[Clash Royale] Join the clan, we need your crowns!

MNC Dover

Welcome to the Clash Royale thread!

Clash Royale is a fast paced, card based PvP brawler. Collect Clash troops, and use them to wreak havoc on your opponent’s towers! The game is free-to-play, but cash money speeds things up tremendously.

The MNC Dover starter guide for new players

Gameplay

Clash Royale has you using troops, spells, and buildings to destroy enemy towers. The game is kept very simple by having the AI control all troop movement and attacking. You simply drop your units, buildings, and spells as needed. It seems simple enough, and in a lot of ways it is, but there is a lot of strategy to be had even with simple placements.

Each side has two side towers and one centralized king tower. Each tower you destroy earns you one crown. Destroying the king tower counts as 3 crowns and is an automatic win. Towers will fight back though, so use this to your advantage when defending.

Currency

There are two types of currency in the game; gold and gems. Gold is earned from opening chests, winning games, playing in challenges, and donating cards. Gems are earned by opening free chests, crown chests, or hitting achievements.

You use gold to upgrade your cards or purchase cards in the store. Fortunately, gold is pretty easy to acquire, but will become your biggest roadblock to advancing further in the game.

Gems are used in the store to buy gold, chests, open chests, or buy card packs. You can use real money to buy gems to greatly help you speed through the game.

It should be noted that spending money in Clash Royale doesn't guarantee wins, but does help you level up everything faster, which generally makes winning easier.

Cards

Cards are what you play with. Before a game, you assemble a deck of 8 cards that you'll use in your match. You have to complete a mandatory training level before jumping into the online game. These training matches will give you a bunch of cards to start with and will be good for a long time.

Cards come in 4 rarities; common, rare, epic, and legendary. The higher the rarity, the tougher they are to acquire. Rarity doesn't equate to power though, although some cards are generally more powerful depending on what arena you're in.

In addition to rarities, cards also have types; units, spells, and building. Units are your fighting troops. They can be ranged attackers, fliers, melee units, and so forth. Spells are one-time burst effects like Fireballs or Lightning bolts that often deal damage or effect enemy troops. And finally there are buildings. These are structures that are used for defense, offense, or generating extra elixir.

The Store

Here is where you will spend gold and gems (or cash if you so choose). Each day the store has new inventory, the most important being three cards you can purchase with gold. It's always a good idea to buy 2-4 common cards and 2 rares from the store, even if you don't need them. You should do this because when you open chests, the game will give you randomized cards, but try and even your levels out. So if you're looking for a particular card and only buy it from the store, the game will give you less of that card from chests since your other card amounts are in the same range.

For example: I'm trying to get to 20 Fireballs, a rare card, so I can level it up. I already have 17, so I'm really close. The store offers up Goblin Huts the next day. I don't want Goblin Huts, but only have 4, so I buy 2 more. Because the game is always trying to get your card amounts relatively close, this helps reduce the number of Goblin Huts I might pull from chests in the future, increasing my chance to get Fireballs.

Aside from cards, you can buy chests, gems, and gold. Chests are extremely overpriced and should NOT be bought. Your gems are better spent elsewhere. Gems are bought with real money, and it's up to you if you want to buy them. Some people are pure FTP, others don't mind dropping a few bucks here and there. That's up to you. Most of us here are FTP, although some deals show up that are a good value.

Speaking of deals, whenever you reach a new arena, the store will occasionally pop up a special discount bundle. These are often a high level chest, gold, and gems. Combined they are a great value over straight spending. The only time I spent money on the game was for a Magical Chest, 100k gold, 1200 gem bundle for $9.99 (normally $20-$30).

You can also buy gold in the shop with your gems. Again, I'd wait to do this if you can. Gems are very hard to come buy and are best spent on new card bundles. Gold can be obtained quickly once you join a clan.

Chests

There are several chests you can earn in the game; free, silver, gold, magical, giant, super magical, epic, legendary, crown, and clan. Whew! Each chest has a timer before it can be opened that ranges from instant, 3 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, or 24 hours. The chests can be opened faster by spending gems, but again, not recommended. You can have up to 4 chests ready at a time. You won't earn any new chests once you have 4 already, but you can still earn trophies and gold.

Chests contain a range of gold and a card amount. The higher your arena, the better the contents. For example: An arena 2 silver chest contains 20-28 gold and 4 cards. While an arena 3 silver chest contains 25-35 gold and 5 cards. The scaling keeps going the higher arena you achieve.

Silver, gold, magical, giant, super magical, epic, and legendary chests are earned by winning matches. They arrive in a set schedule (see Chest Cycle below).

Free chests are earned every 4 hours and you can have up to 2 at one time. For maximum efficiency, try not to let both chests waiting to be open, since the timer stops until a chest has been opened.

Crown chests are earned by acquiring crowns in matches. Even if you lose or tie in a game, any crowns you earned by destroying towers go towards opening this chest. The crown chest appears every 24 hours and will have a second one on a timer if you didn't get to the first one in time.

For example: My crown chest pops up and I quickly earn 4 crowns on it. Then life happens and I don't get back to earning crowns for 30 hours. Since it's been more than 24 hours, the game has a second crown chest waiting for me as soon as I complete my first chest. I earn another 6 crowns and open the chest. After collecting the contents, I see a new crown chest is waiting for me.

It's usually best to just knock out the crown chest right when it appears, since it has a large amount of rewards and delaying them is typically bad. Side note, if you do have a second chest waiting, any crowns you earn in a match that spill you over the 10 on the first chest get counted towards the next chest. Neat!

Chest Cycle

Clash Royale has a set chest reward cycle. After you complete your training matches, the game randomly puts you somewhere on the list. The cycle is 240 chests that are mostly silver and gold. Each 240 chest cycle will also have 4 giant and 4 magical chests at pre-determined spots. Here's a list of the cycle. The chest cycle pauses when you have no space left for extra chests, so don't worry about it.

To understand this better, I highly recommend watching this video from Orange Juice gaming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKJL76hyonw

They've also created a follow-up video describing how super magical chests, epic, and legendary chests work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONK3-WX07rY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSmM3N669Eo

Basically, these 3 chests are on a 500 chest cycle, not counting free/crown/clan chests.

Leveling Up

You can level up your king tower and cards. Cards level up by acquiring a certain number of them, then spending gold. When a card upgrades, it gets 10% stronger in certain categories (health, damage, etc) and earns you some experience points (XP). When you reach a certain amount of XP, your king tower levels up. This provides a 10% increase in tower health and damage. While 10% doesn't sound like a lot, it does give you a big advantage over your opponent in game. Card levels and tower strength do give big advantages, but don't guarantee wins. Card counters and solid play will always win out in the end.

Arenas

There are currently 10 arenas in the game, each unlocked at various trophy amounts. Each new arena offers greater chests rewards, as well as the opportunity to unlock new cards. You can see the rewards by arena by tapping on the arena in-game.

Trophies are earned and lost by winning or losing games. If you and your opponent have about equal trophy counts, the win/loss value will be 30 trophies. The larger the disparity between trophy counts, the more/less you earn/lose.

Challenges

These are special ways to play in a more focused environment.

Clans

Spaffy

Yay! Did you start a clan?

seasleepy

We have an existing one (#99GGRJV) but it's basically full and I think only @SniperGuy has access to remove people who aren't playing anymore, and I think he's not playing anymore either.

I will say for the grumbling I've seen elsewhere about lolpay2win, I've spent all of $10 on this and of that I've actually only used a grand total of 99 cents worth of the gems I got from that (which was mostly just spent out of impatience for a couple of chest unlocks), and I'm top of the current clan at the moment. (Hit A7 last night for the first time! Yay! Doubt I'm staying for long, but yay!)
So for anyone just checking this thread out, you can progress without paying, it just means it's more of a slow and steady progression.

Up until about A6, I had been pretty consistently winning with a deck that focused on giant/balloon, but now I'm running a much more conservative deck, where the outcomes are usually a draw or 1 crown one way or the other (archers, elixir, dragon, arrows, bomb tower, musket, spear gobs, hog rider).

MNC Dover

I've been posting in the clan but it does appear mostly dead. I just tried to make a new one, but of course it costs 1000 gold. I'll get one up eventually if ours doesn't bounce back.

WingedWeasel

I've seen this game mentioned...well just about everywhere . is there a PC client or is it strictly phone/tablet? My phone may or may not be able to handle it (even if it can I don't think I'd put much effort into playing on it), and Amazon fire doesn't allow for downloading it naturally (could always root or something).

SniperGuy

I've stopped playing but if I can offload leadership to someone I will. Is that possible?

SeGaTai

Pretty sure you can promote someone then leave

MNC Dover

I just got 20 knight cards and can level him up to 5, but it will cost 200 gold which half my supply. Should I do it or save up? I don't want to invest too much into cards that might be less useful later. Also, is spending gold on cards in the shop wise or am I better off getting cards from chests?

Chadzilla1983

I'm ready to roll when you guys are. Did we set it up yet?

PMAvers

I wish cards would start showing up in the store once you've faced a opponent playing it. Kind of annoying to see all sorts of cards I'm never going to actually get.

Drake Chambers

MNC Dover wrote: »

I just got 20 knight cards and can level him up to 5, but it will cost 200 gold which half my supply. Should I do it or save up? I don't want to invest too much into cards that might be less useful later. Also, is spending gold on cards in the shop wise or am I better off getting cards from chests?

In the long run your real money bottleneck will be gold needed to upgrade cards. If you're actively using the knight I'd upgrade him.

General consensus is that gems are best saved for purchasing gold for upgrades and buying cards in the shop. The clan donation system makes it worthwhile to pretty much always buy a few of the commons and rares on sale any given day. You'll probably only want to spend gold on epics in the store if it's something you're missing and desperately want or if you're just one card away from being able to level up on one you already own.

Don't purchase chests. Chances are they won't contain what you want and you'll end up filled with regret and disappointment.

davidsdurions

I'm still playing this even though I hardly win anymore. Meta is faster than my crocodilian brain can react to.

MNC Dover

Man, not having a Prince or Baby Dragon is making me sad.

Chadzilla1983

MNC Dover wrote: »

Man, not having a Prince or Baby Dragon is making me sad.

Wish I could give you some! That's all I get and don't even use them.

SniperGuy

Promoted @Segatai to leader, sorry it took so long!

MNC Dover

All hail our glorious new leader!

SeGaTai

I'll try not to go on a drunken rain of terror

MNC Dover

I think I've hit the grind ceiling now. Level 6, Arena 3/4, with most cards at level 5/6. Still very few Epics, but a good number of Rares. Unfortunately, it's starting to take 100 cards to level up, which is quite a bit, and 400 gold. My gold reserves are nearly dried up now.

That leads me to believe that this is the first stop on the grind train.

MNC Dover

Got the wife into Clash and she just joined our clan (she's Kieri). Of course she opens a Baby Dragon in her 3rd chest. Then another. :x

Chadzilla1983

Your lack of dragons is disturbing.

Drake Chambers

So I've kind of stopped playing this for a few weeks and it's mainly because of the emotes. I'd probably get right back into it if there were an option to squelch or altogether disable them, but right now it's just too likely that a loss to someone who spams the laugh emote the whole match will enrage me. Not worth it.

davidsdurions

Yeah, I stopped playing because I literally couldn't win anymore. I got my $5 out of it but I wasn't going to give them any more just to hopefully maybe be able to win a couple matches once in a while.

SeGaTai

I've at least made it all the way to arena 7 without spending money, but I wouldn't touch this game if I didn't have a train commute and tilt on hearthstone too often.

That being said legendary cards feel intentionally undercosted as a hook to try and get you to spend money to get even, I've lost almost every match where my opponent had a legendary, all of them are too cheap for what they do and don't seem to have as many hard counters.

Also if anyone is looking to join the clan, in theory I'm tasked with clearing out inactives if others were looking to join and haven't been able to

MNC Dover

I'm stuck at Arena 4 and don't see much in the way of progressing or acquiring cards any faster. A lot of decks I face seem based around cards that are frankly undercosted for what they do. Baby Dragon and Prince seem awful powerful for 4 Elixir. Maybe I'm wrong though.

And the clan being full at 50 means fresh blood can't join, so booting some older accounts might not be too bad.

MNC Dover

We're gonna have @SeGaTai kick out inactive members from the clan to encourage fresh blood to join. If you still play, let us know! Here's a list of people in the clan currently that haven't donated or chatted in a long time:

@JPJeezus @Entriech @davidsdurions @akajaybay @AngryPuppy @SniperGuy @BertezBertez @Sprout @oracle @NailbunnyPD @scud @Marvin @Maddoc @Simpsonia @Morran @Nuff @Blankzilla @TehSpectre @PMAvers @Reynolds

Everyone else in the clan either goes under a different PA name or isn't from the forums. If you want to stay, again please let us know.

Sprout

Feel free to kick me, I haven't played in forever.

akajaybay

Yeah I've pretty much dropped off of Clash Royale. Might pop in from time to time, but if room is at a premium feel free to boot me.

Maddoc

Yeah same I haven't fired it up in awhile

AngryPuppy

Same here feel free to remove me.

MNC Dover

davidsdurions

MNC Dover wrote: »

I appreciate this. Drop me too.

SeGaTai

Thanks dover, will start the cull on the commute

Simpsonia

Go ahead, kick me out too.

Reynolds

Yeah, I got bored and deleted the app a while back.

Betsuni

So question for you that still play. Is this a game where you can play or not play on the gamers terms (ala Hearthstone) or more like CoC, Puzzles and Dragons, etc. where you are encouraged to play when the game tells you to otherwise you suffer?

TehSpectre

Witness me!

MNC Dover

Betsuni wrote: »

So question for you that still play. Is this a game where you can play or not play on the gamers terms (ala Hearthstone) or more like CoC, Puzzles and Dragons, etc. where you are encouraged to play when the game tells you to otherwise you suffer?

Well it does have rewards based on time (example: every 4 hours = free chest) and opening rewards costs time as well (3-8+ hours each). So you can just play non-stop if you want, but min/maxing rewards means playing in bursts. Joining the clan helps as you can donate and request cards you need.

MNC Dover

Also @SniperGuy, could you promote someone to Leader so we can mass remove people? Thanks!

ObiFett

Betsuni wrote: »

So question for you that still play. Is this a game where you can play or not play on the gamers terms (ala Hearthstone) or more like CoC, Puzzles and Dragons, etc. where you are encouraged to play when the game tells you to otherwise you suffer?

There are three main ways to get rewards:

- Free Chest: These come every 4 hours and stack up to two at a time. So you are gonna want to log in at least every 8 hours or so.
- Crown Chest: After 10 towers are destroyed (across any number of games, win or lose) you can open this chest. It can only be opened once every 24 hours. If you are really good, this can be done in just 4 games. More realistically, it takes many more games.
- Reward Chest: Whenever you win and have space to hold it, you are rewarded a chest. You have 4 spaces for these chests. The usual reward chests take 3 (silver) or 8 (gold) hours to unlock. If you win when there aren't any spots to hold it, you just arent rewarded one of these chests.

So, my usual play schedule is to jump on when one of my reward chests unlock to at least start unlocking another chest. Then I play when I have time and try to fill all the spaces and work towards my crown chest. There isn't any "energy" or whatever to worry about so I can play whenever I want for as long as I want.

The only time its not rewarding to play is when the chest slots are full AND the crown chest is on cooldown. But even then, its worth playing sometimes to rank up to try and get access to better cards.

So basically, you can play when you want and the only time you suffer for not being on their schedule is losing out on free chests every 4-8 hours.

Entriech

Yup, kick me out as well, I uninstalled weeks ago when I realised all the game was good for was making me furious.

SniperGuy

MNC Dover wrote: »

Also @SniperGuy, could you promote someone to Leader so we can mass remove people? Thanks!

I already did I thought? And yeah, kick me out.