I was sad to see that my favorite part of the new upgrade has been disabled and hasn't reappeared.

It was available for a few hours and those that had them and didn't remove them may still have them.

Here is one being removed:







Its annoying that something that most of us were looking forward to and something that would give people more gems without paying for them had to be disabled but all other updates and items have worked fine.

Anyway. The Gem Box is due to be re-included in the next update which is supposed to be released in April.

From Supercell:
"Good news and bad news! Good news is that we have fixed the Gem Box. Bad news is that it requires a full update (it can't be done with only a maintenance break). We were looking for a way to fix it with a maintenance break, because that way we would've been able to bring it back right away, but unfortunately it's not possible. 

The fix itself has already been developed and tested, so it'll be in the next update  Thank you for your patience, the Gem Boxes will be there soon!"

The update wasn't that great unless you're in the higher levels. On the bright side I got 6 Gems from a bush the other day. Yippeeee
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Also, I have updated the layout section a bit although it is a work in progress i'm going to work on the other pages a bit more...

Supercell are releasing sneak peeks of what is coming for the new update, here is what has been released so far, this will be continually updated as more info gets released!

Gem Box:

The Gem Box spawns as an obstacle like trees and bushes.

Only one will appear at a time so harvest it as soon as it appears.

It will cost 1,000 elixir to remove the box and Harvest the Gems.

No word on how many Gems will be in the box but I imagine it should be significantly more than you get from removing trees.




Trees and Bushes Gem Harvest increased:
Trees and bushes now give you more gems, would be nice to see how many, I hope its a significant increase.

(It might be worth saving your trees until the update is released to get more gems!)

Boost cost reduction:
Only on Barracks and Spell factory but still a slight improvement.

Boost cost and duration is halved to 10 gems for 2 hours.

Hero recovery boost:
You can now boost your heros recovery by 4x (unsure on cost as of yet).

Freeze spell improvement:
Duration of spell increased at level 5

Minion Level 6
nothing for me to get excited about but it may appeal to you. You can now upgrade a minion to level 6... Yippeee....



Clan Co-leader roles

A clan co-leader rank is to be introduced into clans, this role will have all the privalages of clan leaders except the ability to demote or kick other co-leaders, so it looks like you can have a number of 'co-leaders' in your clan not just one.

Clan elders with have less powers, they will no longer be able to promote or demote and can only kick normal members.




Hero ability: Iron Fist

A barbarian king and all surrounding barbarians become enraged for a short period of time, dealing more damage and moving faster, just like the rage spell.

Tap the barbarian king icon after deployment to activate rage.

Rage strength increases every five levels of barbarian king's upgrades

Doesn't combine with rage spell.



Archer Queen special ability: Royal Cloak

The Archer Queen hides from and becomes invisible to all enemy defenses for a short time.
She becomes invisible and untargetable temporarily; any defenses attacking her will stop and find new targets.

A group of archers appear around her.

Not unlocked until she reaches level 5 and like the king's ability it improves every 5 levels and is activated the same way.

She can still set off traps when invisible.

More info coming and hopefully the update will be released soon! So far gem box is my favourite.

This post was inspired by an article I found which I will post below.

I go through cycles with this game, often going from playing it constantly to not playing it at all, even for months at a time. I recently played this loads over the christmas break, mostly because of the boost bonus gave me a chance to level up some stuff, and maybe try and get that hero unit guy without spending a gem, 10000 dark elixir was proving quite hard to get with one level 2 drill...

I have been trying to progress as far as I can without buying gems, not because I can't afford them nor do I think the game should be free, it's worth paying for something you enjoy doing. I just thought the game encourages you to spend gems too easily and feel like to progress at any sort of decent speed you have to spend a lot of money. So I took it as a challenge to try and not buy gems and progress as far as I could.

Currently I'm not playing for days at a time while stuff upgrades and feel like i'm about to hit a wall in terms of how far I can progress without buying gems. Im pretty happy that during the boost period I managed to get a Hero unit with just a level 2 dark elixir drill and by raiding without spending any Gems!

This is my base currently:



I'm currently working towards getting all my walls are level 7, Canons level 10, Archers level 10, Mortars 6, Teslas 4 and Wizards 5; all of which are a very slow work in progress and with most of them the highest level you can achieve at town hall level 8. When I have reached this I will stop upgrading and probably play occasionally just to battle and win trophies (getting resources had always been priority number 1), or at least until they bring out upgrades past level 11 for Gold and Elixir! Which is long overdue considering most defense units often get more upgrades each new update but gold and elixir is limited, meaning to progress you have to pay!

That leads me onto the article I found about former world number 1 Clasher Jorge Yao...



He was the first player to break the 4000 trophy mark and held the number one spot for 6 months from January 2013.

In the interview he reveals that he was spending $250 a week to stay on top and 3 months into his number 1 position had spend over $3000, I always thought the top players were constantly given Gems as rewards for being top players/clans but it seems that it isn't enough to remain on top.

The article also states that Supercell reportedly earn a staggering $2.4million per day!

Read more about what happened to George Yao and why he quit Clash of Clans here:

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/jorge-yao-was-master-of-his-virtual-domain-in-clash-of-clans-20131223-2zu6k.html#ixzz2qQHlnYdN

Discount ends on January 7th! 1 Gem for 24hrs.

Also incase anyone was wondering or hasn't got it yet, here is this years Xmas tree and last years which I still have on the right.

I searched clash of clans on eBay out of curiosity and found an account for sale:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221219194680
2 days left currently at £31.99 but it looks like it could go for a good amount of money and cheaper than buying gems and upgrading. It would be interesting to see how much an account like this is actually worth.

Not sure how supercell feel about people selling accounts and how it would be done. I'm assuming the seller would give his game center account and password. Even then your village name is forever someone else's, in this case 'Ricky2410'.
Here is the village:

There is a new update, I haven't played this one yet (I really haven't had much time to play lately) but I have been reading through the release notes and it looks good, Im going to see what leagues is al about after this.
Introducing Leagues: compete in your own division!

✔ Joining a League is easy: just own 400 trophies or more!

✔ Get a Loot Bonus out of every victory just from being in a League!

✔ Loot Bonus increases the higher you climb in the Leagues



New unit, defenses and building upgrades

✔ Rock Hard: summon a mighty Golem with Dark Elixir. A glutton for punishment, the Golem won't stop even if you ♥♥♥♥ it in half!

✔ Upgrade the Dark Barracks to level 4 to unlock the Golem

✔ Bolster your defenses with an additional Wizard Tower and a Seeking Air Mine at Town Hall level 9

✔ Level 5 Clan Castle and level 7 Hidden Tesla upgrade now available, also at Town Hall level 9!



Clan improvements

✔ Clan Leader is now able to send messages directly to Clan Members' inboxes

✔ Chat message formatting overhauled

✔ Clan tournament length increased to two weeks, reward doubled

✔ Troop donation statistics now reset every other week

✔ Clan troop donation information is now visible to all players, not just Clan members



Usability improvements

✔ If Clan Castle has space for more troops, "Request" message displayed on top of it

✔ Added option for rotating a Wall section

✔ Added confirmation dialog when speeding up unit and spell upgrades

✔ Attack notification improved for players playing with multiple devices



Balance tweaks

✔ The percentage of loot that can be stolen from Gold Storage and Elixir Storage was decreased to make it easier for newer players to save up resources. The maximum possible amount of loot remains the same.

✔ Upgrade times for Hog Rider, Minion, and Valkyrie decreased

✔ Air Bomb explosion radius decreased

✔ Level 5 Minion hitpoints decreased

✔ Hidden Tesla trigger radius increased

✔ Gold Mine, Elixir Pump and Dark Barracks upgrade times reduced

✔ Spells are now much faster to create

✔ Balloons explode and deal additional damage when destroyed

✔ Wall Breaker behavior improved

✔ Mortar and Wizard Tower don't restart their attack cycle if their would-be target is destroyed, instead they switch targets

✔ Clan Castle troops deploy faster to the battlefield

✔ When your village is under attack from flying units only, your melee troops will stay inside the Clan Castle

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Im going to play through the update this weekend and get back up to date with the game as I had time off, also I noticed people selling hero's and accounts on ebay!? more on that soon.

Clash of clans was down for a maintenance break today, it is now back online. There was also a new update for the game released last week which is now version 3.25. This increased the levels some units and buildings can be upgraded amongst other things.


here are the 4 units from the clash of clans Facebook page (minus the archer):

The archers looks as it does on the level 11 archer tower which is pictured below, one advantage of the level 6 archer is a level 5 mortar will not kill it with one hit.
The giant, balloon and barbarian all look quite impressive.

Check the video at the bottom of the post if you want to see them in action.

Here are the new buildings:

Laboratory, required for the new level 6 units.



Archer tower which has level 6 archer on it also.

Air defence level 7.
There are also local leaderboards, improvments to the clan leaderboard and 2 new airbourne traps which are these two:

Here are the complete update notes from the app store:

Cool New Leaderboards
- Climb to the top of your Clan; see who's on the rise and who's falling.
- New local Leaderboards: who's the best player in your country?
- Clan members who recently joined tagged as "New".
- Supersize my Leaderboards! More players now fit onboard.
New unit upgrades!
- Upgrade your Laboratory to unlock these mighty level 6 units:
- Barbarians get sharper swords and mighty horned helmets.
- Archers get new bow techniques and fashionable tiaras from their Queen.
- Giants are heartier and hairier than ever.
- Balloons are pimped out with spikes and the Jolly Roger.
Air-tight air defense!
- New deadly traps to stop airborne attackers: Air Bomb and Seeking Air Mine.
- Upgrade your Air Defense turrets to level 7 to shoot down the nastiest dragons.
- Turn enemy balloons into pincushions with the level 11 Archer Tower.
Hero improvements!
- Heroes recover health faster thanks to the Alchemists' new sleep potion.
- Hero level and stats are now displayed correctly when visiting villages.
- Heroes now patrol a larger area and show guard radius when tapped.
Gameplay improvements
- We discovered that metal armor conducts electrickery! P.E.K.K.A is now a priority target and receives extra damage from Hidden Teslas.
- Spell creation times reduced - blast more magic more often.
- Notification when your troops are ready for battle (Army Camps full).
- Wall levels 9 and 10 strengthened: hold off the rampaging hordes for longer.
- Shop now notifies when new items are available.
- New Achievements: Heroic Heist and Mortar Mauler.
- Tapping a trap shows its trigger radius.


Some level 6 units in action, also a good attack strategy.