SC - Please Break Your Silence On Engineered Bases

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Originally Posted by RichardF

Cheap was not referring to the cost of creating an engineered account, it was referring to a victory obtained by having a tremendous advantage over the other clan. As a side note, looking at some of the bases in the most highly engineered clans more than a few were farmed using less than honest means.

Of course we get those mis-matches, but they are random, infrequent and not "engineered" to occur. No one in our clan enjoys the wars where we clear the board using a little more than half the attacks. And yes, our highly engineered opponents do have some skilled attackers. But to be fair, having your MinMax 11 sitting at the 16 slot 3 star your top 2 9.5 bases with max miners does not take much skill, nor did the bases with max troops for TH10 hitting the 8.5 and 9 bases need much skill to 3 star those bases. That's kind of the point, isn't it?

My exaggerated point was that if everyone "joins them" and accepts engineering as an inevitability BOTH clans will be facing off with MinMax TH11 bases.

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If you are focusing on getting heroes & troops to a high level before maxing out your defenses, you are engineering for easier wars. Yes, it's a less extreme form of engineering than what we usually mean, but the clans who maxed out defenses with level 10 heroes & troop upgrades halfway done, don't see it as fair when they match much more developed offenses at the same TH level.

We haven't seen a MinMax TH11 since September. Our usual matchup at the top has 2 TH10s with infernos facing our TH9.5s, but we hold an advantage on offense at the top. IIRC, the times we faced clans with one more TH10, they had 3 TH9.5s to our 2. It's a significant advantage, but not an automatic win. Unsurprisingly, the guys with TH9.5 are better attackers than the ones who dropped infernos early.

We're discussing at what point we should drop our infernos. I do worry that will shift our total weight enough to see lopsided TH11s.

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Originally Posted by wysiwyg

Seems that what all of us want is just fair play. Even match ups.

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True, but there is a lot of disagreement on what matchups are fair. I think some people have a kneejerk reaction to complain when they see anything that looks vaguely like an engineered base on the other side, while failing to see where they have an advantage. I also see people complaining about unfair matchups who are engaging in roster padding, knowingly or not.

The generic railing against engineering is pointless, imo. When people post the specifics of their matchups, there seem to be very few cases where someone has been well & truly screwed by MM.

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Originally Posted by ChiefTuk

If the enemy clan has a couple of rushed TH9s that can zapquake TH8s for easy 3 stars, I'm not worried. If they have a low defense TH10 giving them an extra couple attacks on our TH10s, that feels like a significant advantage. They still need the skill to make the stars. We've only seen this a few times since October & only lost to the clans that had great TH9 attackers who could 3 star our maxed TH9s.

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Yes, you still need the skill! That seems to get lost in the shuffle with many of these arguments. And I've seen plenty of wars where the maxer-type bases lined up against us had equal or better troops as well as better defenses at the top, but they lacked the skill to capitalize on those advantages. If you lack the attacking skills to keep up with them offensively, you may lose a lot to clans with engineered bases, and it is easy to recognize them and put the blame on the engineering/matchmaker. But what is often the case is that those same weak skills get you losses against the non-engineered clans, and there isn't something obvious to latch onto as the reason why you lost, because the other clan plays the same way you do, just better. Sometimes, those skills aren't even how well you do that lavaloonion or giheho or whatever your favorite attack is, but boring things like making sure everyone gets their attacks in on the best targets to maximize stars and damage. I can't begin to count how many times I've seen a war end where the other team has a few attacks left, score is very close, they could win all the marbles with just one or two well-placed attacks...and then someone goes for more loot and fails to get enough stars, or doesn't attack!

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I'm not saying unfair matches never happen, but a lot of people are railing against the system when they are at a disadvantage after a long win streak, but don't acknowledge they had some matches that favored them along the way. The only way you're getting a perfectly fair war every time is to stick with Friendly Wars.

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There you are simply substituting a different evaluation function to judge if the two rosters are fairly matched. If you don't have two identical lineups, you may agree to an unfair match without realizing it, or reject a fair one. But at least you control the pool of potential opponents. My problem with Friendly Wars is that I have no friends in clans that would be suitable opponents. Fortunately, the matchmaker works pretty well for my clan, and we get competitive wars where the better team that day usually wins. The matchmaker has flaws, but they can not only be used to gain an advantage over another clan, but also to avoid giving an advantage to another clan.

We've drawn a Clan with lvl 1 Cannons n Archer Towers that is a TH10 with lvl 5 Drags right at the bottom where our No.10 is a TH6 lol

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Originally Posted by ChiefTuk

True, but there is a lot of disagreement on what matchups are fair. I think some people have a kneejerk reaction to complain when they see anything that looks vaguely like an engineered base on the other side, while failing to see where they have an advantage. I also see people complaining about unfair matchups who are engaging in roster padding, knowingly or not.

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For my part, I would hate to see the "fix" for this issue to be that we only got matched with clans that looked exactly like our own. Half of the fun is solving the puzzle of how to beat each new opponent!

For everyone complaining about engineered bases in war....What is your clans war record?

Ours is 118 wins, 115 losses, 2 ties. We are a casual adult clan.

Pre-October update we were winning approximately 33% of our wars....Post October update we are winning approximately 66% of our wars. Pre-October update, our longest win streak was 3. Post October update, our longest win streak is 5. I attribute the increase in wars won to the October update, we are being matched more evenly, and to my clan taking a "rushed" high war weight TH 11 out of our lineup and warring with a smaller spread among our war base weights.

We do 15v15 or 10v10 wars, so maybe we are not feeling the effect of engineered bases/clans. But when we are matched with an engineered clan post October update, we have been winning or have had a fair chance at winning.

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Originally Posted by RedBuc

We've drawn a Clan with lvl 1 Cannons n Archer Towers that is a TH10 with lvl 5 Drags right at the bottom where our No.10 is a TH6 lol

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The lineup is totally artificial, being based only on defensive strength at the time the match was made. Each clan brings a collection of attacks, and bases to defend. Your enemy brings a TH10 offense to the war, it attacks the same whether it came from base 1 or base 50.

You can even see cases where someone upgrades or builds a significant defense after the match is made, or in an act of carelessness fails to make a new war base after plunking down some new super defense. Had a war a couple wars ago where the opponent's #2 base had a level 3 and level 1 upgrading to 2 inferno tower, but neither appeared on their war map! The guy on my team who usually attacks the top two bases was very suspicious, wanted to know if there was some trick he didn't know about, or if Santa had really come about 50 weeks early this year ;)

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Originally Posted by ChiefTuk

We haven't seen a MinMax TH11 since September. Our usual matchup at the top has 2 TH10s with infernos facing our TH9.5s, but we hold an advantage on offense at the top. IIRC, the times we faced clans with one more TH10, they had 3 TH9.5s to our 2. It's a significant advantage, but not an automatic win. Unsurprisingly, the guys with TH9.5 are better attackers than the ones who dropped infernos early.

We're discussing at what point we should drop our infernos. I do worry that will shift our total weight enough to see lopsided TH11s.

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Our most recent loss was to a clan with 2 MinMax 11 accounts in the lower 2/3 of their roster, and 3 mid field TH10 with max troops and TH6-7 defenses. They had 3 TH10 with infernos at the top and very solid bases, we cleared all but the top 2. Unfortunately, their TH11 troop advantage won the war. Our top 3 bases are very advanced 9.5 so it is easy to see how we pulled the inferno towers.

We are in the same boat at the top. 9.5 matching 10 with infernos. The MM changes have definitely changed the 9.5 and 8.5 equation for us. I was waiting to drop XBows till my heroes were 25/25 but it is clear since the change we are seeing less X.5 bases in our opponents rosters. I am putting mine up to TH9 max currently. Looking at our 9.5 dropping IT, I suspect they are advanced enough that it would pull TH11 targets(s) at the top. If the middle of the field was balanced it might not be a problem, but the advantage TH11 has over 10 with max troops is pretty big.

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Originally Posted by whp4

Hmm, who is being forced? My clan is full of maxers. We have one (1) engineered base on the roster - my second account which is a TH9 with only hidden defenses, and only goblins upgraded (nothing beyond goblins even unlocked, and all non-goblin troops are level 1). If you think that account is getting us an advantage in matchmaking or the resulting war, I'd like some of what you are smoking. I can't remember the last time we have been matched with a clan that makes a serious effort at engineering, and the handful of matches we get against other clans that have 2 or 3 low defense high offense bases usually end up as wins for us. We war back to back, and the only roster curating we do is trying to minimize the number of people we can't trust to show up, and not taking anyone TH9 or above to war until they demonstrate that they can fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

But let's accept the premise, for argument's sake, that somehow engineers are forcing us to play a certain way in order to be successful. How is this fundamentally different than choosing to adapt your base to fight off the latest troop combo or buff that everyone starts using, rather than losing most of the time? Is there only one way to play to avoid matching with engineers you can't beat?

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Winner winner chicken dinner.

I have said it many times in this thread as have other people as well as yourself. The clans claiming that are drawing heavily engineered clans over.... and over ..... and over..... are trying to engineer themselves (almost always with several defenseless bases at the bottom), and are just getting beat at their own game.

If you put all legitimate bases in for war, you will rarely draw highly engineered clans. I have seen it time and again with my clan's matchmaking.

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Originally Posted by gw2kpro

Winner winner chicken dinner.

I have said it many times in this thread as have other people as well as yourself. The clans claiming that are drawing heavily engineered clans over.... and over ..... and over..... are trying to engineer themselves (almost always with several defenseless bases at the bottom), and are just getting beat at their own game.

If you put all legitimate bases in for war, you will rarely draw highly engineered clans. I have seen it time and again with my clan's matchmaking.

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Sadly you are mistaken. We field TH8 to 9.5. No Defensless bases. No TH3 accounts as "filler" wins 1-10 we see only occasional poorly engineered clans or those with very rushed bases, mostly getting even matches for a fun war where attacking skill decides the winner. As the kill count rises we see more clans with very sophisticated roster and base engineering. It has nothing to do with us "trying to engineer ourselves" and everything to do with win streak. Our attempts to alter our roster to try to see fewer engineered clans by changing the mid-field accounts, 8-8.5-9 did nothing.