Where are you supposed to be?

Currently we have Mayhem, Mayhem 2.0, and Mayhem 3.0 as our clans.  Our clan shield looks like this:

But add 2.0 or 3.0 to the end if you're in the other clans.

I have been getting a few people in the clans asking where they should be, this is where:

Main Mayhem:  Those who have level 4 archers.  We need higher level troops here because we are going against higher level opponenents, and we need all the help we can get.

Mayhem 2.0 and 3.0:  Those who don't have level 4 archers, but are well on they're way.  Mayhem 2.0 and Mayhem 3.0 serve the same purpose, to find who is strong, and wants to progress quickly.  We have friends and family members that want to be part of the family, so have them join any clan, and if you want to be in the same clan, switch to be with them.  Either way works for me!

The main Mayhem will trophy push during the season starting March 17, if you are in the main clan and want to continue farming, we'll have you join the feeders during the push UNLESS you are willing to donate at least 1000 troops per week to help those pushing.

Mayhem 3.0

We have had a massive surge in members joining Mayhem 2.0, so we created Mayhem 3.0!  I need everyone who is in Mayhem 2.0, that has level 4 archers, to join the main clan to make room in 2.0.  If you have friends, or family that want to join 2.0, have them join 3.0 for now, you can join 3.0 if you want to be in the same clan as them.  We are really starting to grow, but will probably not have any additional clans for the time being.  

*IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: There appears to be 2, Mayhem 3.0 clans, ONLY join the one with MORS as leader, and with kcoinz as co-leader.  That is part of the original family.  

CLASH ON!! Comment below if you have any questions.

January 2014 Update!!!

All hail new Hero abilities! Version 5.172 - 29th January 2014 "Hero Abilities!"

• Both Heroes have acquired special abilities that can be activated once per battle, after they have been deployed.
• Iron Fist: The Barbarian King and nearby Barbarians become enraged for a short time, moving faster and dealing more damage (does not stack with the Rage Spell).
• Royal Cloak: The Archer Queen hides from and becomes invisible to all enemy defenses for a short time.
• Both Hero abilities will instantly call in a group of Barbarians or Archers to reinforce their King or Queen.
• Hero abilities unlock for free at Hero level 5 and improve in strength every additional 5 Hero levels!

Flyers, freezers and brand new boosts

• Level 6 Minions are here to wreak havoc on enemy bases!
• Level 5 Freeze Spell leaves defenses on ice for longer than ever before.
• Get your Heroes back into battle faster by boosting their recovery 4x while sleeping.
• Boost cost and duration of Barracks and Spell Factory now reduced from 4 hours/20 gems to 2 hours/10 gems.

Why?

Many of you told us that the 4 hour Barracks/Spell Factory Boost was too long and you felt obliged to keep raiding for the entire duration or risk losing out. We didn't like you having to make this choice, so, voilà!

Clan Co-leaders take charge

• Clan Co-leaders can now be appointed by the Clan Leader or other Clan Co-leaders.
• Clan Co-leaders have all the privileges of Clan Leaders, except for the ability to demote or kick other Co-leaders.
• Clan Elders are now less powerful to prevent abuse, no longer able to promote or demote and only able to kick normal members.

Why?

We wanted to give you more options for running your Clans. We also wanted to prevent Clans from falling into disrepair when the Leader goes AWOL. Ultimately, though, we want Clans to be run your way - so we aren't limiting how many Co-leaders there can be, it is entirely up to you. With great power comes great responsibility.

Gem overgrowth

• New plant growth is being found with more gems inside than ever before!

Why?

Because we care

• Mysterious boxes packed with gems are being reported all throughout the realm. Keep an eye out for them!

Why?

See above ^ ^

Interface improvements

• Chat is now available even when away from your village, such as when visiting and watching replays
• Army Camps, the Spell Factory and Clan Castle now display used capacity next to their name when they are selected.
• Friends List has been moved to the Leaderboard menu, on the last tab, replacing the Search Clans tab (Search Clans is still available from the Clan Castle menu).
• Rage Spell info now correctly indicates damage percentage increase (e.g. 30% instead of 130%).

Why?

We're sticklers for accuracy and this has been incorrect for too long! PLEASE NOTE, this change does not make the Rage Spell any more or less powerful, it is purely a wording alteration.

• Obstacles can now be cleared in edit mode. (Yay!)

Balance tweaks

• Decreased the upgrade cost and time of Freeze Spell levels 3 and 4.

Why?

With the addition of Freeze Spell level 5, we wanted to rebalance levels 3 and 4 to smooth out the upgrade curve.

• Decreased Rage Spell level 5 damage bonus from 80% to 70%.

Why?

We want all max level Spells to be viable options and currently the level 5 Rage Spell is used in almost every single battle by high trophy players - therefore is wasn't optional. By tweaking it to make it less of a mandatory choice, we're hoping to see more diversity in the Spells you bring to battle!

• Increased Hog Rider training cost by about 30% on all levels.

Why?

It has been too easy to repeatedly build a full Hog Rider army and devastate TH9 and TH10 villages that don't yet have Inferno Towers. We didn't want to make them any less powerful, but rather make it a more considered army choice.

• Increased Valkyrie hitpoints by about 20% on all levels.

Why?

The Valkyrie hasn't been seeing much action on the battlefield - she needed beefing up!!

• Increased P.E.K.K.A hitpoints from 3400 to 3500 on level 3 and from 3800 to 4000 on level 4.

Why?

Considering how much it costs to upgrade the P.E.K.K.A to level 3 and 4, we felt like a few more hitpoints were required to help balance and justify the upgrade.

***This source comes directly from http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Version_History.  All credit on how Clash of Clans works goes to them.

Mayhem 2.0's Trophy Push This Week

Okay guys, I wasn't planning on doing a gift card for your push this week (the cards are for the push starting March 17th), but I guess I can do one card, for a random person in the top 10 of Mayhem 2.0 at the end of the season.  As I said before, people that have won before won't be entered in, but no one in 2.0 has ever won, (they're all in the main clan), so everyone has a good chance!

It looks like you guys are doing good!  When Mayhem first did a trophy push last September or October, we got about 12,000 trophies max as a clan, and we were about your size.  When we did it in December, we hit 17,000 trophies, a significant improvement.  Mayhem 2.0 is growing quick, keep up the great work.  Many of you are ready, or close to ready for the main Mayhem.  Once you are TH7 with level 4 archers, come on over!  We would love to have you here.  After the push in March, we will probably create Mayhem 3.0, and I will have a few of you help create it and be Co-leaders.

Keep up the good work, comment below with any questions, comments, jokes, or gossip!

TROPHY PUSH!!!

Okay guys, I have figured out when we're going to start our trophy push.  It will be from March 17th to March 30th.

Here's how it's going to work out, with us having 2 clans.  Both clans will have 2 gift cards available for 2 random people who are in the top 10 in the clan (those who have won gift cards for previous pushes won't be entered to win).  Which means, 4 gift cards will be available for everyone!

Mayhem 2.0 this is for you:

I heard from SirRichard, that Mayhem 2.0 wants to do a push now, just to see where they stand.  Great idea!  You should start on Sunday January 26th, and go for 1 week, until the end of the day of February 2nd.  Here's how you do a push:

1) Before the push, you want to save up as much elixer as possible, that way you will be able to make troops without having to worry about running out.  Also, DON'T START ANY MORE DEFENSIVE UPGRADES, you want your defensive buildings to be able to protect you, and not be stuck in an upgrade.  Don't start your barracks upgrades either, those will make a difference in the push.  Lastly, place your town hall in a good, strategic place right in the middle to protect it best.  Refer to previous blog posts on how to do that.

2) During the push, you want to attack places that don't seem too hard.  Attack places that may only give you 5 or 10 trophies.  If needs be, look for town halls that are on the outside of the base, this is called town hall sniping.  I have seen people town hall snipe clear up to crystal 1.  It was very impressive.  Another important thing to consider during the push, is that spells and clan castle reinforcement troops are your friends.  Use the reinforcements, and use your spells, they make a big difference.  

3) When you go to bed, ask for wizards for your reinforcement troops, they provide the best coverage overnight.  Trust me, I have tried many other troops, but wizards are the best night defense.

If you guys have any questions, comment below and I will answer them as quickly as possible!

Town Hall 8 Protected Defense Layout (and Farming too)

I have designed a new base for my TH8!  It can serve as either a farming layout, or a TH protected layout.  Whichever you prefer.

Above is the farming layout, and the town hall is clear off to the left, so you can't see it.  But while my town hall was out, I lost very little loot from larger level attacks.

Above is my current town hall protected layout.  As you can see, it is the same as my farming layout, but with the town hall in the middle, my dark elixer storage on the top left, and the builder on the bottom right.  I have found this to be very effective, and nobody attacks me unless there is 250-300k of loot available for them.  It's just too big.  I also haven't been 3-starred in over 2 weeks.  The closest was about 70%, and they only got 3/4 of my loot.

Above is how I laid it out.  During the design process, I stuck my town hall in the middle, then laid out the mortar, air defense, and wizard towers around the town hall in the orange circle.  They are in order too, to make for maximum coverage.  After laying down those 9 buildings, I placed my cannons and archer towers down in the best pentagons I could muster!  I tucked everything in close, placed my storages in seperate wall enclosures, and made some booby traps for giants, and healers.  This is the strongest base I have made to date.  Unfortunately, no one attacks me, unless they are out for blood.  So this base only gets attacked by the strongest of the strong.  Imagine maxed troops, and high level spells.  Yes, when they attack, the ultra high level players usually get about 50%, and thus win the battle.   So I lose frequently, but it is worth it, because they only attack about once per day to once every other day.  Strong base=less defenses.  It's nice!

How to Upgrade Walls

Frequently, I see people upgrading their walls in a random order.  Here is the best way that I have found out to upgrade your walls.

First you want to upgrade all "T" junctions, meaning, that if one wall comes in contact with another and makes a "T", like the picture above, you want to upgrade where they meet.  You can see here that my purple level 7 walls are everywhere, except where they meet up.  Where the two walls connect I have a level 8 wall.  You want to do this everywhere.

In the above picture, you can see that I have three "T" intersections, so I have all three upgraded to level 8.  

Once I get ALL the "T" intersections upgraded, I go for everything else, I personally connect places in between my best defenses. In the above picture, you can see that I have three "T" intersections, and then two level 8 walls connecting everything, five level 8 walls total.  Works great!

WHY?

The question you may have, is "Why do I want to upgrade the "T" intersections?  Shouldn't I upgrade all the outside walls first?"  Well, there are many different strategies to upgrading walls.  The reason why I always go for "T" intersections, is because when troops attack, they usually go for walls that will connect to many areas!  If giants break through a "T" intersection, that lets them into two more areas instead of just one.  By upgrading the "T" intersections, attacking troops will be more likely to attack weaker walls, and then they can't get into as much of your place as before!

Defensive Town Hall 7 Layouts

I'm not going to write much about how each one is laid out, I'm just going to post some ideas I've either made myself, or have come across.  Check them out!

I used the above layout for a while, and like it a lot.  It was probably my favorite TH7 defensive layout.

The above layout would have worked way better had it had more upgrades.  It had just recently obtained TH7 status.  One thing I might have changed, was to use the walls that are protecting the gold mine and elixer collectors that are jutting out.  I probably would have used the walls somewhere to make a couple more boxes, to protect my defenses.

I found the above layout while I was searching online.  It is VERY well laid out, and would be a nightmare to attack.  I like that it is very compartmentalized.

How to get Dark Elixer!

This is a question that frequently pops up, and thanks to one of you asking I will post about it!

Getting dark elixer is pretty difficult.  At town hall 7 you don't even have an elixer well, just the storage.  So how do you get it?  What are ways to save up so you can buy your Barbarian King? Well here are some ways that I have found effective for getting some: battle.  That's all you can really do at this point without spending gems (there is always the option to purchase, or use your remaining gems, to fill your dark elixer storage).  When searching for dark elixer, it usually won't be available from normal farming techniques.

What is my battle strategy to save up dark elixer?  Well mine may not be the most effective, but when I need 2-5k dark elixer quickly, I do a different kind of army.  I use an all dragon attack, with healing spells, and hit the next button until I find a great base with 1-2k dark elixer and relatively low defenses. This method is only possible if you have all four of your barracks upgraded to accomodate dragons, if you don't it will take hours between each attack.

Another thing you need to consider, is the placement of your dark elixer storage.  Be sure to protect this as strong or stronger than your town hall.  If someone attacks it and you have 15k inside, they could possibly take almost a thousand, and that could take a long time to save up again.  

Ideas for higher than town hall 7

You want to protect your dark elixer collector very strongly still.  You also want to upgrade your collectors as soon as possible.  I waited at first, because the hourly collection rate wasn't that big of a change, but now I am kicking myself, wishing that I could have upgraded it sooner.  The attack strategy is about the same though, I use all dragon attacks.  At my level, it costs loads of regular elixer, but the places I attack usually have a high amount of both dark and regular elixer, so I don't have such a negative outcome on my regular elixer.  I lose a little, yeah, but it pays off.  A couple of days ago I saved up 5,000 dark elixer in about 8 hours from 2-3 strong attacks.  I was at school and didn't attack much, but I still got all the dark elixer I needed, quickly, to upgrade my hog riders.

One thing many people say for their upgrades, is that they'll just use gems to get the Barbarian King.  Well, he has 40 upgrades to do, and most people don't have that many gems.  So figure out what works best for you and go through with it!

*If you have any ideas on how to raid for dark elixer, share in the comments below!!!

Town Hall 4 Layout

This was the same town that I had posted earlier, but now it is town hall 4!  I have made sure to design everything around the mortar, seeing as how at this level, that will be my most effective form of defense.

You can see that the mortar covers nearly the entire base!  I have a lot of upgrades to do still, but this was very efficient.  There are spring traps at the bottom next to the archer tower (they are hidden) and a couple of bombs around.  I made sure that my cannons and archer towers alternate corners.  I was attacked once last night, and had about 30k available loot, but they only got about 5k of each.  This base layout is fantastic.

Town Hall 3 Layout

You may have been reading these last few posts, and wonder why I am only posting for larger town hall levels, well, here is a post for the smallest people.  We were all at this level once, and here is how to do well!

This is a basic base.  Right now, 736 trophies is a good amount, and I never really lose, or gain too much here.  It is a perfect place to relax.  That is also why the town hall is out in the open.  It's not terribly attacked right now.  For a base this size, loot is all that matters, and not the town hall level.  I'm spending my gold faster than elixer, and that is why I have both elixer storages protected, but not the gold storage.  I spent all my gold, there is almost nothing in them (oh, and disregard the gold and elixer bars on the top right corner, those are stats for Smackaroonial's base).

For this town hall 3 base, you can see (as I have really focused on in recent posts) that I have really maxed everything out, and just barely am starting the town hall upgrade.  By the time the town hall is done, everything will either be done upgrading, or within minutes of it.

The biggest defensive strategy for a base this size, is having the mortar right smack dab in the middle. You can see that this is the biggest defense that I can have!  I also have my unprotected cannon close to  the mortar, so that the mortar can protect it a little better.

Ask me questions if you have them.  Comment below on what you want to know and I'll answer within a day!

Order of Upgrades: What do I upgrade next?

I have a few ideas on the order of what needs to be upgraded.  Most of us agree that everything needs to be upgraded before moving on to the next town hall level.  But the question that I get most, is "Smack (my CoC username), what should I upgrade next?  Should I do the archer tower, cannon, wizard tower, barracks, etc?"  Well here is the order that I like to do things:

Laboratory

Upgrade your laboratory very first, as that will unlock higher level troops, and allow you to attack more efficiently, and get your troop upgrades completed sooner.

Splash Damage

I always upgrade my splash damage defensive buildings first.  Splash damage is for wizard towers and mortars.  What splash damage is, is the ability to damage many troops in a small radius.  When the mortar shot hits the ground, it damages every troop around it, and is effective in taking out goblin groups, or archers.  Wizard towers are the same, but can't attack as far.  This is why you need to evenly space the wizard towers and the mortars, so that you can cover everywhere (check a previous post to see how to layout a base).

Single Shot Damage

I next upgrade my single shot buildings.  Single shots are for archer towers, cannons, air defense, and hidden teslas.  However, I don't include hidden teslas here.  Archer towers and cannons are great for taking out giants, hog riders, and other stronger troops.  Splash damage combined with a single shot are very effective.  Many times, the mortar (which takes a long time between shots) will hit its target once, then miss on the second shot, and not take out all the troops.  Well once the mortar has hit the troops once, a single shot will almost always take out the troops with one hit.

Hidden Teslas

Lastly, I upgrade my hidden teslas.  I don't find these extremely effective, but they are nice to have around to pick off troops here and there.  Hidden teslas die easy, and there are a variety of ways that people have their bases set up to use them.  Hidden teslas attack P.E.K.K.A.'s with twice as much damage, and I haven't been attacked much with P.E.K.K.A., so I can't say much about them yet.

I have 5 builders, this is what I do with them:

2 builders on splash damage buildings

2 builders on single shot buildings

1 builder saved for walls, barracks, gold mines, etc.

When I had 4 builders, I had this order:

2 builders on splash damage

1 builder for single shot

1 builder for walls, barracks, gold mines, etc.

When I had 3 builders, I had one on each of the above points.

Here are some more tips and tricks I use frequently:

You should always have a builder busy.  If there is a time when he isn't busy, save quickly, and find something for him to do, even if it's out of order.

You never want to have more than 1 barracks being upgraded at a time, that slows down your progress on trying to save loot considerably.

On that note, don't upgrade all of one building at once.  For example, don't upgrade all 3 of your mortars at the same time, this will be bad because ground troops will dominate when attacking.

Keep your laboratory constantly upgrading troops, don't have down time with that building if possible.

You want every building upgraded, or being upgraded (a builder is working on it) before you start your town hall upgrade.  You also want to have half or so walls maxed before starting your town hall upgrade.  The other half you can do while the town hall is being upgraded.

***The above ideas are just ideas, if you find something that works better for you, go for it.

Different Successful Town Hall 5 and 6 Layouts

I am going to show you guys a couple of successful town hall layouts that I have seen.

Town Hall 5 Farming

Now, town hall 5 isn't very big, and it won't be a true farming base, but it is close.  Farming at TH5 is very difficult because your troops aren't that huge, and there are less bases to attack that will have a large amount of loot.  But here is the base that I have found to be fairly successful.

This base just got more and more successful as the walls and defenses became upgraded.  Those two spring traps at the bottom we very beneficial in the success of the base.  This was one that I designed and very few people were able to get ALL the available loot.

Generic Town Hall 6 Base

This next base is one of my friend's base MORS.  His base has had a lot of success not only defending his trophies, but also defending his loot.

There are less walls than I would like at TH6, but MORS did a great job of dividing everything, and making sure that everything was covered.  As you can see, the town hall is being upgraded to TH7, MORS made sure that practically everything was upgraded before he started that upgrade.  His air defense will finish before the town hall does, and he will most likely have his walls all upgraded before the town hall finishes too.

Town Hall 7 Farming Layout

Here is an idea that I used for my TH7 farming layout, and it seemed to work fantastically.

As I demonstrated in the previous blog post, I like to triangulate those with three defenses (such as the mortar), and make squares with 4 or more (cannons and archer towers).  I had an extra cannon, I had to put it somewhere, anywhere helped.  I also place spring traps in strategic locations so that when giants attack they will be taken down.  I made sure to put each elixer and gold storage in a different area than the others.  Also, I put the storages at least two walls into the base to make them less accessible to wall breakers.  Because I was farming at the time, I decided to put my town hall in the corner, as well as my builders.  I always try to put my clan castle, and barbarian king close to the middle whenever I farm OR trophy hunt.  This base did exceptionally well.  It had plenty of traps, and the higher level walls definitely helped out a lot.

How to Layout Your Base/Village

Consider this base:

You can see that stuff is laid out in a strategic pattern, but let's look at it a little more closely.

Here I have drawn in a few lines to demonstrate where everything is laid out.

Yellow=cannons, evenly spaced (except the one next to the town hall) for maximum ground coverage

Black=mortar, also evenly space for ground, splash damage

Blue=archer tower, evenly spaced from the cannons too, to provide ground and air coverage

Purple=wizard tower, evenly spaced for maximum ground and air coverage

Red=air defense, evenly spaced for maximum air coverage.

As you can see, everything is evenly spaced for ground and air coverage.  On some defenses, I only had 3 available, so I made the coverage area into a triangle.  I had 5 each of cannons and archer towers, so I made a square around my base and put the extra one in the middle next to the town hall.

The barbarian king, and the clan castle go in the middle next to the town hall to protect the town hall as a last resort.  If they are on the edge, they will come out at the beginning of the battle.  You don't want them lured our prematurely, it's best to save the barb kind and the clan castle until the middle of battle.

I have my elixer and gold storages generally far apart from each other.  I tried not to put 2 gold or elixer storages in the same section of walls, so that if enemy troops broke in, they wouldn't be able to take the majority of one type of loot.

Lastly, I have everything tucked in as close to the base as possible, some people try the technique of putting a builder in each of the corners, and that honestly works pretty good to prevent someone from 3 starring a base.  However, at my level, people have usually learned from hundreds of other attacks, and when I get attacked, they put one archer on each of those builders; so in my case, I keep them close to the base as well.

If you want to know how a base will hold up, try it!  I have seen some bases that I thought would be easy, and turned out to be really hard.  My idea of putting everything evenly spaced usually works, but there are also some great ideas out there that work just as well.  My base (the one pictured above) gets 3 starred about once every 10 days or so, and I get attacked about 4-5 times a day.  I have a pretty good success rate.  Email me with any questions or concerns at smackaroonial@gmail.com.

***This base is a Town Hall 8 Layout, I will try to post pictures of other layouts soon so that I can cover other level Town Halls.

When to Upgrade your Town Hall

Your town hall is awesome, the bigger it gets, the more fun the game gets.  But when should you upgrade it?  Here is a couple of things you want to consider before upgrading.  Read this next picture, which is a screen shot from clashofclans.wikia.com:

The way this works, is this... if you are town hall 7 and you attack someone who is town hall 7, you get 100% of the loot.  If you attack someone who is town hall 8, you also get 100% of the available loot.  If you attack someone who is town hall 6 you get 90% of the loot, town hall 5 you get 50%, etc.  

Each town hall upgrade is a relatively longer time than most of the upgrades for your buildings.  Before you upgrade you want to be sure that all your defensive buildings are upgraded.  Remember, when you upgrade your town hall, really big enemies will be able to get more loot out of you.  Don't let them get away easy.  Upgrade your defense before your town hall.  This means you need your cannons upgraded, your archers towers, mortars, air defense, etc, etc.

It's a good idea to upgrade all other buildings too before upgrading your town hall, but it is imperative to upgrade defensive buildings.  My personal upgrade strategy is to upgrade everything except walls and  a couple other buildings.  I will start my town hall upgrade, and start enough upgrades to keep all my builders busy except one.  The unoccupied builder I will use to finalize the last few walls.  Then the other builders will finish their upgrades right before the town hall is done.  Even if I don't finish my walls before the town hall is done, that's okay, because my defense is ready to destroy the enemy!

What is farming?

Sometimes, you may see a base where the town hall is unprotected, and out in the open.  When you see this, it usually means that the person is "farming."

Well what is farming?  Let's take a look at a base first, to see what it actually is.

This is my base, we will use it as an example.  Here you can see that the town hall is up at the top, barely protected.  The question you may have is "Why on earth is the town hall there?  Won't you lose trophies when someone attacks?"  The answer is simple, yes you lose trophies.  

Here is the reason why that is beneficial as compared to having it in the middle.  Whenever you (or anyone else for that matter) attacks, you get one star for getting 50%, one star for 100%, and  one star for destroying the town hall.  Each star you get, you will get approx. one-third of the possible trophies.  With the town hall exposed like this, there will be a very high likelihood that someone comes along, attacks the town hall, and leaves the rest of the base untouched.  When someone does this, you get a 12 hour shield, lose 1000 gold and elixer, lose anywhere from 5 to 10 trophies, and keep all the rest of your loot.  What's more important, 6 trophies, or 100,000 gold and elixer?

This is what a base looks like while you are farming, but how do you farm?

I will explain how to attack when you farm.  It is a little different that regular attacking.  For example, if you are attacking to get a lot of trophies, and to 100% someone else's base, you may use 10 giants, a healer, 30 archers, 5 wall breakers, and 20 goblins.  But when you farm, the main troops you use are goblins.   My farming attack strategy is 10 wall breakers, 20 archers, and about 125 goblins.  Let me post some pictures of how to attack to explain better.

To find the right base, sometimes you need to hit next multiple times.  You want to look for bases where the loot is in the elixer collectors and gold mines, and not in the storages.  If the storages are close to the edge, then that's even better, attacking those may be easier.

How do you know if there is loot in a collector or gold mine?

 The next two pics are empty mines and collectors.

The next two pics are of full mines and collectors.

In the gold mine, the empty one you can see a small empty box, and a full one, you can see gold blocks next to the rail cart.  In the elixer collector, the empty one appears empty, and the full one appears as if it is full of elixer.  As you farm, look for places with full elixer collectors and gold mines.

This next base is perfect to attack:

You can see that most of the elixer collectors and gold mines are on the outside of the walls.

Send in lots of goblins!

Sometimes there are walls on the outside of the collectors or mines and you will need to use wall breakers to get the loot. Send in a few goblins to distract the archers towers, cannons, mortars, and wizards towers, then send in the goblins like this:

You can see that some goblins are attacking the walls, and there are two incoming wall breakers. The wall breakers will surivive because the goblins are taking a hit. Once the wall is broken open I send in way more goblins! Works every time.

Success!

I got tons of loot, and lost some trophies.  Farming takes a huge trophy hit almost every time.  But it makes it worthwhile in the long run. After dropping down a hundred trophies I make a different style of attack, and I attack for trophies instead of loot.

Any questions? Write a comment and I will try to answer it as best I can!