. ANYONE who does NOT meet the clan requirement of 1:1 ratio will be kicked. 

2. The clan will then be CLOSED to new members so that those kicked cannot rejoin, and existing members can enjoy the company of only those who donate well.

3. I will publish a list of our top 5 donors every week to encourage good donation ethics.

4. Elders will also donate HEALERS to donors who exceed the 1:1 ratio (and provided one has the clanhall space to accept one!).

I would also like to appeal to all members to consider this:

I am willing to donate max level dragons to any member who exceeds the donation ratio, and whose clanhall has the space to accept one (20 units).

So, if you have spare resources to play with, consider upgrading your clanhall to level 3 or better so that you can receive max level dragons from me (or others, if they have and are willing to donate dragons too).

cheers,
LT

Great Ninja is Elder!

Hi all,

I am pleased to announce that Great Ninja has been made an elder of the clan!

I am sure we can all attest to Ninja's super-quick reflexes in donations. But above and beyond keeping up an excellent donation record, Ninja has also shown that he is a loyal and mature member who is not only social, but ever ready to lend a helping hand, be it with base tips or encouraging others to donate.

I hope you will all join me in welcoming Ninja as our elder and cooperate with him.

cheers,
LT

"I have done the deed." (Macbeth) - Clan Cleansing

Hi members,

I have finally kicked out members who did not meet our clan donation requirements.

Some were painful decisions, but I have to live up to my word and maintain fairness to all.

I am glad that through this process, some members have shaped up and started donating actively. That would not have been possible if not for some healthy 'clan pressure' from everyone. It was good to see some clan spirit in action when you guys were actively encouraging others to donate. That's the way, guys.

I am also glad that new members now have space to join us.

I hope our clan can grow as a family of like-minded players who are generous in donations, generous with tips, and simply, social in clan chat. Whether you farm or trophy-hunt, where are you unranked or master, we are one clan and actively support one another to grow.

Onward, people!

LT

Defence Tactics 2

I made many raids in the bid to get to master, and that has taught me many lessons about building good defences by learning from those I raided (and lost to). 

As a result, I changed my base layout to make it strong enough to withstand most, if not all, attacks.

Here I am to share my plans.

1. Find your centre. 
As Spork recently discovered (!), there is a tiny golden spot in the 'field' that marks the centre. You can plan your defence around that centre (if you are a freak for symmetry like Spork and myself). Why is that useful? Cos it lets you know if you are building too far to one side or another. Why is that bad? Cos enemies can deploy from any side. 'Squeezing' them into a corner won't work. It actually makes their attack easier cos they can deploy nearer to your village! Knowing the centre also allows you to plan your defence 'sectors' more carefully.

2. Concentric rings of defence

As a trophy hunter, I always put my town hall in the centre, surrounded by big guns such as teslas and inferno twrs. Next would be the X-bows (always set to air&ground mode to kill all-dragon/minion/balloons armies!). I also group my resource storages esp precious dark elixir, near the town hall for added protection against pesky farmers!

On the other hand, if you are a farmer, then you would want to group your storages in the centre, surrounded by rings of guns for defence.

Keep a keen eye on your defences' range. Make sure they cover what they need to cover! (e.g. refineries, walls, etc.).

Group guns closer together. Isolated guns can be easily picked out and destroyed by a concerted attack.  On the other hand, grouped guns can give concentrated fire on enemies, killing them quickly before they make a dent in your outer walls (hopefully).

Balance splash-damage guns with single-target ones. Mortars are powerful against archers and barbs - but once the barbs get close, it is easily destroyed cos it has a min range that it cannot fire upon. Make sure you protect your mortars with another line of guns. Wiz towers have short range but high rate of fire - great for protecting your storages against hordes of pesky goblins!

3. All walls can be broken. You can't protect everything. Layer your defences.
I've said this before. Try to create 'bubbles' or 'compartments' within your base - don't make it such that once the enemy breaks the outer walls, they have access to your entire base. Trap them in small compartments, make them waste time smashing thru many layers of walls while your other guns can keep pounding them. Remember - enemies tend to either go straight for your TH or your storages. Layer with that logic in mind.

E.g. in the picture above, if the enemy raids from the south, they will encounter my golden cannons first. These guns won't last more than a few seconds. So I have a second ring of cannons behind them to support them, and prepare for a second wave when the enemy breaks through those walls. And once they spill in, my inferno twrs and telsas will fire at them. In other words, make your guns support each other as well.

4. Clan Halls in Defence
The kind of troops you have in your clan hall when raided makes a difference. For e.g. a healer cannot fight! Aerial troops are actually good for defence - most pp attack w ground troops, making them defenceless against aerial attackers. Dragons and minions are useful in this way. Or 25 barbarians are good too - they crowd out the enemy and slow them down tremendously, giving your guns time to mow them down. So be careful what you ask for in donations!

Also, your clan hall actually has a large defence radius - putting in a central location helps as these troops can quickly deploy and get to the enemy before they get too close.

5. Scare tactics
Remember people will only have 30 secs to decide if they want to attack you. Having max level guns placed well in defence and high level walls will certainly do well to scare potential raiders away! Of course, you can only do this if you have lots of resources! A luxury tactic!

That's all, folks. Till the next time!

LT

*Important* - Changes to Donation Rules

Dear clan,

To keep up with the growth of our clan, and just to be fair to everyone, our donation rates must increase.

Currently, a number of members are exemplary in donations, giving more than they receive, some far more. This is fantastic.

However, there are also some who have taken much but given little, or worse, nothing, back.

This must stop.

This clan will not tolerate free-loaders. If any of you have no intention of contributing back to the clan, please leave before I kick you out.

I am giving everyone exactly ONE WEEK (7 DAYS) starting from today, Sunday, to improve their donation ratios. If yours is already healthy, pls maintain.

By the end of the week, these things will happen:

1. Members with 0 donations and/or donation ratios of worse than 1:2.5 will be kicked out.
2. The elders and myself will only donate to members with 1:1 donation ratio or higher.
3. Do not request only for high level troops eg dragon or healer that only certain players can donate. If you like healers, at least also include archers or barbs as alternatives so those without healers can contribute.
4. Personally, I will only donate dragons and above to members with excellent donation records.

Please acknowledge you have read and understood by leaving a comment here with your game name. Tks.

We will review the status of the clan after next week.

LT

Spork has been promoted to Elder!

Many of you would have met Spork - he is one of the friendliest players in our clan who loves to offer tips, donate troops, or just being social.

To date, he is our second-highest donor after Jamesonsky and has a great donation ratio.

More importantly, he, along with jamesonsky, is one of our founding members. Spork has shown that he is a dependable, loyal member who has demonstrated the maturity required of an elder.

Let us all welcome Spork as one of our clan Elders!

cheers,
LT

Our clan has grown!

Hi all,

I am glad to share that our clan has grown very quickly in the past week.

Yesterday, we maxed out our clan membership space of 50, and we crossed the 10,000 trophies mark!

We also jumped up the league count and are now no. 78,441! Hahah, yes, that is quite a looong way down the league list, but hey, we just need to double our trophies count to get into top 200!

But seriously, chasing league placing is not the reason why I set up this clan. Now that we have reached a milestone - max members, >10,000 trophies, I think we should focus on growing the clan by growing our members.

On the whole, we should strive to improve our league ranking and trophies count. Of course, if you are farming, that is fine too.

How to grow the clan and grow our members? By helping each other out! The principle is - fill ANY donation box ASAP! It really annoys me when I log in and see 3, 4 donation boxes open in a row, and for the last 2 hrs! Why didn't  those guys think to donate to EACH OTHER???

I am the only Cyrstal league member so far, with only 1 other member in gold league, and some silvers, some bronzes. You cannot depend only on weelt for troops! Nor jamesonsky! Our donations are bonuses, since we can't always donate fully to everyone. The most realistic would be the donations you give each other! Help each other grow!

Don't despise lower level troops! Clan castle troops are always meant as cannon fodder or distractions or defence only, never your main attack. So it matters less if you get lower level troops - the main thing is to fill it up so you get 15-20 barbs or archers to distract the enemy.

Ok, that's all for now. To the next league, everyone!

cheers,
LT

jamesonsky is our first Elder!

"jamesonsky" has been promoted to be our clan's first elder.

Here are some of the reasons:

1. He is one of our first members, and has loyally stayed on all this while.

2. He has consistently donated his best troops to anyone who needs them. He always tries to fill up people's donation boxes very promptly, and he is our clan's largest donor with a healthy donation ratio!

3. Most importantly, jamesonsky has demonstrated maturity and dependability as a clan member. He warmly welcomes new members, and tries his best to show them the ropes.

I hope other members will look to jamesonsky as an example to follow.

cheers,
LT

Basic Tips on Base Defence

Having a strong defence is critical to this game.

You may win 30 trophies in 5 raids when you were logged on, but when you log off, you were raided 4 times and lost 40 trophies because your base was not well-defended! In the long run, you may be out of your league, literally!

On the other hand, a good defence will help you gain trophies passively! While you were sleeping, your strong base defence could have helped you win 50 trophies!

So, how to build a strong defence? I admit my defence is not impregnable, but it has helped me win my fair share of trophies, so here are some personal tips from me.

1. Know the rules of the game.
Raid victories are counted in terms of percentage of buildings destroyed and how many stars earned.
You need at least 1 star to count for victory in a raid.
3 ways to win a star:
1. Destroy 50% of buildings (including defence towers, not counting walls and decorations) in a village.
2. Destroy the Townhall.
3. Destroy 100% of buildings.

This means that the least you must do to secure a victory is to destroy the town hall and/or destroy 50% of buildings. If your attack cannot achieve either, then you would have lost.

As a defence strategy, consider the opposite - you should deny the opponent your Townhall and/or 50% of your buildings.

This knowledge becomes important the higher up the league you go. At upper Gold and above, it is almost certain that when raided, you will suffer much damage. If you can deny the opponent 50% damage and/or townhall, you will win trophies because doing so is not easy! You have to accept that in any attack, some buildings will be lost, and any walls can be breached. The trick is in your LAYOUT.

2. Protect the Townhall at all costs!
The common-sensical way is to put the Townhall right in the middle of the map, wall it up, and surround it with all manner of guns. Again, layout is critical.

3. You only have so many walls! Prioritise!
It is impractical (at lower levels, and impossible at higher levels) to wall up ALL your buildings.
After wall-ing up your Townhall, wall up your guns. If you still have walls to spare, then protect your storage facilities. Remember - enemy goblins and other attackers will be running for your storages!

4. Force enemy to Deploy Further - space out your buildings a little so that enemies have to deploy further from your walls, giving your guns a little more time to mow down approaching enemies. Notice the flashing white borders when you move and place your buildings. That indicates the limit where enemies can deploy. So I usually place barracks and other such buildings outside my walls so that enemies have to deploy beyond them and have to hack thru them to get to my walls, allowing my cannons and archer towers a few more precious seconds to shoot at them.

5. Never leave your guns exposed!
Protecting your guns not only prolong their life and by extension shortening the enemy's, they also distract the enemy from your other buildings!

6. Only the mortar and Wiz Tower do splash damage!
Splash damage is very useful against large hordes of cheap troops such as Barbs, Archers and Goblins. I would place my storages around or behind my mortars and wiz twrs so they can wipe out enemy goblins or archers in droves.

7. Don't neglect air defence! If you are short on budget and cannot afford an air defence tower, then get those balloon traps! Jorge Yao became the first person to hit 4000 trophies by using an ALL-DRAGON army! You don't want to be caught out by crazy tactics like that!

These are just some basic tips. I strongly suggest you visit the Clash Wiki site for more ideas and tips!

Know the Game AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Hi Clan,

In order to level up the trophy league, we need to be savvy players who know the game AI , know how to exploit it, and inversely, know how to prevent opponents from exploiting it against our village.

1. Units have Preferred Targets!
When composing your raiding party, be careful to check that you take a good mix of units.
Giants are great tanks, but remember - they do relatively low damage and they go only for defences.
Many a times, my horde of giants were next to the enemy's Town Hall and they just walked off to bash a wall beside it!! And if you leave them alone, they will keep bashing walls and guns... leaving refineries and storages unattacked. Golems (and balloons) have the same problem too.

Take units that target 'All', such as Barbs, Archers and Wizards. Their weakness is that they will target the nearest thing in sight - enemy units or buildings, or walls....

2. Single Target vs Splash Damage.
There are only 2 defence towers that do splash damage - Wizard Tower and Mortar. This means they can quickly wipe out groups of barbs, archers and goblins, better than your cannons and archer towers can. Defend them well!

3. Know your priorities.
If you are a farmer, then resources is paramount. Farmers tend to keep their storages in the centre of the field, walled up and well-protected by a maze of guns.
If you are a trophy hunter, then your townhall is paramount. Keep it in the centre and protect it at all costs.

4. All walls are breakable/breachable.
We all dream of building an impregnable defence held up with high walls all around our village. The reality is - your enemies will eventually shoot through or past your walls. It is a fact. with Jump Spells, Wall Breakers and Balloons, walls have only limited usefulness against enemy raids.

5. A good defence goes a long way.
While walls only provide limit protection, they are essential to any village defence, and a good defence is critical to doing well in this game: A poorly designed defence can cost you those 35 hard-won trophies you got through 4 raids simply because when you logged off, successful enemy raids deducted trophies from your score! In the long run, a poor defence may cause you to slowly slip down the league... I will talk a little about base defence in the next post.

Great MUST-READ sites for Clash of Clans

Hi all,

If you are questions about the statistics of units or buildings, upgrade costs or even the entire tech-tree, pls visit these 2 sites where you can find very comprehensive coverage on almost everything!

1. Clash of Clans Wiki

2. Clash of Clans Builder

3. Supercell's own Clash of Clan Community Forums

If you have a Google/Gmail account, you can add me (branbitink@gmail.com) to your Google+ circle and I will invite you to our own closed Google Community for Shadow-Kin!

LT

Clan Philosophy: Help Players Learn, Grow and Excel!

This Clan was set up for one purpose - to help players who are relatively new to the game to join a supportive and nurturing clan where members can rely on each other for donations as well as tactical advice.

We are therefore 'open' in our approach and rules - we are neither for nor against 'farming' - if a particular play loves to farm for resources, pls continue to do so! We are also not obsessed about moving up the league rankings, though if you love to pursue honour and glory in getting that "Champion" badge, pls go ahead!

This Clan believes that there is room for in this game for clans that host players who pursue different paths, working together from the same base (clan).

ELDER Positions
Please DO NOT ASK for Elder positions.

If the clan views you worthy, you will be appointed as one.

Two key criteria for being made an Elder:

1. Demonstrate the values of the clan - be actively and genuinely involved in helping other clan members learn, grow and excel. This could take the form of donations, or sharing of tactics and tips, or just fraternising and keep clan spirits up!

2. Be an exemplary donor. An Elder should maintain a consistent Donate:Receive ratio above 1:1 (e.g. 1.5:1, 3:1, or more).

Criteria no. 2 is comparatively easier to meet. Criteria no. 1 requires some maturity and lots of commitment.

Clan Rule 2: Always be Polite, Considerate and Fair

This clan will not tolerate any form of rude, selfish or dishonest behaviour in word or deed by any member.

Members who display such bad behaviours will be expelled immediately.

Clan Rule 1: Maintain 1:1 Donate-Receive Ratio Every Week

Clan Rule 1: Maintain 1:1 Donate-Receive Ratio Every Week

There are no minimum levels nor restrictions to the kinds of troops to be donated.

All the clan requires is that each member gives as much as he or she takes from the clan. This is to ensure fairness in the clan and gameplay.

Members who fail to maintain a 1:1 ratio may face expulsion from the clan.

What is a 1:1 Donate-Receive Ratio?

E.g. if you received 5 troops, make sure you quickly donate 5 troops back to the clan!

NOTE: A "troop" is not an individual unit!  According to the game, each unit is measured in terms of a certain "troop" value, and not by absolute numbers.

E.g. A Barbarian or Archer unit has a Troop Value of 1.
E.g. A Wizard or Giant unit has a Troop Value of 4 and 5 respectively.
Healers, Dragons and Pekkas are valued at 15, 20 and 25 each respectively.

The latest update to the game allows players to indicate specifically which type of unit they prefer for the clan to donate to them.

This is useful so please be clear in your donation requests.

However, please also note that constant requests for wizards or giants will mean you will need to donate either the same units back in kind or lots more barbarians or archers to keep your ratio even.

Remember: Do not count in terms of number of units donated or received. If you received 1 Giant, donating 1 Barbarian back will still put you in the red by a 1:4 ratio, since a Giant = 5 Barbs/Archers!

Also note that certain units take much longer to produce and in that sense put more strain on fellow players. E.g. Wizards and Balloons take 10 mins to produce. Please be patient and do not expect instant 'fill-up' for these units.

Welcome to Shadow Kin!

The SHADOW KIN CLAN

_________________________________________________________________________________

Dear members,

Since not everyone has Facebook or Google+, I created this public and open blog so everyone can access this.

This will also be the place where I will post rules, advice, and tips, since there is hardly any space to do so on the game itself.

Pls remember - be civil, polite - rude remarks and behaviour will get you expelled from the clan!

Otherwise, enjoy!

LT (weelt: Clan Leader)