Hannibal’s Farming Base Guide

[TNT]

Well I farm with my old formation since new updates with few less Troops (-5 goblins,-5archers,-4 )my formation it's still
8 giants,71 archers, 14 Wbs (yes I need at least 14 Wbs to break almost base, even they have lvl 8 walls)40 goblins, 41 babs
i noticed that the new WB Ai can't penetrate my design much (with few less modification) and Im rly happy that my design can stand with those new Wbs Ai and don't have to create new design for it.The pros from little box base it's you have to clear those building inside before you punch next player, but the con. is those Wbs have shorter run distant to next wall layers(3squares distant) and defense have less time to kill them , my 9 box design have up to 6 squares(1box 6x6 squares inside) average run distant to the inner core and give my defense time to retract and mow them down before they can reach to next wall layer, so that why is for me, isn't a option to build grid layout(3x3 squares)

[luismaster]

bump...........................

[Solararrow]

Thanks Hannibal for the awesome guide due to u have reasoning behind it would like if possible point out flaws in mine , sorry being lazy and not looking for your base assessment thread

[Hannibal]

You definitely need to finish the third gold storage. Right now it's too easy to come from NW and open both compartments along separate lines assuming the hole widening bug doesn't strike. I don't know what to say about the actual wall pattern. Segmentation is good, but there doesn't seem to be anything special about yours. When possible I think it's good to use the wall logic to set up wb paths such that you know where the wb will hit next and can direct it away from your loot chambers as long as possible. On the other hand, it takes a fairly high tile investment to do that, and at TH8 you many not have enough to do it effectively.

[Solararrow]

Thanks just invested in new storage s recently been attempting to keep it compact until watched a few vids of yours current one works better than the last do you think the tower placement is correct though?

[Hannibal]

I spent a bit of time farming with them over the weekend. This may be nothing new for many of you, but it may be some food for thought:

The obvious pros of devoting a portion of your farming army population cap to minions (1) are a faster total train time, (2) portion of your army now ignoring walls and (3) immunity of those troops to ground defenses. The statistical differences compared with archers are pretty minimal and look like a wash to me, given that you pick up a little dps but lose a little health when normalized for population.

But there are a few cons:

The first is the air bombs which as I’ve posted previously are an overly hard counter to minions. Their range is huge and they one-shot even max level minions. While not all bases carry bombs, it’s a significant gamble with a costly troop.

You add dps to the defense. Obviously with an all ground army, air defense has no role. It has been subtracted from the total dps of the base defense. When you divert a portion of your army’s pop cap to an air troop, you return that dps*. The reason air armies work despite returning this dps is because (1) total base dps is concentrated in air defenses for all-air armies, and it’s often easy to saturate them and (2) you’re now subtracting ground-only defenses from total base defense. The saturation issue is significant as it relates to air bombs in particular. With a max pop air army, there’s a nontrivial chance you could saturate the bombs and have minions left over, but with only a portion of a farming army devoted to air, there’s a much higher chance that the air bombs will wipe those troops out with capacity left over.

In summary, by splitting your army between air and ground troops, you’re arguably getting the worst of both worlds, dealing with total base defense dps for both ground and air troops and being unable to saturate either by virtue of splitting your army.

I can speculate that there may be a role for minions in mid-level trophy armies behind dragons or balloons. But those obviously aren’t farming armies. We’ll wait to see if the trophy/league update makes armies like that more valuable.

* It’s not quite this simple, as you’re potentially also removing some dps from mortars. Splash defenses don’t have a “fixed” dps. Their dps can obviously spike wildly depending on how troops are clumped. So, a more accurate description would be to add air defenses and bombs to total base defenses, while subtracting a factor for less mortar dps dealt via splash given fewer total ground troops. Also, given that air defenses deal damage in large, slow, blows, much of the damage is lost to overkill. So against an army in which minions are the only air troop, only a portion of air defense is added back. A level one air defense deals 80 damage per one second which equals one kill per second. So one way to think about it is that any air defense higher than level one is lost against minions.

[Daddy]

Interesting comment, as with all of your posts I needed to throughly read it to make sure I am getting all the points, i'd suggest that for everyone - very well thought out.

The most interesting part is the trade-off aspect, it has worried me a little bit that air/ground is watering down the effectiveness of both - and without a clear advantage it doesn't make sense.

But I think there is a clear advantage in one particular area, my problem is lvl 6 mortars that are able to one shot my goblins ...but they are usually the bases with the best loot. I have found that they really can be effective - take a look around 7 minutes into this video to get an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VSkmMYDLuQ

[denial]

I spent a bit of time farming with them over the weekend. This may be nothing new for many of you, but it may be some food for thought:

The obvious pros of devoting a portion of your farming army population cap to minions (1) are a faster total train time, and (2) portion of your army now ignoring walls. The statistical differences compared with archers are pretty minimal and look like a wash to me, given that you pick up a little dps but lose a little health when normalized for population.

...

Yeah did some tests too, i could get 4 attacks per hour with 24 minions in my army... But the my farming profits were meh...

Still a complicated army to get used to, hard to train it ( u need some time to get used to the numbers of your army and to train them efficiently)

24 minions cost from 144-240 de: at low trophies most of the times you find average 200-500 de, so you barely make any profit... Air bombs are killers.... though you can trigger them with one or two minions...at higher trophies 3 air defences ..

the only plus that i saw, is that u save elixir :P


All in all DE troops for farming No No.... 9 ( for aesthetic reasons Hell yeah) :P



DE troops for me are like balloons and healers... epic fail troops (: ... small to none usage

[Hannibal]

Well, for the moment I've written off minions for farming armies but I'm hoping that a max level Mr. T might be an option.

But also bear in mind that the game is in constant flux. I doubt they'll leave the "premier" troops unattractive relative to the normal elixir alternatives. It both makes for a bad game, and removes profits from SC if players aren't incentivized to "buy in" to the most expensive troops. SC obviously doesn't know how these troops will impact the game as they introduce them and likely do it in a cautious fashion to prevent them from completely swamping game balance. If the community consensus emerges that the troops are poor they'll likely be buffed.

[AngrehBard]

Interesting comment, as with all of your posts I needed to throughly read it to make sure I am getting all the points, i'd suggest that for everyone - very well thought out.

The most interesting part is the trade-off aspect, it has worried me a little bit that air/ground is watering down the effectiveness of both - and without a clear advantage it doesn't make sense.

But I think there is a clear advantage in one particular area, my problem is lvl 6 mortars that are able to one shot my goblins ...but they are usually the bases with the best loot. I have found that they really can be effective - take a look around 7 minutes into this video to get an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VSkmMYDLuQ

I thought L5 gobs couldn't be one shot by any mortar? Isn't it the L4 gobs that can be one shot by L6 mortars? Nice video as always daddy.