What to do about a premature Town Hall ?

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Originally Posted by PredatorBonbeeCanada

Just gem the other buildings and ur fine :)

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Then your walls would be behind and it takes lots of $ to upgrade walls.

I am currently maxing out my defences. Do you guys think that troops in the lab should be maxed out as well? I still haven't started on the Dark Troops since I don't use them much.

Thank you helpful info

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Originally Posted by Stormp00per

I am currently maxing out my defences. Do you guys think that troops in the lab should be maxed out as well? I still haven't started on the Dark Troops since I don't use them much.

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Elixir is less valuable than gold, and DE is possibly the only resource that is plentiful at TH10. Personally I'd not let your builders sleep if all you have left at a given town hall level is research.

The question really has to be is why Battles are not determined by level instead of trophy count, this way there would be no need for these penalties as people would only fight enemies on or around their level of development, it would also stop people at Level 80+ dropping down to 1000 trophies and destroying less developed clans!

wake up Super Cell and implement battles done on a level playing field, you wouldn't have LVL 9 players leaving all the time and people would still be buying Gems from you beyond Lvl 9

i never knew there was a loot penalty... now i wont level up my townhall XD

Very nice thread.

Wanted to share my personal experience hopefully it will help and inspire others.

Started to play CoC about 1 month ago when my son asked me to buy gems. I got addicted to the game and never stopped playing ever since.

When I started my son was on a premature TH7. Walls were level 3-4, defenses on lowest levels (WT 1, Mortar 2-3, Canon and archer towers around 3-4, etc). He had not gemmed anything but basically rushing the TH upgrade before the rest.

I agree to give him the 2500 gems packages but accidentally he hit the button 3 times (gems did not come right away and no confirmation message so he thought it was not working, SC PLEASE FIX THIS). Btw we used these gems to buy all 5 builders, yet the best thing we have done so far in CoC.

After that we rushed the TH upgrade to level 8 and my son was looking for TH 9. That is where we luckily stopped. Initally just because I knew in general that it would be good to upgrade other things first. Then I started to read and learned about the loot penalties.

Initially I had no idea this would be such a slow process until I made a progress status/planning table which is what I want to share with you.

I made an table in excel listing all buildings with their current level status and then listing below maximum upgradable levels for TH8 with associated costs and duration. As an example, if I have 2 mortars in level 4 and 1 in level 5 the table would show like this:

Description Level Qty Cost Total cost Time total time
Mortar 5 2 800,000 1,600,000 4 5
Mortar 6 3 1,600,000 4,800,000 5 15
TOTAL 6,400,000 23

Meaning that I have 2 mortars to upgrade to level 5 and then 3 to level 6 which would cost in total 6,400,000 gold and 23 days.

I did the same for all buildings and grouped them in different categories such as:

Defensive
Army
Laboratory
Resources

I made a separate table which picked the data from the above table but only the sums for each category. This gave me a very good idea of how long and how much it would take me to upgrade everything. It was also very useful as I could plan how to allocate my builders so that all upgrades finish more or less at the same time. From this summary to always have at least 3 builders allocated to defensive structures upgrades and the other 2 split between army, resources and BK. With this allocation, defensive structures will finish in 115 days, laboratory upgrades in 110 days, resources in 104 days and army in 57 days.

I think that cost will not be an issue. I have been farming a lot and until now I have never had a builder in idle mode because of lack of resources, on the contrary. Walls might be an issue, but lets see, we are doing well till now (halfway to level 7 walls).

I have included snapshots of these tables just as a sample but if anyone wants the actual excel file, I will be willing to share.

Happy clashing

Edit: this table was not done from the first moment I started to play. Did after my son was pushing to upgrade to TH9 and I wanted to get an idea how long that would take to upgrade everything.

I wish you didn't quit, your such a big help hanni! :o

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Originally Posted by Hannibal

I get PMs asking for advice on this situation quite frequently and thought I’d write something up to save a little time.

What is a premature town hall?

A premature town hall is a village in which town hall levels are advanced quickly, and usually with the aid of gems, to unlock a high-level feature -- often the X-bow or inferno tower.

A premature town hall is not the same thing as a non-maximized town hall. For many reasons it's often a good idea to complete every upgrade and building project available at a given town hall level. While there are reasons to do this, a base which advances with a handful of incomplete upgrades or building projects is not at the same risk to damage their gameplay as described in this thread.

What can you do about it?

First, you need to think hard about deleting your village and restarting. I know that it’s hard to swallow the financial loss, but you need to think carefully about it nonetheless. The reason for this is the hidden loot penalties which SC never explains, but are nonetheless key drivers of end game play. A full exposition can be found in Zach’s post, but the nutshell version is that as you level up your town hall you incur penalties to looting villages with town halls lower than yours, while those lower town halls simultaneously get bonuses to looting you.

The end result of this is that as a premature TH9-10, you are the closest thing to fresh meat that exists in this game. Fully developed TH9-10 villages are going to salivate every time you come up in their attack queue, and even lower town halls are going to take a shot at you for the bonus they get against higher town hall levels.

Bear in mind also that the money you have invested is a pittance relative to the investment you need to create a competitive TH9-10 base. TH7 is the sweet spot for farming gold in CoC, and you have forever lost access to it.

So in short, it’s a twofer. You’re both the kid wearing a “Kick Me” sign on his back, while simultaneously having less ability to dig yourself out of the hole you’re in. Consider carefully if deleting and restarting is a good option.

But let’s say it isn’t an option. The reason doesn't have to matter, but maybe there’s no way you’re going to lose that $100, giving up just isn’t how you roll, and screw math anyway. What now?

First, make sure you have all the builders. They’re far and away the best investment you can make with cash, and if you’re going to stick with your gimped base, you’re going to need all the help you can get. So cough up that extra $20-5, and buy the last builders.

Next, bear in mind that you won’t be able to defend your loot for a long, long time. Your best defense is simply not to have loot in your storages by spending it as soon as possible. Consider also that most people consider a threshold of 70-100k gold as the low end of what they’d attack depending on the base strength and troop investment. This means that considering loot penalties, provided you have less than 350k gold in storages, you’re less likely to be attacked by an equal town hall level. (Lower TH levels may still be motivated to attack you though.)

The general strategy is to dump loot as quickly as possible so that you never have enough in your storages to be worth attacking. Some people advocate keeping a builder free to dump excess gold into walls, but I’d personally just keep them all building. But to have the resources to level anything, you need to be gaining loot yourself. You’re going to have to learn how to farm.

There is no shortage of farming guides on this forum, but the nutshell version is to park somewhere between 1200-1500 trophies, and pick on undefended collectors and weak bases for loot with an army consisting primarily of goblins, giants, archers, wallbreakers, and possibly barbarians. In order to do this, you need to have a viable TH9-10 army. If you have any gems left over after your ill-advised rush to TH9 and builder purchases, this is where you should dump them – in your offense. Realistically a viable army at TH9 is a minimum of 200 pop capacity and level five troops. Offense and defense draw largely from separate resource pools, but if there’s ever a choice between them, always upgrade offense first.

As far as upgrading your defenses, your top priorities should be the clan castle, mortars, wizard towers, and Xbows. However, don’t do this at the expense of dumping gold fast. Remember that you’re going to be that prime target for a long time. When your base gets steamrolled, it wasn’t that you failed to copy somebody’s base design well enough. It’s that your base is underleveled.

Also, make sure that you're in an active clan that donates. New players underestimate the strength of the clan castle, but a fully staffed clan castle is a force to be reckoned with if properly positioned in the center of your base.


Finally, an aside directed at Supercell:

With respect, I really think you need to explain the loot penalties in game. From a game design perspective, spending cash in game should never be a mistake. The fact that you take this subset of players willing to start playing CoC with a couple hundred dollar investment, and effectively drive them out of the game by landing them in the doghouse as a premature TH9 is just bad business. You’re alienating the most potentially lucrative subset of your player base.

You need a pop-up when people upgrade town halls that says something along the lines of, “Are you sure? Leveling up your town hall gives you access to higher level troops and defenses, but also incurs modifications to your looting potential which limits your access to lower level villages while also making you a more attractive target for higher level villages. It’s often best to maximize the offenses and defenses at each town hall level before proceeding.”

With regards,

Hannibal

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That is great, Hannibal. Fully agreed and it tells it all.
- Chris

I always thought that rushing town halls was a bad thing as you would advance trophies to fast and be taken out by high level troops. But that puts a new spin on things. Thanks:):)