Attacking: Skill vs Luck? 🎲

[biggolf]

Fortune favors the prepared mind.

Troop's AI is something that can be studied. We do not understand all of it but 99% of them time, good attackers can predict their troop's behavior because they've been observing them over and over and over. Also, good attackers have plan B, so when things are not going as expect, they switch plans on the fly and could still succeed. Do skilled players need luck? Of course they do. Hell, everybody does. Skilled players, however, don't rely on it as much to succeed YET a bit of luck could take them a long way. A ton of luck, on the other hand, might not be enough for someone who is completely clueless. Luck favors you more when you have a good plan and execute them well. All you need is to not screwed over by bad luck. When you have no plan...well then luck plays a big part because that's all you have to rely on.

[Tiwaz]

Throughout my raids, I have found that both skill and luck play in equal parts. You can successfully direct your troops through half of the base, even 3/4 of the base, but there comes a point in the raid when you have no choice but to let your troops do their thing, and hope to god they do it well. Simply because you're out of spells and whatnot.

[Morris10]

Little luck, mostly skill though. With the same army composition, you could have one person get three and the other only get one because they are simply bad attackers.

[Frosticewolf]

My attacks are 90% luck. But I win all my attacks anyway.

[smasherz]

Quite an interesting question... thanks for asking

My opinion is luck does play a factor.... the more skilled you are the lesser you need to depend on luck... but yes it does play a part when you are attacking TH9s and higher...

sometimes i see wbs going just randomly whichever way they want to... honestly they were much better before... the new AI is totally screwed... queen too, i know how it behaves after watching the reply but sometimes during the battle its quite tough to predict where she is going... sometimes its just the split second decision you take on what you want to do...

[Eirhead]

Lol, luck? Luck happens in games where there is random number generator deciding whether or not an attack crits... there is no such thing in clash of clans. The only luck that happens in clash of clans is when a trap luckily doesn't devastate you despite the fact that you missed it when planning your raid. The AI in this game is 100% predictable, if you think it's not, you either haven't been playing it enough, or you just don't understand.

[Leelo]

Throughout my raids, I have found that both skill and luck play in equal parts. You can successfully direct your troops through half of the base, even 3/4 of the base, but there comes a point in the raid when you have no choice but to let your troops do their thing, and hope to god they do it well. Simply because you're out of spells and whatnot.

This is the stage I am talking about.

Please don't mistake me and think I am trying to say 'it's all luck' - I'm not.

What I am saying is that there IS always an amount of luck in the last 1/4 of the raid when there has been SO much movement of troops after deployment, traps going off, heroes luring troops off track etc that the player can't foresee or control. It's this vital stage that's the difference between a 1 and 3 star attack!

It's in this stage where that ONE Dragon, or couple of wizards or whatever turn left into the centre to take out the Town Hall stay out of reach of the Wizard Tower until the last moment when they get in range and quickly take it out before they can be destroyed - leaving a clear path to take out the spell factory, Barracks and builder hut unchallenged for the three star.

If, however, they turned right and went for the spell factory in range of the Wizard Tower they would have been annhialated leaving a 1 star.

Be honest how many raids do you see like this?

[ThatAsianBradah]

Skill AND "Luck" both play a role in a raid; however it's majorly skill and pre-raid preparation that allows your probability of success to grow. For example: In clan wars, players have at least nearly 48 hours to study 2 bases to attack and thus prepare the necessary troops to attack those bases. A smart player with skill (of course a smart person has skill) will look at the following things:

1. Base Design: Anti-Hog (Places for Double Giant Bombs) , Anti-Air (Centralized, but spaced apart Air Defenses with Seeking Mines and Air Bombs near the AD with angled up X-Xbows and Multi-Target Infernoes), Anti-Tank (2 Single Target Infernos), Anti-Infantry (prevents Barch, BAM, and other weak armies for general raiding)

2. Base strength: Level of Heroes, Level of Defenses, Level of Clan Castle (affects amount of defending troops and which troops are in the clan castle), and Level of Walls.

3. Efficient pathways to achieving 3-stars with your favorite armies and calculating how your entire raid will turn out which requires the study of how troop AI works and looking back at your troops and finding out how strong your army composition is in the first place.

These 3 aspects will heavily affect a war raid and if done correctly will net you AT LEAST 2-stars. The only thing that players will debate about when it comes to luck/skill is the unexpected things that players haven't foreseen. Such as traps, Hidden Teslas, and troops inside a Clan Castle because you won't have complete knowledge of the enemy base even if someone in your clan attacked it previously. That's why it's important to prepare well before hand with the best troops and the best spells to accommodate for such inconveniences. It's either you're ready to destroy or to be destroyed.

As for general non war raiding, players have to do the same thing, but a lot quicker and it has to be done with even more precision due to not having the time of leisure to study your opponents base to satisfaction. Usually skilled players will adapt quickly to the situation because they recognize the weaknesses of bases and strength a lot faster than inexperienced players.

My advice to players looking to increase their success for raiding is to practice, practice, and practice. You won't be able to become better unless you practice the best attack strategies out there. Best of "luck" and skill to you all 😉

[skydive5674]

You can't predict every single troop movement, and that doesn't even take screwy ai into account. So at the end of the day, luck will always have at least some weight in deciding the results of an attack.

[Leelo]

Lol, luck? Luck happens in games where there is random number generator deciding whether or not an attack crits... there is no such thing in clash of clans. The only luck that happens in clash of clans is when a trap luckily doesn't devastate you despite the fact that you missed it when planning your raid. The AI in this game is 100% predictable, if you think it's not, you either haven't been playing it enough, or you just don't understand.

There is no way you can tell me where every single one of your troops will go throughout a raid. There is always an element of that which hasn't been calcated, no matter how well you know the game.

And I say luck because it's an easier term to understand than 'Chaos Theory'. It is a large network of preset algorithms that we cannot physically calculate the implications of instantaneously in our heads.

So you're right, it's not technically luck but it still isn't realistically in our control. And luck is the label we give things not in our control.

Thanks for your contribution. NOT.