'Should I upgrade my town hall now - or later?'' - The definitive answer!
Updated 8-8-16 -Adding various account styles and tweaking with new info I've picked up over the past few months.
I see a lot of people asking 'Should I upgrade my town hall from _ to _ -- or wait?' -- Followed by a lot of uneducated replies - a lot of opinionated information - nothing stickied, nothing that is really truly all-inclusive of an answer for everyone at any town hall level...
I aim to fix that here. - If you know of a (good) discussion on this topic - please reply with a link and I'll add the information to the main thread here...
Generally speaking - the answer will be different for every player and every circumstance based on a few things. Your clan leaders can tell you what they feel you need to do to improve performance. Always seek their guidance when making an upgrade plan; until you fully understand it yourself... then keep them appraised as a courtesy.
Keep in mind - Every clan is different - some will not accept you if you do not have the type of account they are interested in. If you have a clan in mind that you want to join - be sure to make upgrade choices that those leaders will respect.
Upgrading your town hall does a few things.
1: your loot penalty is increased against players 1 town hall below.- make sure you dont need what they have (th9 has a lot of easy to get Dark; going to 10 early removes access to that easy dark)
2: your multiplayer matches will be 90% the same as your current town hall (post th11 update change) -so make sure you have high enough research to kill these bases
3: you unlock higher level research, heroes, attack power and all kinds of new buildings...
4:*There is NO ADDED WAR WEIGHT when upgrading a town hall. If you build zero new defenses your weight will remain the same for war matching reasons.
The answer will be different based on your account style. Each type of player needs a different style of base... different priorities and some may upgrade town halls faster than others to help benefit their play style... These are in order from BEST in war - to WORST in war.
1: Defenseless – Offense only - zero defense
2: Hybrids – Aims to defend vs mirrors and attack higher than mirror
3: Minimax – Town hall 6 base designs with th8 mirrors and th11 max defenses/offense
4: .5's– Almost identical to a Maxer but will keep offense one town hall higher than defense; some look at this like an upgrade method - some look at it like a permanent solution to their account
5: Maxers / Trophy pushing players. They quite simply max every last thing before going to the next town hall; even if it means wasting a two hundred million gold or elixer while farming walls or heroes.
6: Farming focused players. - want high level defenses since they spend a lot of time offline Hiding behind their defenses. They will defend well in war – but will have to attack 5 or 10 below mirror. often they will skip much of the war troop research and will probably have low level heroes.
7: Rushed. - You have all heard the term.. but any account that doesn't fully max at each level can technically be called rushed... since they 'rushed' the town hall before maxing. GENERALLY a rushed player is seen as someone who is OUT OF BALENCE in a negative way that will hurt the clan. Most common it is a player who has heavy defenses and low offense who can not perform in war.
8: Clueless. - They never read or go out of their way to see videos or learn anything about the game at all.. they just randomly mash buttons, upgrade haphazardly and expect everyone to agree that they are epic and awesome in the game. (usual names include *CR7*, *King* , *Awesome* or they tend to have random other adjectives in their name to imply how great they think they are....) =fun amusing fact that I've noticed over the past year and a half... If you have this kind of name and really are a smart player PLEASE join my clan and say Hi.. I've NEVER MET ONE.
In any and every upgrade path - the following buildings should be maxed out - every time - asap and in this priority.
1: Castle
2: Camps
3: Spell Factory
4: Dark Drills
5: Research *archers minimum - you can skip troops that you do not use; but you must max farm / money makers at a minimum.
6: Barracks *You can literally barch through war as a defenseless town hall 8 for the first few months of the game and still be 3 starring 15 above mirror. just keep Barch maxing at each level...
7: Walls - always and at all times buy and take them to max levels; you can choose to avoid maxing them but you should aim to max them; even defenseless bases... Walls take forever to upgrade, have really low impact on your war base and can really help slow down the enemy; or force them to use a spell slot to jump over them.
Things that could be left lower level, or skipped entirely for various reasons:
Defenses: War centered players can completely AVOID building the new ones at your level (if you want to do .5 upgrade styles) - you could leave them low level to keep a low war weight for easy war matches... You need to insure that you can always 3 star - not only your mirror - but higher ranked players in war as well before you increase your weight in war... If you can't get 3 stars in war - your defenses should NOT be upgrading at all...
On the other side of the coin -- if you’re a farmer who never goes to war -you will probably want to upgrade these things fast... since you get all your money from multiplayer battles you won't want to loose it...
Research has very low war weight - but if you never plan to use one unit - say Goblin; then there's no reason for you to spend money upgrading them... use that time to focus on the troops you actually want to use... Some research adds as no weight – some 1k – some higher.
For a quick fast easy answer - you upgrade your town hall when ONE of these three things has happened:
1: Your walls are completely max - you have nothing to spend your gold/elixer on.
2: Your research is complete -- Never let the research lab sit idle... always keep it moving along.
Town hall levels 3 to 6 research maxes out in days - or weeks... so you could end up 'rushing' your town hall a bit - Town hall 7 and 8 your research will take MONTHS... not days or weeks...
Town hall 9-11 your talking over a YEAR of waiting...
3: Your heroes are max level - Keep them upgrading, it takes a LONG time to get them completely finished...
Make a list of Pro's and Cons: Math will help you figure things out... Take this example:
Do the math..
1 How long until your walls are done:
2 How long until your heroes are done?
3 How long until your research is done?
4 How long until your money making ability is max? (storage / mines/ pumps/drills etc)
5 How long until your defenses are max?
6 If you Max out everything before upgrading - pro's and cons-
7 If you upgrade now, pro's and cons -
Example of my war centered th9.
With my current play schedule and income abilities, I bring in about 10k dark per day - and 15 million gold/elixer combined. Once you know how much money you earn with the time you have - you can start to calculate how long things will take to get completed - (there are websites that can help you do that if its too difficult to do it in your head)
*post th11 update means every 4 hours a big chunk of your money will be taken... so I'd remove 25% of your income out of the equation to compensate.
1 How long until your walls are done:
-I will have MAX th9 lava walls within 20 days-
2 How long until your heroes are done?
-My heroes are level 17 (13 upgrades remaining at 1 week each... plus a few days /week in between each upgrade to farm more dark -. so you can say 100 days if non stop - and a full YEAR if going slowly.
3 How long until your research is done?
My research has been moving non stop for 11 months now - and i have 17 more upgrades needed before I'm max for th9 - that is about 120 days.
4 How long until your money making ability is max? (storages / mines/ pumps/drills etc)
-all max
5 How long until your defenses are max?
-I'm not going to max them -- not for well over a year. I went from a th 7.5 in in design to a mid th9 and have not upgraded any defenses in 45 days; I do not want to upgrade them any more until my research and heroes are 100% complete so that I can remain productive in war... I want to keep my brand new th9 / max th8 mirrors for as long as possible.
6 If you Max out everything before upgrading - pro's and cons-
+ I will look like a solid player, I'll have access to the games best clans - no one will call me rushed.
-80 days worth of gold and elixer that I can't spend on anything... all I need now is DARK for hero upgrades - my walls are max, 'done' with my defenses - 1.2 billion in loot that goes into the void of 'cant fit into storages - have nothing to spend it on'
-I will get very hard mirrors in war and will struggle to get 3 stars below my mirror; making it impossible for me to be a successful top 5 player in a serious war clan.
7 If you upgrade now, pro's and cons -
- My defenses are not max, my heroes are low - None of the world class clans will want me (based on stats alone)
-I loot penalty against th8 (but th8 doesn't have much dark for me anyway - which is primarily what I want... I only seem to attack th9 and 10 anyway at this point)
+15 million a day times 80 days = 1.2 BILLION that I can put towards wall upgrades at Town hall 10. (aka 300 Max walls at 4 million each)
+1 more dark drill worth 1800 per day.
+Bigger camps
+bigger Castle
+Another Spell slot
+higher level research (that I can prioritize over things I dont care as much about)
-So in my case... upgrading to th10 is hands down - the best thing for ME to do... I will not be building any new defenses - will not increase my war weight at all.... I will in effect simply bump my town hall up and keep moving my walls along; but will be stronger because of it due to the added attack power I get...
So - for those who made it through this 7 step question / answer system.. you should be able to answer - for yourself - ''Should you upgrade your town hall now? -- or wait?"
I hope this helps some of you make up your mind.
Question: I can't 3 star my mirror in war because I have heavy war weight. Should I upgrade my town hall to fix this problem?
Answer:Three questions need asked.. if the answer to all three is YES then you can upgrade town hall.
A: Is this a question of war weight- are you being out matched - (not a problem with skill) -yes?:
B: Have upgraded your core money making troops? (moving to the next town hall means harder money making against harder bases) - yes?
C: Have you upgraded your full attack power; (castle, barraks, camps, spells?)-yes?
If yes to all 3.. then YES - you could consider moving town hall up to the next level.
DO NOT add any new weight upgrade - focus on new attack power (castle, barraks, camps spells) - and voila; you will now be a 3 star machine again vs your mirror; if not higher... now that you corrected the mistake -don't make the same one again... keep that attack power higher than your defensive power.
Q: Should I upgrade early to get that _____? (fill in the blank)
Potential reasons to upgrade early would be for the King - Queen - extra dark drills - warden or more attack power.
Answer: Maybe - understand the pro's and cons of the decision - different play styles dictate if this will help you or not. In some cases its a definite YES - in others its a maybe... Refer to the above list of questions to be sure you have -at least - full attack power before moving up.
To learn more about war weights see this post:
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...88#post6280488
For detailed upgrade / rush guides for these various account styles - and Weight goals see the next page
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...=1#post6596640
