Building Our Clan

[Jason]

I've noticed our main clan is falling apart a bit. People aren't donating as much and there's not much chat going on. Well, I was never a proponent of our third clan. Simply put, we're spreading our forces too thin. I believe only when we've built up our main clan where EVERYONE donates 400+ troops per week and are elders can we think about building another clan.

But there are other things we need to do to build a strong clan. Firstly, as you all know, I've never been popular with new players. I was constantly eyeing people's donation activity and kicking people out. But once I stopped doing that, people started getting lazy again. You guys really need to keep this going. Rule the clan with an iron fist! Secondly, we need to welcome all new players as soon as they join the clan and lay out the rules for them. This way, they feel welcomed at first and then they realize we are a serious clan and they will follow the rules. Remember, 99% of the reason why people play multiplayer games and join clans and not single player games is because of the social aspect of gaming. That is absolute KEY in building a strong clan.

Anyway, I wish you guys the best of luck. You have been a great clan! I've thoroughly enjoyed being in this clan. In fact, this was the first time I was so addicted to playing a game and joining an actual clan. I'm going to miss you guys! Cheers to you all!

[Ryokosi]

Whoa... Really?   

That's terrible news Jason... You're one of the reasons I work so hard in this clan.  I really hope you'll reconsider or at least talk more before you make up your mind.  The clan will just *not* be the same without you.

The whole purpose behind 3 was to allow active players a place to focus on building up and getting stronger using the techniques you mastered and shared with us for farming.  It was also to provide a safe outlet for those who wanted to farm and felt pressured by the crazy donation level to go if they needed a break from the game or had to dial it back for a few weeks.  We lost valuable elders for both of these reasons.  The down side of 3 was certainly pulling some of our heavy donators out of 1 and 2 (mainly 1 in the beginning).  We also saw how this really hurt donations in 1, so Wurmbo, tippy, and myself have agreed to come back to 1 in rotation with the main purpose of donating.  I've given over 1100 in 2 days.  Jimmy has a goal of increasing our trophy count... Which is a great goal, but at odds with farming.  3 allows both to occur.  3 also allows room for new members to join which can bring in valuable new players.  I know 3 has taken the edge off 1 and 2 to an extent... but I think it's an investment in the long run for our clan.  It costs some now, but pays off later.

If you leave, that's a real loss!  Not just because you've been a cornerstone of this clan for so long (long before me), but because we need the benefit of your wisdom and hard work now more than ever.  There are at least four members in 1 right now who would benefit from going to 3 (Tata, Chloh, David, and Span).  Samuelottay just went over to 3 today.  All of them would really benefit if you went over to 3 as well and led them in how to farm.  I understand if you don't have the time, but that's what I was going to ask of you if we had been online at the same time.  3 is just a temporary place for members to go and allow them to get even stronger before coming back to 1 or 2.  I hope you'll reconsider going to 3 to lead members in farming... or at least go to 3 in order to stay in the clan if you need time away from the game.  You've worked so hard and provided so much leadership, we may be able to fill your spot on the roster, but never be able to replace you.

[Ryokosi]

Oh, I agree about donations being low... I didn't realize until after I posted that I didn't cover that enough.  I've told members they need to donate more in the last few days as i've watched it occur and have tried to lead by example.  I agree we do have a problem in 1 right now with that.  I noticed though that donations are like fire... They spread.  In the last few days I've watched as donations have gone up and wait times gone down as I've pumped donations in the clan.  Others catch on and reciprocate.  It was really discouraging though the first day I was back, but it got better.  Please reconsider and help us get through this time of expansion.  I've meet so many interesting new friends in this clan that I want to see it succeed and don't want to see them leave (like you)... but of course the choice is yours!  So best wishes in whatever you decide and thank you very much for all your leadership and friendship.

[Jason]

Thanks for your kind words Ryo. Really appreciate it. Cheers Ryo.

[Ryokosi]

Absolutely, and just so you know... Tippy cleaned house in clan 1 today!  So while we are once again smaller, we are also more focused... again, thanks to your advice and leadership.

[RickDaRuler]

I agree with Jason lets focus on Clan 1 and 2 before expanding.

[Ryokosi]

I agree and think the focus should always remain on the main clans.  3 is simply a special mission clan and is not on the same level as 1 and 2.  It's size and even it's existence should be subject to the needs of 1 and 2.  Having said that, we created 3 to address certain problems, and while those problems have been addressed, it has created new problems.  Among them, it seems to have contributed to allowing some of the standards in 1 to slip.  We've attempted to fix that by kicking members (and even elders) who are no longer following the rules, and by rotating in members from 3 temporarily to help with donations in 1.  I think the added capability that 3 gives us outweighs the problems it creates, and if we do away with 3, we will have to find a different solution to all of the problems that brought about it's creation in the first place.  We now have 10 members in 3 that are farming.  I think that's probably enough members for 3 to function properly, and when they return to 1 or 2, they will be stronger and be able to offer better donations.  I haven't heard from anyone else planning on coming over to 3 at this time, and between 1 and 2, that means we have 80 members in the main clans.  If rules are being enforced, and everyone is living up to our clan name, then donations shouldn't be a problem.

That's my 2 cents, and please understand that I would personally prefer to spend my days in 1 or 2.  My primary reason for being over in 3 is strategic - to building up the clan and provide this capability to it.  If the consensus among elders is that we have better solutions to address why 3 was created in the first place, then we can certainly shut down 3 as it's no longer needed.  Is there a better way forward?

[tippy317]

Giving members of Clans 1 & 2 a chance to quickly level up in Clan 3, is probably the best way to build the main clan. If we give it a couple of weeks, you are going to see strong players returning from the "Farm".

Remember, Jason built up very quickly by farming, but the trophy hunting in Clan 1 (not sure about clan 2) makes that more difficult.... because farming vs trophy hunting are opposing goals (at least for the short term).  If we take a few of the weakest players & send them to farm, they will return as some of the strongest players.

We can periodically rotate out the weakest players, to accomplish the long term goal: the growth of the main Clans. But because building strong members requires a lot of resources for so many upgrades, farming can quickly provide these, especially for TH7. I am curious to see how I do at farming when my TH8 is complete, but for lower level players, farming can help by quickly generating the resources & therefore the opportunity to grow fast... so our Clans will grow quickly too.

This short term issue of thinning the main clans' numbers will change in a week or two. If we can hang tight for a little while, we will see our numbers grow with new members as well the strength of our clans will grow as our weakest members level up.

As these level-ups happen, we should continue to gradually increase our minimum requirements to bring in new, stronger members.

[Wurmbo]

Ryo/Tippy ... I agree wholeheartedly with both of you. I am probably living proof of the benefits of clan 3. When I left for clan three I was th6 and lvl three troops. Now I am th7 with strong defenses and lvl four giants, gobs, and archers with lvl four wizards done in about one day. Clan 3 has definitely worked well for me and I plan to rotate back to main clan later this week for awhile with much better troops to donate.

[Wurmbo]

I should also mention that at th7 the quickest way to earn loot is farming and I can pretty easily earn a million gold or elixir in about 1.5 hours normally. This is extremely useful at this town hall level because I need only stay logged on and attack for about two hours straight (sometimes less) and I can get most of my upgrades started. I try to time it so a builder frees up about 1.5 hours after I start so that I can spend the loot I collect right away on upgrades. If I didn't farm it would take a lot longer and I would be risking losing quite a bit by being attacked since I would have to log off with a lot of loot stored up. If we do away with clan 3 and don't allow farming in the main clans then it will be very hard to build and hold resources unless you can stay logged on for long periods of time. Personally, I would rather go back to the way it was before when we didn't care about trophy count and only worried about donations. However, if that is not an option than clan 3 seems to be the best alternative.

[Mayaenaise]

I can't speak for the impact on Clans 1 & 2 since I haven't been back to Clan 2 since I went over to 3, so I'll just talk about the place of Clan 3 in the long-term strategy.  I think Jason makes a good point that new members need to feel welcomed and that they need to donate to stay engaged with the clan and other members.  I think Clan 3 is part of making new members more engaged in the clan in the long-term.  Rule the clan with an iron fist in a velvet glove. 

New clan members should know that the ones who show they're active and donate consistently will get an additional investment from the clan - they get access to clan 3.  In clan 3, they'll get to focus on upgrading themselves then come back to clans 1 or 2 and hunt for trophies.  They'll also be able to use it to take a break from the trophy hunt but still be part of the clan.

It's hard to communicate this all to new members because the chat system really isn't built for any stored messages.  It's going to be up to the elders in the main clans to let new and current members know that donating and being engaged is the point of the clan and clan 3 plays another role in that.  Ryo did a good job pointing me to the message board when I first joined clan 3, but it's a tedious way to let new clan 3 members know where they can get more info about farming.  Unfortunately, I can't think of a better day to do it.

I did notice that before I moved from clan 2 we got a bunch of new members who would go in, get donations, then leave.  Because of the name of the clan, there are gonna be a lot of freeloaders who'll come in and expect to get a dragon then peace out.  That's gonna be a fact of the game.  Rick and the other elders did a good job enforcing rule about donating first before asking for troops.  The people who got upset about this and left aren't people the clan should want to help it grow, but weeding out those people is going to be a part of this if the clan is going to be recruiting more people to grow.  Communicating the goals and culture of the clan to every new member and rebuilding the culture everytime a bunch of new people come in or elders shift clans is going to be part of growing the clan.

That's my 2 cents.

[tippy317]

I really befitted from the opportunity to quickly upgrade too. When I got to Clan 3, my defenses were very weak. I had done quite a few troop upgrades before, but didn't have the resources to upgrade many other defenses.

Now after a couple of weeks, almost all of my upgrades are done.... in fact, in 5 days, the only town hall 7 level upgrades left to do, would be my collectors. So, in a couple of weeks, I was able to fully upgrade walls, defensive buildings, troops & spells. I am almost as strong as possible for a TH level 7 player.

In the past week, I have been back to Clan 1 as a strong donating elder. And am very happy about that because Jimmy and the other elders need help keeping some of the players following the rules of the Clan. So, as other elders return strong, they need to contribute to the Clan in the same way, as Mayaenaise said  - rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove.

This will make sure our Clan lives up to our name and will allow us to continue to grow to be one of the best Clans in the game.