In the hit game by Supercell, Clash of Clans, players focus on improving their town’s defensive and offensive capabilities by collecting and applying resources to upgrades. One aspect of this game that many players find hard to fully grasp is the clan system. With the clan system, players can create or join groups of players to share troops and participate in clan wars. This adds a social level to Clash of Clans, as the game becomes more fulfilling and interesting when your clan consists of people you know from real life.
When first beginning development of your town, the Clan Castle exists in a ruined state and costs 10, 000 gold to be repaired; once this cost is paid, the clan castle is repaired instantly and players gain the ability to join clans from around the world. Clans can exist as public or private groups and can range from anywhere between one and fifty members. Once a player joins a clan, they gain the ability to communicate with and Request Troops from the other members of that clan.
Requesting Troops sends out a request that can be viewed within the clan’s message board that allows players to donate any previously produced and unused troops. Clan members can donate any type of troop, even those that the requesting player has not unlocked through upgrading the barracks. The limit to troop donations comes from the level of the clan castle, as players start out with 10 housing spaces and gain an additional 5 with each upgrade, not to mention increases to war storage for elixir and gold, which will be further explained later on. Troops stored within the clan castle can be used for both offense and defense.
On offense, these clan castle troops can be deployed in a cluster during an attack without the cost of utilizing housing space in the army camps. This creates potential for various strategies based on careful selection of army camp troops and coordination with clan members for selection of clan castle troops. On defense, these clan castle troops will leave the castle and attack invading forces once the invaders have entered the castle’s area of range. This can significantly improve the defensive capabilities of a player’s town through the distraction of hostile troops, such as with a clan castle housing a dragon. Like the general structure of the game, the competition between players can extend to competition between clans.
A clan’s value and rank is based on the sum of its members’ trophy count. All clans can compete in a unique league of attack and defense known as Clan Wars. In Clan Wars, clans face an opposing clan of similar rank and development and the top 10 players from each clan attempt to destroy the other players’ defensive set up in order to receive up to three stars, based on the level of destruction. In this game mode, players receive 24 hours of preparation before the war begins to determine their town’s defensive layout, finish any last minute upgrades, and donate troops to fellow clan members.
Players can also scout the opposing clan’s defensive set ups to best determine the method and troops for successful invasion. Players must decide on and create a war layout before the end of preparation day, as no changes can be made after preparation day is over. On battle day, each player is allowed to attack the opposing clan twice but only the most destructive attack is counted against a particular player. Players can watch replays of attacks on both sides to analyze strength of attack and which areas of defense are most susceptible to attack. Players do not lose gold, elixir, or dark elixir from being successfully attacked; the attacking player earns war gold, war elixir, and war dark elixir from successful attacks that is received at the end of the war and varies in amount based on which clan did better. The victorious clan is decided by the clan with the most offensive stars after battle day, or the first clan to reach a total of 30 destruction stars. Overall, clans provide a social way to receive additional troop reinforcement and compete for additional resources against other players.