My adventure as a nomad - farming under 200 trophies

Having recently left a clan I helped create, I was in the mood to try farming below 200 trophies because I heard a rumor that there may be some good loot down there. Because most clan leaders have a problem with low trophy counts, I decided going Nomad was the safest and probably most fun way to go about this (Sons of Anarchy Fans will know what I'm talking about).

I've been there for about five days and am happy to report that yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. He doesn't live at the North Pole - he hangs out in COC below 200 trophies.

I have a lot of content to share so I will break this into six parts:

Part 1 - What the?
Part 2 - Things you need to know
Part 3 - Attacking
Part 4 - The spoils
Part 5 - Achievements
Part 6 - More to come


Part 1 - What the?


Sub 200 farmers are a sub-culture in COC. There are no shortage of bases to attack and every day I'm surprised at how easy it is to find good bases to raid. Why are there so many bases sitting below 200 trophies? The main reason is people eventually retire from COC and stop playing. Over time their base gets raided so much that they eventually fall under 200. And there they stay, for eternity.

So why is 200 an important number? Mostly because a new player with a TH1 starts the game at 200 trophies. This is the intial "trophy currency" that allows more trophies to be pumped into the game. Think about it - how could someone accumulate 1,000 trophies unless someone else lost 1,000 trophies? If we all started with zero there wouldn't be any trophies to win.

Those previously mentioned retired players will eventually get attacked even by TH1's and TH2's, reducing their trophies until they fall under that line. Here's a small sample of those retired bases:


http://i.imgur.com/ZDsAWwk.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/cOpg♥♥♥.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/6sN8rG6.jpg


The reality is, most of these bases have empty collectors due to constant looting. During my first week of raiding, I found fewer than 10 that were worth attacking. This doesn't stop thousands of players from coming down and trying though - and that's where the real loot can be had. There are a crazy range of bases, from rushed and crappy to super maxed TH10's.



http://i.imgur.com/168vEvL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/GxMgOSo.jpg

In case you're wondering... yes, I certainly did attack that base!

http://i.imgur.com/pAwS2A3.png


Staying below 200 trophies takes commitment (described in part 2), and most farmers are pushing hard to save for something big, like archers 6/7, DE troop upgrades, hero upgrades, etc. This means no shortage of bases storing a ton of resources. Check part 3 for a sample of my attack history log and you'll see what I mean.

Before getting started on your own, here are some things worth noting about this farming strategy:

There are no bases between 200-600 worth attacking
I've heard of people giving up when they are dropping trophies because at 250 trophies all they are seeing is TH1 and TH2 bases with zero loot. They figure someone must have tricked them and stop dropping. If you try this, make sure you get below 200. Everything changes immediately once you hit 199-196 trophies.


It's hard to stay below 200 trophies
This was a surprise, to be honest. I classify attackers below 200 trophies into one of the following categories:

1. Low level players who are dropping: strangely enough, even TH4's and below sometimes need to drop trophies to find better loot. I've had dozens of low level players drop a barb and quit.
2. Players like me who are dropping: everyone is struggling to stay below 200 so normal players who might attack me if I had full storages will drop a hero and quit if I don't have enough loot.
3. TH snipers: below 200 trophies there aren't many of these. Heck, below 400 trophies there aren't many of these. So your TH will get sniped eventually, but not nearly as often as you're used to.
4. Attackers: people like me who want to take my loot. With strong TH9 defenses I'm relatively safe but have been hit by a couple of big armies for losses.

If you've ever watched high level attacks on YouTube where players are trying to stay in the top 200, you know that they are often fighting for two or three trophies an attack. This is because Supercell's algorithm makes it continuously harder to gain trophies the higher you go.

The same applies in the opposite direction for losing trophies. When I get down to ~230 trophies and do a hero drop, I only lose 3 trophies. When a low level player (category 1 above) drops a barb on my base and quits, I gain 20-30 trophies.

Also, when you attack and clear 50% or hit a TH, you will gain 10-20 trophies.

Given the factors above, you are in a constant state of having too many trophies. You will spend a lot of time dropping back below 200, but it's well worth it. Here's what your attack log will look like after you've won some loot and are getting ready for the next attack:

<need pic>


No collectors, only storages
There are so many people farming below 200 that collectors and pumps rarely have loot. I say rarely, because I have attacked at least five or six bases with full collectors. But mainly you'll be going for storages.

This makes heroes important for TH8 and above. It also will mean your army composition is not going to be barch or bam. I go into detail in part 3 for the attacking strategies I'm using


You can have a full clan castle on every raid
Another little sub-culture I didn't know existed - there are hordes of clans that come and go who's sole existence is to donate troops. They are earning achievements or leveling up. You join the clan, request, fill your cc, and leave. That's it.

Even as a Nomad I've enjoyed an extra 30 troops on every raid. Most surprising is the quality of troops. Here is a small sample of my cc after joining these random donation clans before an attack:

http://i.imgur.com/jzaVjXS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/swBP6CL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/fWJLmz2.jpg


The easiest way to find these clans is to "join clan" a few times - they'll usually be near the top and come with a variety of easily identifiable names like:

• Req
• Req and Leave
• Req and ♥♥♥♥
• CCFill
• Donators

I find it easiest to search for words like "req leave" or "req ♥♥♥♥". Don't just join the first one you see, be selective. Some are much better than others. Look for clans that have elders and co-leaders in the 80-100 experience range. You will get level 5, 6, and 7 troops from them. Here's an example of a good one:

http://i.imgur.com/Ng3jZMd.jpg


When you join, don't immediately request. Look to make sure other requests are being filled quickly. Sometimes there aren't any donators around and you'll waste a request (and have to wait 20 minutes). Or even worse you'll end up with a bunch of level 1 troops in your CC from the low level members who joined and haven't been kicked yet.

Here's an example of one you should move on from - notice how none of the requests already there are being filled:

http://i.imgur.com/RGbpCth.jpg

I'll talk a little more about how you can participate more for achievements in part 5.

Some of this stuff is just normal farming strategy, but I included everything for completeness.

Army Composition
After a few days of experimenting I landed on the following army composition. I'm a TH9 with some troops upgraded and some not:

(8) Level 6 giants
(12) Level 5 wbs
(76) Level 5 barbs (currently upgrading in my lab)
(80) Level 6 archers
(1) Level 10 BK
(1) Level 7-8-9 AQ (I've been upgrading her with all the DE)

Total cost: 91,600 elixer

I sometimes go with just 4 giants - they are playing meat shield for the wbs and heroes. The barbs and archers are clearing buildings and coming in behind the heroes to pick up storages. If I use 4 giants I add more barbs and archers. The wbs are important for getting to the middle of the base where the collectors are usually located.

I also have 4 maxed lightning spells with me which get used only occasionally. I'll use two of them to take out a difficult mortar, or one of them to take out cc troops if they are messing up an attack.

You'll see in the attack logs that once in a while I've brought a big army (GoWiPe mostly) - but that's either been for fun or just because I cooked it over night while sleeping. There are opportunities to hit 300K/300K/3K bases with it if you want some practice.


Base selection
If I'm saving elixer specifically I won't attack a base unless there is at least 200K elixer available. I have no trouble finding these.

When going for DE I'll look for a minimum of 800-1000 if it's an easy snipe. If the base has a ton of other loot along with the DE I'll lower my requirement to 400-500 (for example, if a base has 300K gold I'll go for it even if the DE is lower).


Troop conservation
I will also conserve troops if at all possible. If defenses are weak I'll only use 4 giants. I'll only deploy about half the barbs and archers before deciding on dropping the rest. This is really important - don't overkill your attacks. If mortars and wizard towers are lower, you won't need to spam the entire army.

Get in, get the loot, and get out as cheaply as possible. Saving four giants, six wbs, and half your barbs/archers adds up over time. It also means your next attack can happen sooner. It's also sometimes cheaper to drop two lightning spells on a mortar at the back of the base. Your troops in the middle will appreciate it, and you'll use less of them.


Heroes
At TH9 I don't attack without them. I boost the heroes to make sure they are available. The AQ is most crucial - she is the DE assassin. At the end of a raid I've had the AQ take out four storages by herself. For the BK, send 20 barbs with him so when you use his ability he rages a big group. They can take down a lot of defense and storages while raged.

I've tried several raids without the heroes - and it can work. But I find most times I'm wishing I had them available when leaving 300K behind, or not quite reaching the DE storage.


CC awareness
Make sure your CC is full. Those extra troops can make a big difference. Also note what's in your CC. If you are doing this as a Nomad like me, it's pretty random. If I get giants, they get deployed early in the attack. If it's mostly fragile troops then I deploy the CC after the heroes go in.

Okay, the section you really wanted to see, finally. Here is a set of attack histories. Most of these are from the first two or three days because I was so in shock I just kept taking screen captures. I've sliced them together to make it easier to see them - so the times (like 3 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago, etc.) don't really make sense.

I sliced them together because, as mentioned previously, there are 8-10 trophy dump attacks in between each raid. These are real raids though, and pretty typical of my experience so far.

Note that there is a mix of DE snipe raids in here. If gold or elixer look kind of low it's probably because I was going for DE specifically in that raid. Note the trophy range for all of these opponents. They are folks who are farming, have logged off, and been attacked as I described above. That's why the are between 200-300 for the most part.


http://i.imgur.com/BsYPNKk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZNFuipo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pIVtIg5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hPip0DV.jpg


The loot I've gained in 5 days is a little nutty. Somewhere around 18 million gold, 20 million elixer, and 140K DE. I'm about to take my AQ to level 10, she started at level 7 (yes, I gem the time... but not the loot). Archers and barbs to level 6, and my five builders have been busy with big upgrades like Xbows (5 million each).

Yesterday alone I had time to boost my barracks for 4 hours. I farmed 32K DE during that time in an effort to save 50K for my AQ level 10.

In part 5 I'll tell you what I've done with some of the extra elixer beyond wall upgrades (6 new legos so far).

There are several achievements that have come more naturally while farming below 200 trophies. Here is a list of things you can expect:

Unbreakable
There is one positive side effect to the crazy attack spam that happens when you leave your iPad unattended. For hard-core farmers the Unbreakable achievement is really tough to get. I'm on level 2 and need 250 defenses. Because farmers keep their TH outside for the most part, we almost never defend. Most seasons I'll have two or three defenses from people dropping trophies or just doing bad attacks. I've been playing COC for about 8 months and haven't even hit 100 yet.

In five days of living below 200 trophies, I've gone from 94 defenses to 205. Every time I stop playing I get anywhere from 4-12 defenses before someone finally kills my TH. Of course I go from 200 trophies to 320 or so and once again have to hero drop down below 200 the next time I get on to attack.

It's going to be easy getting this achievement due to the dynamics described above.


Friend in Need and XP
If you've read everything above you already know that a key part of going Nomad is joining donation clans. If you're above 60 it's likely that you'll find a donation clan that wants to keep you on "staff". That means you can participate in non-stop rapid fire donations for as long as you want. I've done two sessions like this, each time donating about 3000 troops.

I already had my Friend in Need before starting this - but if you are a few thousand short this is a quick way to get there.

Even better is that with every donation you gain experience points. Want to go from level 80 to 85 as quickly as possible? Just cook and donate for a few days and you'll get there eventually. Plus your own CC will be full the entire time.


Gold grab, Elixer escape, Heroic heist
You'll increase all three of these, especially if you are a TH9/TH10 and sniping storages with ease. For about six weeks before starting this farming strategy I was doing BAM raids in Crystal2. My strategy there was to bank on the loot bonus for most of my profits. It works great, in fact I have another thread on BAM raid strategy that's been popular on the forums.

I still like that strategy but one big drawback is you don't increase these three categories at all. I raided for almost 40 million gold but only 7 or 8 million was from loot, the rest was in the bonus (a million gold bonus for every 20 attacks). Farming below 200 means no loot bonus so everything you gain goes into these three achievement categories.


Humiliator and Conquerer
In this case, also known as the "jerk of the year" :). With all these TH1-TH3 bases sitting down here, I could drop both heros and take out an exposed TH in less than five seconds.

I haven't done it yet because it would mean harder work dropping trophies. But if you really want to get those two achievements you could spend a week or two just crushing townhalls.


Other categories
I've done well in other categories due to some abandoned bases and really rushed TH's. Things like XBow exterminator and Firefighter will go up if you attack the right bases.

I'm going to add more stuff here, videos coming soon!

I've gotten a little bored farming so I am gonna try this. Been playing for 2 years though :cool:

Awesome post !!! Where is the bam guide??

Posting to sub !!! I might go to sub200. Been farming 2200 as a starting th9

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xQQx

Awesome post !!! Where is the bam guide??

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I updated the post above with a direct link :)

Thx for all the info on sub 200 farming. I was told by a few ppl that only TH8's and under should try it out, your screenshots say different. I'll try it out tonight and let u know how i make out.