Clash of Clans: The Game That Defined My Teenage Years

Back when I attended high school, Clash of Clans was the game to own. Everybody I knew played it, and as the competitive guy that I am, I joined the bandwagon.

What I found through Clash of Clans is that by dedicating the three primary resources for success, you can be great. The three sources I’m referring to are time, willingness to learn, and perseverance.

A lack of time played allows you to be manipulated. If you’re unwilling to learn, then you won’t improve as you progress to higher town halls. Without perseverance, you’re going to give up almost instantly and never reach your full potential.

Here are five of the reasons why I fell in love with Clash of Clans.

The Satisfaction of Harvesting Resources From My Collectors

Something about collecting my resource from my collectors is like having a morning coffee of eating a nice big breakfast.

Although the key times to grab from your collectors is first thing in the morning and the last thing at night before you sign off, I would naturally click through each of my collectors throughout the day. I built up an obsession to claim what is mine.

One of my first priorities in playing Clash was to build all of my collectors and upgrade them to the maximum level for maximum income. The more resources you have, the more you can enhance your experience.

Lesson Learned: If you want to thrive in the real world, you’ve got to collect assets and find multiple streams of income. The more capital you have, the more capable you are of achieving your goals in life.

The Joy of Creating and Managing a Clan

Thanks to Clash of Clans, I learned a lot about business and leadership. This goes for everything from the clan name, its colors, and the clan description.

I can remember going into the global chat and trying to persuade quality chats are where my marketing skills came into play. I highly promoted the fact that we did back to back wars so that we could all maximize our loot gains.

We would get people who tried to troll the clan, and those people were counseled and removed if they didn’t follow the rules. The game seemed a lot like a business because you can delegate multiple positions as a clan leader.

Positions in a clan look like this:

• Leader — Ultimate person who controls the clan.
• Co-Leader — Can make changes to clan preferences and manage players in the clan.
• Elder — Can recruit other players from chatrooms or personal friends lists and help maintain chat etiquette.

Players could earn their stripes and my respect by donating troops to other players, participating in wars, and having genuine conversations in the chat. By having leadership roles and different positions within the clan, it made delegating work and roles to keep the clan running smoothly.

Lesson Learned: If you want to run a well-functioning business, you need to build a solid foundation with clear goals, expectations, and performance. As a leader, you need to delegate work to your staff, so everyone feels like they are contributing to a greater goal.

Clan Wars Kept Things Very Interesting

Competing in clan wars is a phenomenal way to grow as a player on the platform. Wars can range anywhere from 5v5 all the way to 50v50. The more, the merrier. When your clan wins, you can really cash out! Especially if you score at least one star on your two attacks.

With instant replay and live streaming, everyone can gauge their gaming experience by watching their fellow clan members attack. We all give advice to one another, donate the best troops possible, and enhance the entire experience for fellow clan members.

Experiencing a victory with your clan is probably the best feeling in the entire game. Everybody gets their war win bonus which ranges anywhere from 300,000–2,000,000 total resources — that’s enough to upgrade some walls and build up some armies.

Lesson Learned: Participating in wars teaches you a lot about your skills and capabilities. Getting a win boosts the morale of the entire team and allows everyone to grow and expand their bases for future wars.

Farming for Resources

Farming is the process of dropping league levels down to either Gold III or Silver I. Doing this will allow you to see easier bases that are often deserted by clash players. When a player doesn’t collect their resources, they are vulnerable to someone raiding them and taking lucrative amounts of gold, elixir, and dark elixir.

When farming, the goal of the game is not to prioritize trophy counts and getting into high leagues. The sole purpose is to set yourself up for a building/upgrading phase.

Here is an example of a base that has been deserted and open for business to any and all that are lucky enough to attack it.

When playing clash of clans, the most essential thing to do is what I refer to as “ABB,” — which stands for “always be building.”

When I was a clan leader, I made sure to support my clanmates by encouraging them to consistently build and upgrade something — whether that be barracks, collectors, troops, and spells.

You can’t upgrade if you don’t have resources. That is why farming is so essential.

Lesson Learned: Just like in regular life, the pace changes and so do priorities. There will be times when you want to go on the aggressive, and there will be other times when its good to save up and work on your foundation.

The Joy of Attacking and Strategizing

In this game, there is so much to learn about attacking. People have an infinite number of strategies. Some are aggressive and like to jump right into the action. Others prefer the conservative approach and slowly make their way inward.

My personal favorite troop combination was “GoWiWi.” This army consisted of one giant Golem who served as a meat shield, Witches who spawned a lot of skeletons that distracted defenses, and Wizards who were responsible for the primary point of attack. I’d’d also throw in some Hog Riders to bypass the walls, throw down a rage spell so everyone could charge fast, and send in an occasional healer to make sure everyone was feeling alright.

Whether its a clan war or just some old-fashioned farming, a plan has to be set in place. The feeling of failing an attack is a lesson that can always be learned from using the instant replay function. We’re not going to yield successful attacks all the time, but when we do, it always feels good.

Life Lesson: To achieve what you want in life, you must create a strategy. Without a goal or a plan in mind, you will maneuver blindly and often yield results you don’t like. By putting in the hours to study and gain experience through repetition, you are more likely to succeed in whatever you want to do.

Final Thoughts

No matter if I were in class or walking in between passing periods, I would find a way to make an attack and always be collecting resources. The drive that I developed in Clash of Clans to achieve more in life has stuck with me to this day.

The developers of Clash did a fantastic job in creating a community of people who enjoy strategy games. The app is very user-friendly with phenomenal visuals and sound effects. I have never had a problem with the app and only good things to say about it.

If you play mobile strategy games and can devote a lot of time and energy to building something great, you can do the exact same with your life. You may feel like you’re not in control of your life at times, but if you just stay the course, everything will work itself out.

Patience goes a long way. Communication goes a long way. Learning goes a long way. By playing clash of clans, you can acquire a lot of skills that will help you to become very successful in the future.