3 Attachment(s)
The Analytics Series: Collector Upgrades
The Analytics Series: Collector Upgrades
I have been thinking of a number of different analyses to do in Clash of Clans that might shed light on various topics people discuss here. Since the only common thread between them is simply that they are data driven arguments and since I have not sorted out what arguments I want to cover, I will simply do them in a series of postings. This will be the first.
One frequently sees advice to max out one’s collectors on the forum. Usually, there is no explanation. Sometimes, someone will point out something like maxed collectors can generate 500,000 gold per day (7 * 3000 * 24 = 504,000). A little less often, you will see someone say, don’t worry about maxing out collectors, you are better off using those builders on something else since you can always raid to make up the difference.
I think the answer will always be a “it depends.” Hopefully, this will provide some information that allows people to decide for their specific situation. As you consider this, please be clear this is a mater of timing and priorities. Over a log period of time, collectors will always pay off (at least as long as you log in and click on them to cash in). This analysis tries to shed light on how urgent the upgrades might be.
First, we need to make some assumptions. For the charts below, I assume that we are dealing with someone between TH7 to TH9 (i.e. a maximum of 6 level 11 collectors). Next, I am treating all resources equally. Before the recent upgrade allowing elixir for walls, I think this would have been a poor assumption. Now, I am reasonably comfortable with it. For the lower level collectors, it is important to know how frequently you collect resources since they do not have a full day’s capacity. I am assuming three times per day. This may be too much or too little for some – it does not affect the higher level collectors, but it does have a big impact on the value of the lower level collectors. I am also assuming that 10% of the collector output is lost to raids. This may be too generous. We need to consider our time frame. All upgrades are worth it if you play forever; however, we need to prioritize over some time frame. I used 15 to 180 days in the charts below.
So first, how much is upgrading worth? Well, the half million number above is a gross over simplification. Unless you are telling people they should stop using no collectors, you should be looking at the benefit from going from a certain level to another level. This graph shows the net benefit to upgrading all of one’s collectors one level. Note that it combines both gold and elixir. If you like to think in just gold (for example, you should divide the number in half).
Attachment 68515
Two things stand out to me. First, collector levels 4 to 6 are sweet spots with these assumptions. Of course, this is because the capacity of the collectors is increasing so rapidly that now the 3 times per day assumption is not so much of a limitation any more. The other thing that stands out is that the higher level collectors start going negative over the shorter evaluation periods. This is both because the upgrades take longer (so you lose resources during the upgrade) and because the upgrades cost more. Levels 10 and 11 have particularly long pay back periods – they don’t even really pay off until you get past a month and a half. Going back to the “Max out your collectors because it is 500K gold per day” simplification – realistically, a more accurate statement would be something like “max out your collectors since it will eventually be worth an extra 110K gold per day” (assuming they went from level 8 to level 11).
While the daily increase is sort of interesting in terms of one deciding whether or not it would help upgrades, if we are really looking at it from a prioritization point of view, we should consider how much we get per time we spent not upgrading something else (i.e. resources per builder day). Here the view is messier. The low level collectors have incredible value from this perspective because of their short build time. To make the graph useful, I had to limit the upper end. Even with that limit, I found it necessary to make two graphs to show where the higher collectors end up.
Attachment 68516
Attachment 68517
So, what do we learn from these graphs? Well, let’s use a hypothetical town hall level 8 with 4 builders (chosen to keep the math convenient). Assuming she was a maxed TH6, but had not upgraded collectors since then (so, she has 6 level 10 mines and extractors). She is trying to get to TH9 as fast as possible, but also does not want to rush defenses. As long as she is active enough, to keep builders busy, it will take about 90 days for her to finish off level 8. Should she upgrade her collectors? Well, those upgrades will take 12 days of time (4 days x 12 collectors / 4 builders). If she skips it for now, she gets to TH9 sooner. What does she give up? Looking at the chart, over a 90 day evaluation period, each builder day spent on collectors would have netted 43,000. So, skipping the collector upgrade would “buy” her 12 days. It would cost her 2,064,000 gold and elixir. That is not trivial, but she may feel getting to TH9 12 days sooner is worth that cost.
One could also look at the closest alternatives to decide if it would make sense. In the example above, those 12 days could have been “purchased” by foregoing upgrades to defenses. 48 builder days for a TH8 is almost the same as skipping level 10 upgrades for all the cannon and archer towers. Another equivalent could be found in gems. According to the Wiki, one day acceleration costs 260 gems. Those same gems could buy 843,234 gold. This is not quite the same thing unless we grab a really long evaluation period, but at least this gives us some guidance as to another equivalent. Extending our analysis to the 180 day version, we see each builder day spent on this upgrade generates 132K. That is 6.3 million resources skipped. The gemming equivalent of 48 days is 40.4 million resources. If she were willing to buy gems to achieve the same thing and if she was not sure she would be playing in half a year, it looks like she would probably be better off just skipping the upgrade (assuming moving up 12 days earlier was a high priority).
Overall, I think the analysis emphasizes how important it is to get those early upgrades in. They have great value. The later upgrades are a much longer term play. Levels 10 and 11 are not even positive until around 45 days. They probably are not a “good” investment until you start extending your horizon to 90 days or more. Depending on how fast you move through a level, they may simply take so long that you will want to wait until you are higher up.
There is the argument that your walls will be stronger sooner if you put the time into the collectors earlier. That is true. There is a counter argument that if one’s collectors delay all cannon and archer towers by 12 days, that some of this is lost to raiders.
The one other important “it depends” is to remember, in order for it to be worth skipping a collector upgrade, you either need to have a short evaluation period or you need to be able to afford the cost of skipping it (i.e. the 2 million for the TH8 example above). If you cannot keep your builders busy, then whether or not the upgrade is a good use of builder time goes away. It is simply a question of how many resources do you get back verses how much do you spend.
That is it for this one. Let me know what you think. If you like it or not, but you would like an analytical view of something else, let me know and I can consider it for a later topic. I think the next one will simply be a view of how fast various defenses kill off various troops and where break points are – nothing too fancy, just boiling down a bunch of math in a convenient format.
