Clash of Clans Review

Clash of Clans is a real-time strategy game for iOS devices. When it first came to the App Store last year, developer Supercell had just released its first mobile game Hay Day two months earlier. In less than a year, both of Supercell’s games have absolutely exploded – to the tune of 8.5 million daily players generating over $2 million a day. Clash of Clans has impressively become a top grossing iPad game across 122 countries.

Those who haven’t tried it yet should know it is a typical RTS with primary goals like building a village, collecting resources, raising an army, and plundering other villages. It surely sounds like the same tired mechanics we’ve seen again and again, as what the player will be doing is pretty much the usual stuff. However, the way this game masterfully combines city building with intense warfare really sets it apart from its competition.

Like many strategy games, this one begins by constructing a village. The player will take on the role of clan chief and starts performing their duties by building and upgrading primitive-looking structures on a vacant green land. Buildings have a wide variety of purposes, including resource generation, military training, and village defense. Once the village basics have been established, the next set of tasks includes gathering gold and elixir, training soldiers, and building defensive weapons. The game offers lots of freedom for the player to create a highly customized military stronghold of their own. This is accomplished by carefully planning the layout of the village, posting weaponry, and building and strengthening the city walls to withhold future attacks from other players.

Troops are trained from the barracks and accommodated by the army camps. For starters, the player gets two basic troop units, barbarians for close combat and archers for ranged attacks. Upgraded barracks can train more advanced troop units like giants who prioritize the destruction of opponent’s defense weapons, goblins who are the most effective resource thieves, or balloons that can wreck enemy artillery from above.

After preparing a diverse army, the player can go out to ransack other villages. The battles in Clash of Clans do not pit your troops against your opponent’s troops, but instead pit your troops against your opponent’s fortress. The player must break through the opponent’s defenses in order to get to the gold and elixir stored within. In single-player mode, the game provides loads of excellent campaigns in which the player attacks goblin villages. Each one of the villages has a unique layout and the player can try out different troops and attacking strategies to break through. Players who are level 20 or above can enter multiplayer matches and challenge the more varied strongholds designed by other players. The winner will be rewarded with resources, trophies, and ranks. In both single-player and multiplayer modes, the winning condition remains the same. The player must achieve at least one star in the battle to be counted as winning. Destroying the town hall earns one start, destroying over half of the village’s buildings earns another, and destroying the village completely makes three.

When a battle begins, the player selects and deploys their troops one by one onto the battlefield. Once a unit is deployed, it is out of the player’s control and will advance automatically. This is a little annoying. During a siege, there is very little to do other than send in more troops. It would be nice if the player could assign the troops to specific targets. It is very frustrating to see two balloons attacking the same artillery, when it would be better if they split up to attack two simultaneously.

The game also features a social clan system. Once the player rebuilds the clan castle, they can join a clan. The player can donate troops to the clan, which in return reinforces the player’s village with clan troops for defensive use.

Clash of Clans monetizes through the sale of gems, which can be used to buy more gold and elixir, speed up the training of the troops, and most importantly, to accelerate the upgrading of buildings. Constructing a building only takes a couple of minutes, but the upgrading grows increasingly time-consuming. After a while, it will literally take hours or even days to upgrade a single building. This could explain why the game makes such a great profit. It is said that casual players can choose to play it at a more leisurely pace only checking on their village once every day or two. But, seriously, who can wait that long!