Clash of Clones: Guide to Clashing

[username5641]

Updated frequently with help from our awesome forum members +1




Table of Contents:
Offense: Finding a Random Opponent
  Neighborinos as Opponents
  Attack Mechanics
  Earnings and Loot
  Cheaters
Defense: If You're Attacked
Revenge!
Skins: Earn More Loot
Your Castles (and Nerds)
  Castle Summary
Special Events

(anchor tag isn't working; if anyone knows how to do this in Proboards' BBCode, please PM me)


Offense: Finding a Random Opponent

To attack a random town, tap the icon on the top right of your screen:


If under 10 nerds (maybe only since 21-Aug update), you will be shown the number of available attack-nerds (at least one is needed to search for raids):


Tap "Attack" to be taken to a random town and scrolled to a building. It does not cost anything to search for another town if you'd like a better raid. Priority for the AI seems to be attackable castles, then attackable houses (other buildings function as usual), nonattackable castle (path in this post). Nonattackable Flanders House seems to be a town that hasn't updated. Tip from A Bad Example: If you get scrolled to a castle that is under attack or wrecked, there is nothing to attack in the town. No need to look.

Attackable white house in a random town. This was my first target:



Neighborinos as Opponents

You can also attack your neighbors. Attacks on neighbors are counted separately from daily visit taps, so you can attack and also vandalize or tap their non-house buildings as usual:



Attack Mechanics

Tap on the floating weapon icon to pull up this screen for your attack:


One nerd is required to attack, but more can be used. Each nerd reduces the attack time by one hour, down to the minimum attack time. In the time before your attack is over, the opponent can defend (see below).

White house under attack by two nerds:


Note: It appears there is a glitch where attacks disappear when visiting neighbors or attacking, meaning you don't get to defend and the attacker gets nothing for the attack. Remember to clear your town first thing. (Thanks to brettolmsted for bringing this to our attention here)


Earnings and Loot

One's potential earnings differ depending on whether one attacks neighbors or random towns.

Random Town
Castle: 140 elixir and 50 gold, 12 hours
House: 70 elixir and 25 gold, 10 hours

Neighbor
Castle: 25 elixir and 10 gold, 12 hours
House: 18 elixir and 8 gold, 10 hours

Other Springfield
Castle: 25 elixir and 10 gold, 1day 3hours
House: 18 elixir and 8 gold, 1day 1hour

Towns with higher defense upgrades will take longer to destroy (see castle section). Each nerd reduces the attack time by 1 hour. Minimum attack time is 4 hours for castle, 1 hour for house.

Actual earnings are based on whether the building is destroyed or the town defends. If the attack is completed and building destroyed, the attacker receives the potential earning amount. If the other person defends before time runs out, the attacker receives:
vs Friend or Invader House: 5 elixir, 1 gold
vs Friend or Invader Castle: 10 elixir, 2 gold
(Thanks Duder)

Note: As of 26-Aug, attacks defended payouts appear to have changed:
vs Friend or Invader House: 5 elixir, 1 gold 2 elixir, 1 gold
vs Friend or Invader Castle: 10 elixir, 2 gold 5 elixir, 1 gold

Loot gained when someone defended against my attack:


My thoughts: I'll be attacking friends so they get the defense bonus, using one nerd on whatever castles I find. I assume I'll get 10e2g each when people check their games and defend. I'll also be attacking the three castles in Other Springfield each day-and-a-bit, since it appears that those attacks will complete and gain me the full (small) potential payout. Cheaters I'll use on random-town castles (for maximum greediness).
Thoughts a bit further along: Now that I have higher production of nerds, I have started to attack five buildings whenever I attack a neighbor town. I am still waiting for a castle to attack, but attacking whatever's available will likely become part of my normal single round of visits soon (say, when it's not the weekend).
(Others have posted their strategies in this thread, if you're interested to read other takes.)


Cheaters

Cheaters are 20-sided dice that can be used to either immediately destroy a building or defend all buildings in one's town. At 800 gold, you unlock these and receive a bag and a quest to destroy a building and to defend your town using them.

To clear your town, tap the cheater shield icon at the very top right of your screen:


To attack with a cheater, choose the new option to wreck immediately at the bottom of the building attack screen:


At least when one defends, there is a 2% probability that a cheater will pop out (thx Duder). I've already seen one of these today, so it appears the random payout is actually turned on this event.

Tip: If you tap the cheater shield icon in the top right and there is nothing left to defend, you receive the message, "No buildings are under attack or wrecked!" I keep at least one cheater to quickly check that I've cleared all attacks in my town before signing off.


Defense: If You're Attacked

When a building is under attack, a shield pops up over the building. Tap to defend:


You receive 20 elixir and 10 gold for each defense against another player's attack.

From Duder: If your castle/house is "destroyed", you only get 10 elixir and 5 gold. You get your building back immediately after you tap on the "destroyed" building, so you lose nothing but the potential extra elixir and gold.


You can also use cheaters to clear every attacked or destroyed building in your town (see above).

Note: As of 26-Aug, these payouts appear to have changed:
Defense: 20 elixir, 10 gold 10 elixir, 5 gold
Repair: 10 elixir, 5 gold 5 elixir, 2 gold


Revenge!

You have the option to revenge the last person to attack a particular building. It appears that this works the same as a normal attack, simply on someone that has attacked your town.

The option to revenge can be found by tapping on that building, and each attacked building has its own revenge button. For example, this was visible after my main town defended an attack by my little town:


If you choose not to revenge at that time and instead return to your town, the option will remain. However, from A Bad Example: If you leave the town by quitting or going to friends, your revenges clear out.

P.S. If you defend a revenge on your town, the text bubble that pops out of the building will say something like, "____ will have their revenge." (Maybe; this might just be a message that is cycled through.)


Skins: Earn More Loot

In this update you will receive a variety of skins as personal prizes. The skins have tasks that earn elixir. They can also be upgraded when certain coin benchmarks are reached (details on upgrade benchmarks are in this post).

At higher levels, skins earn more elixir for their tasks, and skins can level past 10 for, apparently, bragging rights (thanks Duder for the info).

To upgrade a skin, tap on the associated castle. The option will show in the list of castle information:


Note: To steal #212's clearer explanation of how coins and skin leveling benchmarks work: You don't use gold when you level up skins, you just have to have that gold "score." No idea why they don't level up automatically. You do spend elixir to level up buildings, just to add to the confusion.

Barbarian Homer
Personal prize at 200 gold
Unlocked after Prince and the Premise Part 8?
Associated with Barbarian Castle

Archer Lisa
Personal prize at 400 gold
Unlocked when Castle Recycle builds, which is triggered after Prince and the Premise Part 9
Associated with Castle Recycle

Goblin Bart
Personal prize at 1400 gold
Unlocked when Boxingham Palace builds, which is triggered after Castle Recycle completes
Associated with Boxingham Palace

Wizard Marge
Personal prize at 5000 gold
Unlocked after Prince and the Premise Part 17
Associated with Barbarian Castle


Your Castles (and Nerds)

Castles can be upgraded by spending elixir, and upgrades affect nerd capacity and spawn amount, as well as the town's defense level (one-hour increase in the time required to destroy a building):


Castle level information:
Level 1: capacity 40?, spawns 5/2hrs
Level 2: spawn raised to 10/2hrs (cap 40)
Level 3, 350 elixir: capacity raised to 45 (10/2hrs)
Level 4, 600 elixir: earn 4 castle walls (cap 45, 10/2hrs)
Level 5: Cost: 800 elixir (10 nerds/2 hours), Reward: one hour additional Defense Time
Level 6: Cost: 1000 elixir (10 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 2 castle towers
Level 7: Cost: 1300 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 8: Cost: 1600 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 4 castle walls
Level 9: Cost: 2000 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 10: Cost: 2400 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 Castle Gate
Level 11: Cost: 2900 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 12: Cost: 3400 elixir (20 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 13: Cost: 4000 elixir (20 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 14: Cost: 4600 elixir (20 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 15: Cost: 5300 elixir (25 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 16: Cost: 6000 elixir (25 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 17: Cost: 6800 elixir (25 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 18: Cost: 7600 elixir (30 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 19: Cost: 8500 elixir (30 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 20: Cost: 9400 elixir (30 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
(thanks to Duder)
From TSTOtopix via brettolmsted (here), as of 04-Sep update, after level 20: New [cost] formula is 25 * (castle level + 1) * (castle level + 2)

(I have compiled the above information into a table in this post if you'd like to see the stats a castle has at any particular level.)

Castle walls and towers are gifted in upgrades as above, then unlocked to buy with elixir at Level 10.

Note that nerds must be tapped in order to join your ranks after they generate. That means your castle(s) only generate(s) two hours' worth no matter how long you're away. We won't wake up to full castles like we used to wake up to full towns of snakes or zombies.

Castle Recycle and Boxingham Palace are personal prizes, then unlock to build as listed under the skins section above.


Castle Summary

To access the Castle Summary popup, tap the castle at the bottom right of your screen:


Note: With the 27-Aug update, the buttons on the bottom right have changed. To find the castle pictured above, first click the golden chalice (the chalice also takes you to the Personal Prize list):


You will see information about all of your castles and town:


From top left:
Number of nerds currently available for raids (I have 30)
Amount of elixir (I have 241)
Amount of gold (I have 4377)
Number of cheaters (I have 2)

Shield at top right: Defense level of town (My buildings take 2 extra hours to defeat)

Each castle is listed with its level, an "i" to link directly to the castle's information popup, and a link to view the castle no matter where you are located in your town.

To access an individual castle's information, tap the "i" in the Castle Summary or tap the building directly. You will see something like this:


Information at top left about nerds, elixir, and gold is the same as in the Castle Summary.

Below is the castle's current level, cost of upgrade, and benefit of upgrade (for me, increase town defense bonus by 1); here is where to upgrade by spending elixir. Following is time until the next batch of nerds is produced and how many (10 in 38m 29s for me).

Information on associated skin(s) and their next upgrade benchmark(s) is below that (Goblin Bart at 6300 gold for me); click to upgrade once you have reached that number of coins.

Finally you will see revenge information; click on "Revenge" to travel to the town of the most recent person to attack or destroy this castle.


Special Events

During this event, one can only buy elixir (of course with donuts) on Wednesdays. Start and end times for elixir availability is 08:00 UTC. (time zone converter, external link)

We are also given free nerds once a week. The first time you log in after 18:01 UTC Saturday, your nerds will be filled to capacity. (To maximize free nerds, send them all on attacks before this point.)

More events listed in the files:
<Date name="MedievalBuyLightningStart" date="2014-09-09 8:00" />
<Date name="MedievalLastChancePNDate" date="2014-10-04 20:00" />
Clash of Clones event end: <Date name="MedievalEndDate" date="2014-10-07 8:00" />

Thanks to OuterHaven for the info (from this post).

[Duder]

Solid work. This is the guide we need!


Attacking
Different from my first hypothesis (and yours here), the Gold and Elixir from attacking is not time related; there are only two outcomes: win or lose. Here are the rewards for losing an attack:
vs Friend or Invader House: 5 elixir, 1 gold
vs Friend or Invader Castle: 10 elixir, 2 gold

Defending
If your castle/house is "destroyed", you only get 10 elixir and 5 gold. You get your building back immediately after you tap on the "destroyed" building, so you lose nothing but the potential extra elixir and gold.


Castle Levels:
Level 5: Cost: 800 elixir (10 nerds/2 hours), Reward: one hour additional Defense Time
Level 6: Cost: 1000 elixir (10 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 2 castle towers
Level 7: Cost: 1300 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 8: Cost: 1600 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 4 castle walls
Level 9: Cost: 2000 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 10: Cost: 2400 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 Castle Gate
Level 11: Cost: 2900 elixir (15 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 12: Cost: 3400 elixir (20 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 13: Cost: 4000 elixir (20 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 14: Cost: 4600 elixir (20 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 15: Cost: 5300 elixir (25 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 16: Cost: 6000 elixir (25 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 17: Cost: 6800 elixir (25 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 18: Cost: 7600 elixir (30 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 5 additional Nerds per 2 hours
Level 19: Cost: 8500 elixir (30 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 10 additional Max Nerds
Level 20: Cost: 9400 elixir (30 nerds/2 hours), Reward: 1 hour additional Defense Time
Level 20+: Cost: , Reward: 1 Castle Wall


Attack Time:
The base attack/defense time for a castle is 12 hours (4 hour minimum), and 10 hours for houses (1 hour minimum. This does not include the immediate destruction from cheaters. There are also "fake friend" attack base times of 27 hours for castles, and 25 hours for houses. Not exactly sure what those are, but perhaps some or all of the "invaders" are "fake friends".


Skin Upgrades
There are upgrades for each skin. I'm not sure how this works, but here's the game file info (I don't know what "Value" refers to yet).

Homer Skin
Level 2: Value: 300
Level 3: Value: 750
Level 4: Value: 1,350
Level 5: Value: 2,100
Level 6: Value: 3,000
Level 7: Value: 4,050
Level 8: Value: 5,250
Level 9: Value: 6,600
Level 10: Value: 8,100

Lisa Skin
Level 2: Value: 900
Level 3: Value: 1,650
Level 4: Value: 2,650
Level 5: Value: 3,900
Level 6: Value: 5,400
Level 7: Value: 7,150
Level 8: Value: 9,150
Level 9: Value: 11,400
Level 10: Value: 13,900

Bart Skin
Level 2: Value: 2,100
Level 3: Value: 3,150
Level 4: Value: 4,550
Level 5: Value: 6,300
Level 6: Value: 8,400
Level 7: Value: 10,850
Level 8: Value: 13,650
Level 9: Value: 16,800
Level 10: Value: 20,300

Marge Skin
Level 2: Value: 6,000
Level 3: Value: 7,500
Level 4: Value: 9,500
Level 5: Value: 12,000
Level 6: Value: 15,000
Level 7: Value: 18,500
Level 8: Value: 22,500
Level 9: Value: 27,000
Level 10: Value: 32,000

There appears to be tasks that earn elixir, but these have appeared to be coded out, and according to the programmers, "lost like tears in the rain."

***Potential Task Glitch/Pitfall
1. For Prince and the Premise Pt. 8, Homer is required to Bulk up for 4 hours at Krusty Burger. I had a Krusty burger, but I had to build a 2nd Krusty Burger to send Homer to. If you have the cash, but an extra Krusty Burger prior to this task so you don't have to wait 3 hours if you encounter the same speedbump.


***Tip for using Cheaters:
Only cheaters on castles; as you can see above, Castles reap higher rewards. Also, cheaters drop at a 2% rate when you tap to defend (and maybe attack?). Also, try not to use your Cheaters to Defend; it will immediately defend all your buildings and use up as many Cheaters as buildings you need to defend.

Premium Items in the Build Menu (not sure what the values refer to yet)
Cardboard Wall: 2
Cardboard Tower: 20
Cardboard Gates: 40
DIY Wall: 2
DIY Tower: 20
DIY Gates: 40
Catapult: 85
Ballon: 55

Formulas:
Cost for Castle Levels past Level 20: 250*(1+Castle Level)*(2+Castle Level)
Skin Costs: 1000*(2+CoC Level)*(3+Coc Level)
There are formulas for each of the skin, but I'll ignore those for now.

On a side note, I'm not fond of the higher rewards for attacking "invaders." These random towns should not be incentivized more than attacking our normal friends.

[Linguo Is Dead]

So attacking random people is better? Bummer.

Anyone figure out what upgrading barbarian homer does? It's done witn gold in castle (and only use gold has as far as I can tell). I leveled him to level 2, but don't know what that did

[Superchica]

Haven't gotten to the part where I can actually attack buildings yet but if your building is "Destroyed" is it actually destroyed or just metaphorically speaking? like do we have to spend in game cash to rebuild it if its destroyed?

[username5641]

Duder, thanks! I'll integrate this information into the first post. Is this from the files?
I think "fake friend" is Other Springfield. They could have fake SFs out there, too, but those times look like what I saw when poking around in there.

Edit: Looks like it is from the files based on the edit you made while I was writing this and wandering away to do other things. Should I wait a bit before integrating?

[Duder]

Aug 20, 2014 8:54:40 GMT -5 username5641 said:

Duder, thanks! I'll integrate this information into the first post. Is this from the files?
I think "fake friend" is Other Springfield. They could have fake SFs out there, too, but those times look like what I saw when poking around in there.

Edit: Looks like it is from the files based on the edit you made while I was writing this and wandering away to do other things. Should I wait a bit before integrating?

Everything is from the game files, and I think I'm done for now. I'll create a new post for any new stuff. I can't edit right now, but I have an addendum to the cheaters section: defending all your buildings only costs 1 cheater, and doesn't cost as many cheaters as buildings being attacked. I'm about 99% sure of that.

Edit: I think you're right about fake friend being other Springfield; seems familiar from my previous encounters and fits with the attack time in other Springfield.

[username5641]

Aug 20, 2014 9:17:46 GMT -5 Duder said:

Aug 20, 2014 8:54:40 GMT -5 username5641 said:

Duder, thanks! I'll integrate this information into the first post. Is this from the files?
I think "fake friend" is Other Springfield. They could have fake SFs out there, too, but those times look like what I saw when poking around in there.

Edit: Looks like it is from the files based on the edit you made while I was writing this and wandering away to do other things. Should I wait a bit before integrating?

Everything is from the game files, and I think I'm done for now. I'll create a new post for any new stuff. I can't edit right now, but I have an addendum to the cheaters section: defending all your buildings only costs 1 cheater, and doesn't cost as many cheaters as buildings being attacked. I'm about 99% sure of that.

Edit: I think you're right about fake friend being other Springfield; seems familiar from my previous encounters and fits with the attack time in other Springfield.

Cool, thanks so much! I'm working on putting this in. Forgot how annoying BBCode is...

Question on the "base time" for buildings: When I visit and poke around (which is my inelegant info-gathering method), I'm seeing that neighbor towns are one hour longer than randos. Is this my neighbors or did you notice this, as well?

[TKE377]

One thing I noticed for the upgrades that you must do the elixer you lose but the gold you do not. So if homer costs 500 gold you will still keep that 500 gold.

[TKE377]

Those "values" you have is how much gold it costs to do the upgrade

[Duder]

Aug 20, 2014 9:39:29 GMT -5 username5641 said:

Aug 20, 2014 9:17:46 GMT -5 Duder said:

Everything is from the game files, and I think I'm done for now. I'll create a new post for any new stuff. I can't edit right now, but I have an addendum to the cheaters section: defending all your buildings only costs 1 cheater, and doesn't cost as many cheaters as buildings being attacked. I'm about 99% sure of that.

Edit: I think you're right about fake friend being other Springfield; seems familiar from my previous encounters and fits with the attack time in other Springfield.

Cool, thanks so much! I'm working on putting this in. Forgot how annoying BBCode is...

Question on the "base time" for buildings: When I visit and poke around (which is my inelegant info-gathering method), I'm seeing that neighbor towns are one hour longer than randos. Is this my neighbors or did you notice this, as well?

I haven't noticed anything specifically, but my guess is that your friends have leveled their castle up to earn an extra hour of defense, and maybe the randoms aren't leveled up yet. I visited a few randoms early yesterday, but didn't notice anything specific. For now, I'm gonna stick to visiting just friends and attacking 5 buildings with 1 nerd each so they can get elixir and gold faster. My hope is that they will return the favor and we will have an altruistic elixir and gold exchange.

[Duder]

Aug 20, 2014 9:47:15 GMT -5 TKE377 said:

One thing I noticed for the upgrades that you must do the elixer you lose but the gold you do not. So if homer costs 500 gold you will still keep that 500 gold.

So, the skin values are achievements from reaching gold #s, not purchases? I still have an hour before I get to pt 9 and can actually place the other castles and get the skins.

[username5641]

Aug 20, 2014 9:50:18 GMT -5 Duder said:

Aug 20, 2014 9:39:29 GMT -5 username5641 said:

Cool, thanks so much! I'm working on putting this in. Forgot how annoying BBCode is...

Question on the "base time" for buildings: When I visit and poke around (which is my inelegant info-gathering method), I'm seeing that neighbor towns are one hour longer than randos. Is this my neighbors or did you notice this, as well?

I haven't noticed anything specifically, but my guess is that your friends have leveled their castle up to earn an extra hour of defense, and maybe the randoms aren't leveled up yet. I visited a few randoms early yesterday, but didn't notice anything specific. For now, I'm gonna stick to visiting just friends and attacking 5 buildings with 1 nerd each so they can get elixir and gold faster. My hope is that they will return the favor and we will have an altruistic elixir and gold exchange.

I'm also sticking with attacking friends now that we have the info. It's a plus for them and no difference for me, so I'll attack all of their castles with my LARPey little sacrificial lambs +1

[JustForFunzo]

FYI, I accidentally clicked on buildings that had been attacked. Each building had a revenge option, not just the castle.

[username5641]

Aug 20, 2014 10:12:55 GMT -5 JustForFunzo said:

FYI, I accidentally clicked on buildings that had been attacked. Each building had a revenge option, not just the castle.

Yes. I realized that at some point, as well, and thought I'd written something about it, but guess it didn't come through. I'll try to make that more clear in the guide.

[Tara]

I did not realize that I was going into random towns using the "ax" button! With all the nuking going on and my generally shitty visiting standards of late, I just thought many towns had changed enough not to recognize them. Also thought it was taking me to MY neighbor towns that had gotten to the active/attack part of the game (which I thought was pretty helpful, actually ). Soooo...CRAP. I'll go back to my standard neighbor button after learning of this....

[JustForFunzo]

Aug 20, 2014 7:53:19 GMT -5 Superchica said:

Haven't gotten to the part where I can actually attack buildings yet but if your building is "Destroyed" is it actually destroyed or just metaphorically speaking? like do we have to spend in game cash to rebuild it if its destroyed?

My building was destroyed (thank you Linguo Is Dead). I just had to tap it and it got rebuilt. I still got gold and elixir from it.

[Ms_Spoooky]

Aug 20, 2014 7:53:19 GMT -5 Superchica said:

Haven't gotten to the part where I can actually attack buildings yet but if your building is "Destroyed" is it actually destroyed or just metaphorically speaking? like do we have to spend in game cash to rebuild it if its destroyed?

I wondered the same before reading the guide, and I too haven't gone too far with the upgrade, but I am going to assume the posters' use of air quotes/quotation marks for the word destroyed means they aren't really destroyed.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

[TKE377]

Aug 20, 2014 10:26:57 GMT -5 Ms_Spoooky said:

Aug 20, 2014 7:53:19 GMT -5 Superchica said:

Haven't gotten to the part where I can actually attack buildings yet but if your building is "Destroyed" is it actually destroyed or just metaphorically speaking? like do we have to spend in game cash to rebuild it if its destroyed?

I wondered the same before reading the guide, and I too haven't gone too far with the upgrade, but I am going to assume the posters' use of air quotes/quotation marks for the word destroyed means they aren't really destroyed.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

The need to be rebuilt as though they just finished the build time had you bought it fresh. You get gold and elixer from them when you rebuild.

[TKE377]

Aug 20, 2014 9:53:05 GMT -5 Duder said:

Aug 20, 2014 9:47:15 GMT -5 TKE377 said:

One thing I noticed for the upgrades that you must do the elixer you lose but the gold you do not. So if homer costs 500 gold you will still keep that 500 gold.

So, the skin values are achievements from reaching gold #s, not purchases? I still have an hour before I get to pt 9 and can actually place the other castles and get the skins.

Correct in my exp. I had 850 coins was going to wait to do the 700 homer level until I did Lisa for 900, decided against it and I kept the coins still at 850. So it's more a bench mark and then going in to actually upgrade them. The elixer you do lose though. This may be something they patch though so watch out :-/

[username5641]

What use are the skins? Do they help in defense or attacks or anything? I haven't reached that far in my game, and I'm not quite sure what to do with them in the guide.

[Duder]

Aug 20, 2014 10:43:56 GMT -5 username5641 said:

What use are the skins? Do they help in defense or attacks or anything? I haven't reached that far in my game, and I'm not quite sure what to do with them in the guide.

I just unlocked the first two skins. Homer's skin allows him to do jobs for elixir. I'm assuming this is the same for Bart, Lisa and Marge. The barbarian's skin (Homer Barbarian) does not give elixir as rewards. As for the skin levels, I upgraded Homer to level 5. At level 2, his 24 hour task earned 22 elixir, at level 5 the same task earned 25 elixir. The one hour task yielded the same reward, and I didn't notice the other task lengths.

To level up a skin, go to your castle and scroll down. As stated previously, you don't actually spend the gold, but you still must unlock the level by pushing the button.

[TKE377]

Aug 20, 2014 10:43:56 GMT -5 username5641 said:

What use are the skins? Do they help in defense or attacks or anything? I haven't reached that far in my game, and I'm not quite sure what to do with them in the guide.

Aug 20, 2014 11:25:37 GMT -5 Duder said:

Aug 20, 2014 10:43:56 GMT -5 username5641 said:

What use are the skins? Do they help in defense or attacks or anything? I haven't reached that far in my game, and I'm not quite sure what to do with them in the guide.

I just unlocked the first two skins. Homer's skin allows him to do jobs for elixir. I'm assuming this is the same for Bart, Lisa and Marge. As for the skin levels, I upgraded Homer to level 5. At level 2, his 24 hour task earned 22 elixir, at level 5 the same task earned 25 elixir. The one hour task yielded the same reward, and I didn't notice the other task lengths.

To level up a skin, got to your castle and scroll down. As stated previously, you don't actually spend the gold, but you still must unlock the character.

He is correct on that point and then when you unlock lisa she does earn elixir as well.

[Superchica]

Wow...I am glad this is running till the beginning of October LOL this sounds slightly complicated...

[Duder]

Okay, here appears to be the order of where you land upon arrival in a town. If a building is under attack, you will land at the next free building, not sure about how multiples work yet.
Castle 1
Castle 2
Castle 3
Flanders
Blue
White
Orange
Purple
Pink
Brown
Skinner
Van houten
Willies shack
Wiggum house
Muntz house
Sanjay's house
Pumpkin house
Gingerbread house
Crazy cat house

Edited to add: with multiple houses, you just move on to the next house of the same color (intuitive enough!). I have only tested all of this thru two white houses.

[turtle73]

Is there a trick to the "defend cheater"? Have the quest to use one to defend and one to attack. Attack worked fine, used one to defend but didn't register for task.