Sunday, November 9, 2014

Decoding Clash of Clan War Matchmaking Algorithm

First of all, I am not affiliated with SuperCell. I am a computer programmer and a math major so I am purely coming from my own war matching experiences and what I learned from the internet. So this is a post based on my educated speculation of how the system works.

First of all, this thread did inspire me so please read this one first :
How clash of clan war matchmaking works

1. How a clan's strength is calculated
I suspect rather giving a clan one number to indicate its strength, it probably has multiple numbers in each category, such as troop strength, defense strength, spell strength, hero strength, army camp size, etc.. A number and range is assigned to each category and then normalized through geometric mean calculation.

A geometric mean is often used when comparing different items and finding a single "figure of merit" for these items since each item has multiple properties that have different numeric ranges. For example, the geometric mean can give a meaningful "average" to compare two clans which are each rated at 0 to 100 for their troop strength, and are rated at 0 to 1000 for their base strength. If a numeric mean is used to calculate the ave strength, then the shifting of base strength will overshadow the troop strength. Using geometric mean basically takes the 'weight' out of the calculation and gives a more clear picture of a clan's overall strength from all aspects.

I also believe SuperCell gives Townhall level a different weight. I agree with what this forum says that a rushed fresh TH9 will weight more than a max TH8. That explains why our clan that barely has 5 TH10 got matched up with some clans that have 20 TH10. But when you look at their TH10 bases, they were super rushed.

2. How the search is conducted
So if Super Steve says "mis match is better than no match", I most definitely agree with the speculation that the longer you search, the greater chance the mis match will happen.

See the above forum thread for more explanation. But in short, if the system can't find you a close ranged match, it will expand the circle of search and the chances of your clan being matched with someone significantly weaker or stronger will increase.

Another factor that matters in search is the pool of available opponents that share the close range of strength with your clan. Majority of the clans out there have just a handful of TH10, 10-15 TH9, 10-15 TH8 and rest with baby bases. The bases and troops strength are also spread in wide range with some maxed and some rushed. So if your clan is so strong and so out of the normal pool of ranges, you will have much less opponents to choose from, thus the chance of being mis matched simply increases because there aren't many available choices available so you must go out of your range.

3. How to build a war clan to get fair balanced matches
 I believe SuperCell does a good job calculating and comparing clans' strength. The mis-match doesn't happen during the calculation, the mis-match happens during the search.

So based on the above speculated theories, here are my guidelines as how to build a successful clan for war:

1. Stay in the normal range of strength and don't become an elite clan unless you are ready. You will have much larger pool of clans to be paired with.

2. Recruit solid TH9,TH10 and TH8 and avoid rushed or fresh bases. That's because max TH8 still gets a smaller weight than a rushed TH9. But if your max TH8 player is a better fighter and base is harder to be crushed, might as well stick with a lower number which brings down your overall strength than having a higher TH player. Rushed TH10 definitely will hurt your clan more than having rushed TH9 or TH8 so choose your TH10 bases wisely.

3. Throwing 1,2 low bases will not help. But throwing 10 will. This is especially true for our clan while we have solid 30 fighters and that's all we need to win war. The bottom 15 players's contribution will be bringing our "strength" down to a good range while we have the top 30 fighting the war.  As you can see from the calculation algorithm, 1,2 low bases won't help much, but once you throw in a large number, it will.

4. This is the most important factor : re-search after a few mins, so you stay in your range. This is more important than balancing your clan bases. So cancel the search and re-do it every 5-7 mins.

Good luck!

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Attack replays from war with Taiwan War Clan

I am not a creative video editor so I just did some simple video capture on my iPhone. So pardon the quality.

These guys have some real good attacks and i figured we can take a look at their army composition and troop deployment. 

1. Brett 3 starred by Gowiwipe
I think Brett got wiped because there were not many walls around to stop the troops from advancing. You also notice the attacker did place troops outside in various spots to cover all grounds.


 

2. Mixing hogs with Gowipe
Colton has a pretty strong TH9 base but the hogs did a lot of damage to it. It's an interesting combo and I did notice a lot of their players did this army composition with 14 max hogs

3. Air raid with Balloon and Minions
Hand picked the bad music as a tribune to Teddy Bear's questionable taste in music :) 



4. WhiteRun never gets 100% wiped, except this one

 With kitty's sad soundtrack :(

Leader's Epic 120 max wbs attack

When the number one guy decided to take out a baby #45 base, you know something epic is bound to happen.... This literally is the most hilarious attack I have ever seen :)
Enjoy!! And great job leader for entertaining us!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Meet the Fatmat boys and girls FINALLY!!! - Updated

There has been a lot of lovie dovie chats going on at night but nobody knows what each other looks like. To spice things up, some brave clanmates are willing to put it out there to showcase how purrrrdy they look like. If you would like to have a picture here, please email it to kitty at czheng_denver@yahoo.com

FatMat/Chris/Crasher
Yep three accounts and counting.
First up, of course is our fierce leader Fatmat. Guess which one is Crasher?

Brett
Guess what his real name is ???

Tracey
Coleader Brett's sweetheart Tracey is the 6 star dragon raider so watch out! Awwww you guys look so sweet


WhiteRun
with his soon to be deer salami/jersey

ZeddCypher - The real deal Zedd
For anyone who doesn't know the history. ZeddCypher, aka MK first joined the clan with Kitty and soon gave her the account. 2 years of clashing!!! He is off to better things now. Thanks to him, we have an account with max troops

ZeddCypher/KittyWrestler
Now the keeper of Zedd, but she is always doing something so the real Zedd hops in and out. So watch out when you spot Kitty having duel personality. That's why. 


Squatting Bear 
aka Teddy Bear as Kitty likes to call him, or aka Care Bear as Fatmat likes to call him. Bear also takes care of Kitty's account while Kitty is out there conquering the world. So watch out when Bear has duel personality.. Oh and don't feed him with green wizzies, cuz he will fart green smoke.. 


James/Bubble Child
If you are wondering why James always gets on Fatmat's nervous... wonder no further.. Already getting into trouble with girls .... 

Sadak
I have his picture but I still don't know how he looks like!! LOL!!

Aztec Warrior
Wow.. that's cool art eh? 

((Seb.67))
From New Zealand, Guess what Seb's name is? 


Flick
Flick is relatively new, from Milwaukee. Welcome Flick!!

Muzi
Long term clanmate from India.

Amrit
Also from India..

Jamespark
aka Batman cuz James calls him a fake. Can you find him?? 
here is the hint hint :

Now.... the final chapter... these pictures are from our clan but they were stolen so I can't identify who is who but you are more than welcome to take a guess.... 



Kitty's Net Elixer Contest : Closes Nov 5th Wed 9pm EST

This is an easy one. Not a lot of rules. Just subtract your army elixir cost from your total elixir loot, Biggest number wins. Dark doesn't count so feel free to use dark troops.

Two winners. Each wins $15 so the top two don't have to do cats fight between each other.. Doh.. that's exactly what Sadak and Muzi are doing :)

Here are the leaders :
First place : Joel.
Almost all dark troops, Even taken out the archers and 4 lvl 3 healing, his net is at 382815



Second Place : LastTwoWeeks
Also almost dark. Net is at : 380326

Third Place: Amrit . Net 296140

Sunday, November 2, 2014

The cheating Davao OX clan

Here is a post about them cheating
Complain against dadao

Their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/CLAN.BEKIMONS.2013

Not much we can do about the base but here is how you can use airplane mode to practice for 30 sec
1. Make sure u have ur entire army spells n heros. Don't do this when u have partial
2. Hit attack. Do not drop any army.
3, quickly swipe up from bottom to bring up iPad or iPhone shortcut and hit airplane mode. Make sure airplane mode says on
4. U can deploy now then watch how ur attack goes for about 30 sec then u will have connection lost message pop up. Close down the game app. Then turn off airplane mode and relaunch game, u will still have ur two attacks like nothing happened,
5. The key is u must not drop any army until airplane mode is on.
6, u should practice on a regular raid first.

Here is the shortcut to turn airplane mode on and off. Just swipe up from the bottom of your screen with one finger

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Kitty's Barching Top Dog Contest Open till 10/29 9pm EST

OK guys, this is purely for fun.. Well also train some barching expert in case we need it in war :)

Eligibility: You must have participated the last two wars to be eligible or you have been here for a while. Sorry newbies. This one is for ppl who have done work for the clan.

Rules:
1. Barching (barbarians and archers), heros and spells only.
2. TH9,10 guys must barch a  TH10
3. Rest folks can barch TH9 or 10.
4. If you pass 50% destruction, you can enter your results to win. Most destruction rate wins.
5. Share your replay or take a screenshot of the base you are attacking and another screenshot of your final results and email to kitty: czheng_denver@yahoo.com

Prize: $15 card of your choice. 1 winner from TH9,10 and 1 from the rest.

Contest runs from now till Wed evening 9pm EST. Good luck and have fun

-------------------------------------

Entries : Muzi, Seb , Will and Sadak all entered. Muzi hit 58% on a TH10 without infernos so Will and Seb are still in the lead. Sadak didn't hit 50% one star, so that entry isn't qualified.

Here are Will's and Seb's. They are very close. Will hit a few percentage higher, But Seb had to deal with stronger defenses cuz of the max cannons. I call this a tie. They currently both win the prize.

Here are the screenshots;