Boom Beach Base Development Guide

Boom Beach Base Development Guide by GARAT

Base Development – the 3 main paths

Perhaps no one has given them exact names, the following terms have already been used on the forums and they are apart of the “lingo” . First of we have :

Farmers – people that buff their defenses and mainly produce resources needed to upgrade their base. Defensive players by nature
Gatherers – people that produce some resources and use them to upgrade the small stuff, and wait for Dr T day to do big upgrades after boosting everything, including Resource Reward Master Pieces
Raiders – people that raid , every day , all the time and leave their base undeveloped save for Lading Crafts, Troops in them , Armoury ,Radar and Sculptor

While you might have an original plan to upgrade your base, chances are – your plan will fall somewhere in the middle of the 3 categories . Farmers and Raiders are players that have taken defense and offense to the extreme ; and that’s what makes this game one of the most popular games on the market atm – there is more then one way of playing .

FARMING

By it’s nature , farming is the “slow and steady” method. It tends to be very defensive and everything you do while using that method needs to be pretty much planned ahead (this is up to a point true for everything you do in BB- except Scorchers LOL) .

Planing the upgrades ahead of time

If you are farming you need to have a plan . The plan, in general , upon reaching a new HQ is :
– upgrade production / vault
– upgrade sculptor
– upgrade defenses
– upgrade everything else
Is this set in stone ? No. The fact is, you are going to get raided whatever your VP is. And SOMEONE will beat your base. So in order to keep the resources long enough to upgrade big stuff, you need good defenses. The idea is to max everything before moving on to new HQ lvl. The above list , therefore , isn’t exactly the order to things – it’s a rough guide. As a rule of thumb, since you are farming after all – you should be good are producing things in large quantities. The most important thing is TIMING.
Do you know which building you are going to build/upgrade after the HQ is finished ? NO?

You should have a plan, with resources planned ahead of time . It’s not that hard in fact , just ask yourself these few questions:
– in how much time will my current upgrade be finished ?
– providied I don’t get raided, how many resources will I have when it is finished ?
– can I “store” and beat some NPC bases just before it’s finished to have enough resources to upgrade the next builidng?
– if I get raided, and loose some resources , what do I upgrade then ?
– at what time does my Task Force Reward boat arrive ?
– at what time does my daily reward (if any) arrive?
– can i spare some diamonds i collected off my map to make up for the missing resources ?
Coordinating those things is key to upgrading.Your workers should be working 24/7 . No matter what, you HAVE to know what are you doing next , as soon as they finish .

Having trouble with upgrading big things ? How about if you match the workers time table with Dr T, daily reward and TF reward ? See , you just need a good plan…

Vault

One of the key ideas with Farming is to produce resources and KEEP them long enough between upgrades . First thing’s first then – Vault.
It does 3 things:
– it protects a % of your total resources completely safe from raids at all times
– it is additional storage
– reduces the number of available resources to be raided , making the would be attacker less willing to commit , since his reward is too small (more on that later)

Production

After you have upgraded the vault, production is next in line. It is vital to your success – and should be upgraded as soon as you can. Thing to note; if you have more then one production building to upgrade, I suggest you do the cheaper ones first. It certainly pays off in the long run.
The sooner you make the upgrade, the more resources it will produce over time. Never ever upgrade something else instead of production if the cost is roughly the same.

Example:To upgrade Sawmill or Defensive building xy (pick any you like) ??
Sawmill lvl 4 produces 580 w/h (wood per hour) . A SM lvl 5 produces 900 w/h
If you pick defensive building instead of sawmill , your existing lvl 4 will produce 13.920 w/d
If you go with Sawmill and upgrade to lvl 5, your new Sawmill will produce 21.600 w/d (minus the 1h45min it takes to upgrade , at which time it produces nothing)

This is over a course of a single day.
We will talk about statues in a bit, but to clarify just how important this is , let’s add a Wood production Master piece of + 30% in to the math.
Sawmill lvl 4 …13.920 w/d + 30% (4176) = 18.096 w/d
Sawmill lvl 5 … 21.600 w/d +30% (6480) = 28.080 w/d
A huge deal. Makes all the difference, doesn’t it ?

Secondly, not all resources are equally important. At different stages of the game , there are shortages of certain resources. The first one is stone for example. Second comes an Iron shortage followed by another stone shortage and so on. If you can choose between upgrading Quarry and Sawmill – and you are in a Stone shortage period…the choice is easy to make.

There is an exception to the above rule of “upgrade production sooner “ : New tech. As soon as you can build a new defensive turret which makes a HUGE boost to you defense, and you can pick between it and a Production building – choose the weapon.

First time you get a Rocket launcher, it boosts your base a LOT. Same goes for Boom cannon and Shock launcher. Same applies to additional weapons of that type (second Boom cannon, second RL etc).

Sculptor

A major feature of the game that spells doom and gloom. A Farming base , like any other , is made or broken by the choice of it’s statues. Luckly the first statues you get are also the ones you’re gonna use. Green .

Many players will outright dismiss green statues as less worth , or worse – “they just take up a statue spot “ . Chances are, when you do see such a comment of the forum – it’s from a player that is either a Gatherer or Raider . Green statues (as any other) are good , if your whole strategy is built around them .

Which ones then?

In order to build Statues, you’re going to have to attack . Attacking NPCs is perfect for this. Your total sum of Medals does not increase, and you have a small % chance to gain shards for every enemy building you destroy.
The best statue for any base is a Purple Power Stone Chance master piece. The most unbalanced thing in the whole game IMHO. The sooner you get it , the better . I personally waited for 4 months before getting it . It was a long period , and in that time I needed to really be careful with Power Powder since it was scarce .
Then I joined a TF and found out that my teammates are sitting on 70+ PP ….and they have so much because they are cycling more shards then I am. It is as simple as that. The cheesiest part of the game. If you have a PSC MP , you will have all the options , if don’t wait until you do. If you ever wondered why guys on the forum have better statues then yourself – no, it’s not because they have all the statues better. No, they (chances are) only have just ONE of them better – a PSC MP …and it produces every other statue.
As soon as you get a power stone chance ANYTHING, keep it . It’s a statue that makes…statues!

Green statues
The ones that boost the currently scarce resource for you are really important. Stone production and Iron production MPs (master pieces) are surely the ones to keep. Gold production will produce more gold, which isn’t all that hard to obtain.
Resource production MP is the best one, obviously and every base should have it.

If you have 3 statue slots , they should be:
– Power stone chance
– Resource production
– Building health (Ice statue) …why?

Ice statues
If you produce a lot of resources, you ARE going to get raided. This is both bad , and good. The bad part is loosing resurces. The good parts are:
– getting your VP down (this is done automatically as soon as you loose)
– getting intel for your Task Force
– getting diamonds

Intel and Diamonds you need to earn. Your defense should be strong enough to stop a raid or two. Your vast resources will attract raiders . This is where the Building Health statue comes in. When player raid a base, first thing they try is to get rid of the biggest threat . Be it a Boom cannon, a Rocket launcher – they will take it down. The question is, how much GBE will they spend? The better the statue, the more they will spend. The more they will spend , the less they have to deal with the rest of your base. They might even quit halfway across.
Building HT is king.

Developed Farming bases have at least 2 Ice master pieces, 3 production Master pieces and power stone chance + GBE.

Dealing with Raids

You should be prepared to have your base raided any time you stop playing.But, you do have several tricks up your sleeve.

Managment of Medals

Keeping your medals low is a very,very good idea. Don’t attack PC bases unless they are easy to destroy and have vast loot that is needed NOW. Stick to your plan . The lower your VP is, the better. It means your base will be spawned to players that are (most likely) be unable to raid you. This is what the goal is. Most of them will just “find new opponent” , some will try and fail. Some will wait for Dr T day, boost and still fail …or they might succeed . The lower you keep those medals, the better.

A few tricks for doing that include putting your HQ on the beach after you did all the major upgrades ( as your base will “outproduce” raiders by far ) . Do not worry about loosing all your resources, you have the vault – it protects your stuff – and use that to do smaller upgrades until you did all of them and are ready for next HQ lvl. Second trick is jus waiting, as more and more people raid you , you will loose VP and will again be in the range where no one can touch you.

Baiting

People are sloppy. They raid 15-20 bases and have only so much time. They saw your base, producing everything and full of riches …and now they will raid you…
What they sometimes don’t check for is defensive statues. Especially if they cannot see them . Statues , on the other hand ,CAN be hidden in the woods. That is if it’s not a winter map that you base is spawned as (no way of controlling that) . Woods become transparent as soon as you put a turret into them . If you put a statue…it shows, but only it’s top , and ever slightly… In a blink of an eye, if they press “scout”, then “attack” they might miss the fact that a Building Health master piece is hidden in the woods.
Most likely , they will still make it , with heavy casualties . But you do earn intel and diamonds that way.
Paradox is, your base should look harmless and rich enough to be raided often, but be deadly enough so that if they try, they fail.
Put your production statues up front, nicely where everyone can see them . And put the bule stuff into the woods…

Having a Task Force and staying in it

Task forces rely heavily on the people. Farmers are not exactly perfect players in an eyes of an officer . What most task forces require is simple :
– earn xy number of intel a week
– do your best in TF operations
– be a nice guy and chat every once in a while
Officers have the responsibility to get the job done. If you are not an officer (and most players aren’t) you will be bossed around , up to a point. What will help is , when the guys see your base, they will start asking questions. Your possible answers should be:
– yes, I will earn the xy no of intel – no problem
– yes , I do know what I’m doing
– yes , I do have an army that is capable of doing some damage

Picking one army style is key here. Hooka might be the safest thing for you to have . It’s relatively easy to develop (as both heavies and zookas are relatively inexpensive ,at least comparing to tanks or grenadiers) . It’s simple to support (you are not required to have insane amounts of GBE like with Warriors or Tanks) and can be used on almost any TF OP map.

Baiting , in addition to NPC bases and the good doctor will bring you all the intel you need. The more you bring , the better.

That completes the first part of the guide. Next up – Gatherers

GATHERERS

Predators

Changed the name to “Predators” in hope it does sound cooler . In short , this style is adaptable. It’s easy to go from Farmer on an early HQ lvl to Predator – but it’s a style on it’s own .
Actually, starting the game as a farmer is good idea, as is switching to Hunter. But first things first;

Hunting in a nutshell

Predators only kill what they eat. The basic idea is to raid npc bases as soon as they appear (except in one case, but later on that ) and player bases only before you do a major upgrade. You do need some kind of production in order to do small upgrades and support your army with the much needed cash in the beginning – but as soon as you reach HQ 10 (major cornerstone) you can safely start this playstyle.

Tools of the trade

Just like any natural predator , you need to have a safe way to raid for resources. First off, pick an army type and roll with it. Warriors, Tmed,Gmed,Hooka,Rimzooka (rifle/medic/zooka) – all have their ups and downs . This text does not deal with specific army strengths – whatever you choose will be fine if you are skilled in using it.Learn to use an army , and learn it’s limits. Learn to predict a certain raid before you start it. Certain things that make it easier are…

Statues

Boom beach is a pretty balanced game until we start talking statues. They can make or break a Predator raid. In any case, at any lvl with any army (from the above mentioned) a Predator should be packing:
– a Resource Reward Master piece (and a Guardian or two later)
– Troops Dmg MP
– Troops Ht MP
– Power stone chance MP (or a guardian before you get an MP)
– Gun boat energy master piece
– Building Health Master Piece (yes, really !)
The sooner you get a power stone chance statue , the sooner you will get the others. These are the statues you will need until the end pretty much. Additional slots can be filled with any other statues you see fit , or Guardians of the same type .
How to make best use of them ?
Most of this is pretty obvious. They enhance your High Resource Raid . HRR is a 3 hour raid that is usually done on Dr T day and it combines large quantities of NPC / PvP bases and Dr T lvls to gather enough resources for a major upgrade. It will have a part of the guide on it’s own.
Back to statues. Some of them are more useful then others, to different army types.
Examples would include GBE being more important to Warrior raids then Hooka. Not that Hooka doesn’t make use of all that extra GBE, it does – but it can work without it just fine .

When you do the HRR, you will boost Troops dmg and Ht, and RR . If you don’t have the 3-4 pp for it, something is horribly wrong. Don’t be a cheap ***** – spend the pp if you have it and leave nothing to chance . You don’t want to raid 15 bases, spend a lot of time and blow the Dr T opportunity to upgrade your important stuff.
I want to talk about something far, far more imporatant then any resource for a Predator

Matchmaking – How Time Works Against You

You have probably seen more then one topic about how matchmaking is this , mm that, mm not fair blah blah blah. Truth is, unless the topic is started by a player with over 700 Medal – there’s a good chance that he cannot cope with his own VP rise. Time is against us all .
How does it work, what does it mean?

If you are a Predator, you need to raid (again and again) .If you raid , your Vp will rise. Simple? Yes.
The MM system can never be fair. Period. What is fair to one person , isn’t fair to another. I’m not talking to high lvl people here – they don’t need my text – they have a game totally different from the rest of us. Remember that. They have done most upgrades, and are competing for the leaderboards or Booming for fun .
MM system will, at the moment when a Pvp base pops up on your screen assign you an opponent that is ranked (with Medals) close to you, worldwide. VP can mean a lot of things.A farmer with 100 VP is surely better at defense then a Predator or Raider.
For all we know, that Farmer probably didn’t take down a single Pvp base in 3 weeks . He only did Dr T and NPC – things that don’t increase VP lvl by one bit. And that way you , lvl 32 – get a lvl 40 guy on your map and you’re wondering why…
Or , that same MM system might assign you a Predator guy that just destroyed 20 bases in the las hour or so (if you find new opponent on Dr T day) ago.
The former will surely be a tougher opponent then the latter .

What does that have to do with time? Everything
The sooner you rise in VP, the sooner you will be assigned with stronger opponents . If you want to beat them, you will need to develop your offense fast enough.
It’s not an arms race, it’s a race against the clock. If you can keep up, good. If you can’t – you hit a wall…

How to slow it down...

The high VP rise in addition to a slow arms development leads to harsh moves that lead to failed HRR. And we don’t want that. Here are a couple of things you can do to slow down your VP rise, giving you more breathing room.

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

I’m not saying you should buy anything (and not saying you shouldn’t). But , really, diamonds are what slows down the clock.
-if you cannot gather enough resources , buy the rest with diamonds
-if you need to finish the last big upgrade in order to be able to start a new one sooner – do it!
-the extreme examples of the above is “diamonding” to finish radar or armory – to be able to spend the gold and not have it raided

You should never, ever , ever use diamonds to speed up troops ! Only one exception to this rule is : in the middle of a HRR . Diamonds are a currency that buys time. Time is ticking…

Resource Reward Guardian

Having a RR master piece is a given. You have to have it . Period. Having a guardian to boot, is gravy. Seriously, why have it? You WILL beat all those bases you set out to beat – what’s the point ? The point is, one 20 % guardian boosted brings 40% more loot. That is a lot . That means ; instead of having to raid 15 bases- you only need to do 10 or 11 ?
4-5 bases less is 8-10 VP less…and over a period of time, it adds up.
Imagine you do 2 HRR a week . One on Wednesday and on Saturday. If you rise 10 VP less on each , that’s 20 a week. That’s 80 a month. 80 is a lot.
One more thing. RR Guardian makes your HRR safer. Safe is good , Risk is bad. Moving on…

Beaching your HQ -you know what it is, you know what it does…

Baiting – read the Farmer guide ….

High Resource Raid

THAT day of the week, twice every week – the servers go nuts. The bad doctor appears for everyone and it’s all for the taking ! Every Farmer, Predator and Raider wants a piece of him !
This time you will raid EVERYONE, then do DR T , and ….then you’ll get really …mean .

The Plan

Days ahead, you know which buildings you are going to upgrade , right after the new HQ. I’ll give you a hint : one each Dr T even – you upgrade two things at once, troops in the armory and an offensive support building:
– radar is a good first choice, it will give you more beaches to boom; more beaches, more resources on the next Dr T day
– Sculptor is equally , if not even more important. You will get a new slot for a statue- more statues , more buffs, more buffs – easier time later
– armory is the definite 3 choice
– landing crafts
– everything else

You have to know what you are going to upgrade an with which resources you’re doing it . By that I mean you store your juicy Pvp bases daaays ahead of time for Dr T day. The tough ones and the poor ones you will skip and “find new opponent”.
The ones you know you can beat , store for Dr T …
Be mindful of resource shortages, the bases that contain that one resource that is currently scarce – store it even if it’s poor with other resources .
Final note on this: have a plan A and plan B in case plan A fails. In other words, have a more expensive upgrade you would like to do and a cheaper one if you fail the first one.

Prerequisites

Every upgrade you will do requires you to be able to store to amount of resources in the Vault, storages and HQ. Check it before you start raiding. Check it way ahead of time. Start upgrading storages days before Dr T. Use diamonds if you must. Do everything you can not to loose the twice a week opportunity to do major upgrades.

Uniting all Sources

There are 5 sources of materials used for upgrades:
– production (you do need some production )
– Raiding Npc and Pvp
– Raiding Dr T
– Resource bases
– Task force rewards

Coordinating those 5 isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it can be done. Production is (too)slow , but happens all the time and you can protect the resources you have in your base before the Dr T day easier you have Ice statues and boost them before the big raid.
Task force rewards can be “chained” . Say you do TF op on Thursday and it ends early Friday. It will stay there until you guys finish the NEXT op. That next op will end on Saturday.
Then you wait with the Thu. boat until the Fri boat comes, collect the first- collect the second right after and boost and do Dr T.

Execution

Finally. You did the preparations, did the planing, stored Pvp bases, upgraded storages and did the boat shenanigans- and now you will raid !

Order of Operations

Triple “O” . There is a method to everything. The following method takes into account everything we talked about so far and gives you an explanation about every step of the process.

1. Build your troops and wait for them to finish
2. Collect first TF boat (if you are not doing the “boat chain” trick ignore this step) – take scarce resource or diamonds or gold
3. Check your map and look through all Pvp bases once again; try to remember which ones are hard , and which ones are easy. “Find new opponent” on the hard ones while your VP is still lower then it will be when you are half way through
4. Take out NPC bases , starting with the easiest ones (they are all easy once you learn how- what HAVE you been doing all week? )
5. After you did all the Npcs, start Dr T
6. First couple of Dr T lvl are easy and as the harder ones arrive – start being careful
7. As soon as you scout a Dr T lvl where you go “ I’m not sure I can do this with min casualties” …take a step back and look at the situation
8. You still have your Pvp bases and only a couple of Dr T lvl that you cannot be sure about. Do the math, how far are you from reaching your resource goal ?
How many Pvp bases ? Which ones then ?
9. Start with the really easy ones
10. Once you are THAT ONE base from your goal. Take again a step back and think :” Do I need to boost another statue , just to be on the safe side? “ If the answer is yes, do it.
11. When all is done , you should have your upgrades on the way… and your army stll boosted up to show off in a TF operation… LOL

Alternative approach :

The above takes into account the fact that you are extra careful and don’t take heavy losses,so you don’t have to wait . But we all know **** happens, stuff brakes …so an alternative starts from no 4 as the first 3 steps are the same:
4. Do one Pvp base first,then an Npc base after it- starting with not the easiest,not the hardest
5. Alternate between them until that one base comes where you make a mistake and take some losses
6.Re-build troops and do easy Dr T and Npc lvls while you wait
7.When troops are all finished , go back to step 4….

Which is better?

The first method is better if you know you can make the whole thing without making a mistake as it leaves you with a lower VP in the end.
The second is safer form the perspective of heavy losses, but raises the VP higher, thus making the next Dr T HRR more difficult.

RAIDERS

Our final chapter is here. The ultimate BB experience where you just attack, attack and attack some more ! We will look at a lot of fine tricks used to gather resources by only attacking others for the resources. It is very long , so grab yourself some beer and snacks – and enjoy the looon read.

Who are they ?

What separates the Raiders from the rest of us when you see them on the forums ? By default , when you reach HQ 20 , and upgrade the most expensive stuff in the game , max out your primary army and start chasing the Leaderboards – you become a Raider.
Raiders are players that clear their map every day. They do it all the time. Attack a base until you beat it. You failed? – tough luck ! …Do it again!!!

A development path on it’s own

The ultra violent, balls to the wall approach to BB base development in the extreme. Raiders have no mercy and expect none. No quarter will be asked for and none given. No base is safe from them and they care little for their own .
More then a few famous players on the forums obviously made it to HQ 20 by raiding alone. You can find them on the forums , but unless you are one of them – you will seldom find them in the game. Their VP is naturally much much higher then the “norm” . In addition to this , they develop their offense much faster then the resto of us .I myself ,at one point, was a raider . Around lvl 32-37 .
There was even a guy which shocked the wordwide community by reaching the Global No 1 with only a single Sniper tower (yes, only the one you get when you start the game ) .

Tools of the trade

Attack, attack and attack some more. If it does dmg, or helps do damage – you better have it.
The base you are developing is not a “normal” base. It’s just a place to reload . That’s it.
List of things you need to be a Raider (on any HQ lvl):

Primary army

Your main strike force. The army you use every time you press “attack” . You should know your army well ,and in detail . By detail I mean the math . Simple math.
Let’s say we are using a Hooka army. In it are heavies and zookas (duh):
– how many sniper tower (at the highest ST lvl you are currently attacking ) hits can a heavy take before going down ?
– how many cannon hits?
– what is the highest lvl of boom mine it can cross without dying?

Or zookas:
– how many zooka hits do we need to take down a building ? (give is a rough number)
– can a zooka take that mortar shell and live?

Things like that. If you are rolling with T med – same logic. Warriors are an exception up to a point. They rely on very careful planning and support.

Support for the army

Barrage, Rocket, Shock,Medkit and Smoke. Some are more important for one army type then other – and vice versa. They should be maxed for the army they support. If they are not maxed, they drain your GBE. Example would be rolling with T med: You find a base that is hard to take down , unless you can flank it with tanks .
That requires barraging a Boom cannon, flaring and using smoke. If your barrage /rocket is sub par you cannot do it as you will spent more GBE then you’d desire to do. This will lead to your GBE poll being lower to start with (as tanks require energy to deploy) . That “wasted” GBE cannot later be used for shocking .
Or even worse, the flare lasts to short ! Now instead of spending 2 GBE to flare the tanks to a flank, you need to repeat and fire another one – that’s another 3 .
If you needed to fire an extra rocket on top of the initial barrage , and an extra flare – you just spent 3+3 GBE that could have been used for other things .

Support is not only Gun boat. It’s also the landing crafts. They should be upgraded one at a time to provide max capacity you need to deploy your army. They are very important.

Secondary army

There comes a base that you have a really hard time destroying with you primary army. The setup itself is giving you trouble – that’s where your secondary army comes into play . The secondary army should be very different then the first.
Resource bases are a good example for this. A Rb with 6 Boom cannons might be very hard for Tmed – but not as hard for Warriors.
Your secondary army is the backup plan , so if you cannot upgrade it to max it will not be a tragedy. Doing it surely makes play easier .
Support for this army should also be adequate .

Luckly we have one feature of the game that suports ANY player and any army…

Statues

Pretty much the same as with Predator, a Raider army is made by solid Statue support.Statues should be the back bone of you strategy while you are upgrading your base. Here is a rough list of statues that you will need:
– Both Red Master pieces
– RR Master piece
– Power stone chance
This is your bread and butter. The higher , the better (duh) . “But are you serious ?” “Only 4 staues?” “What do I do with the rest of the slots Garat? “
While thank you for the pick up questions , you imaginary voice of the forums. Yes, you can make use of the rest of the slots, but this depends on the army you are using.
I cannot honestly claim to know which army type would be best supported by which statue , but I can give my opinion,
GBE MP:
– Every army can make use of a GBE MP ,but Tmed and Hooka can work without it on HQs lvl 30-40
– Warriors require a lot of shock and medkit suport
– Grenadiers don’t care
– Tanks start demanding lots of GBE on lvls 40+, as enemy bases have Boom cannons, lots of cannons and shock launchers – and barrage is your friend

Troops HT Guardian (a good one):

– not an expert on Hooka, but it does rely on Heavies taking it for the team
– Warriors do last longer those couple of sec when they are on the HQ (but it seems less important then Tdmg Guard)…don’t take my word for it
– Grenadiers like it. Every so often, a Grenadier takes a sniper shot (before you protect it with smoke- and flare away ) . The more ht it has, the greater the chance of surviving
– Rifle spam likes extra ht to deal with mortars . Don’t hold your breath against flamers tho
– Scorchers are a worthy mention here (tho unlocked much later) ….an army of mid lvl scorchers with 7 boosted Red statues would be Trollastic!! …ok back to the text
– Tmed is not that reliant on HT anymore.

Troops Dmg Guardian

– again not an expert on Hooka, but the faster things go down, the better
– Warriors can never do too much dmg
– Tmed is not that reliant on HT anymore. On the other hand dmg is always welcome to cope with slow rate of fire. Say we have a +25% from the Tdmg MP and another +15% from the Guardian- and boost both – thats +80% more dmg from EVERY tank ;meaning, now 2 tanks firing a single shot each will seriously dent or destroy anything you point them at

GBE Guardian

– same as the MP

RR guardian

Read the Predator article above. In short, if you want to be on the safe side that you will gather enough resource- take it. You will probably switch it for an attack statue sooner or later…

Green statues are worthless to you.

Ice statues become important only after you reach HQ 20 and start climbing the Leaderboards
Note: the new update made it so that people with VP over 600 appear on more other players’ maps and so are more often raided – making their VP drop. The Vp drop is caused by constant raiding and the fact that they themselves gain less then equal number of Pvp bases to attack.
In other words, the new update is somewhat forcing you to have defense if you want to climb the leader boards.
Please take the above note with a grain of salt as I personally have nothing to do with Leaderboard chasing and this text’s aim is to help people reach HQ 20 – that’s all.
After that , BB is a whole different kind of a ball game.

Planing your upgrades

If you are attacking every day, and you are- you will gather resources constantly . This doesn’t mean you get to keep them, tho. The reason for this is , odds are , your base will be spawned to people with different development styles that are on a higher HQ lvl.
And they will take your stuff…
But fear not, the soner you have a plan , the better. Reading the Predator article is a good idea on this subject. Same logic applies , do the smaller upgrades while you wait for the bigger ones.

Usage of diamonds

I’d keep them to speed up armory upgrades. Save enough bases on the map for the next upgrade in the armory , boost everything and clear the map . Don’t diamond to finish the upgrade in the armory before you have the cash. Wait till you destroyed everything – THEN diamond.
If you fail to gather enough (shiat happens) at least you keep the diamonds, if you do collect enough ;
The time you spend raiding while the old upgrade in the armory was under way will be deducted from the cost in diamonds used to speed up the old upgrade.
Example: Shock lvl 4 is under way , 4 H to go…. I boost everything and clear the map with my army . This takes a solid hour of play. After that I diamond the Shock (that is now only 3 H to go- cheaper) and start the new upgrade asap .

One exception to this rule is an upgrade that would make THAT raid easier – ei. a one that upgrades the troops or barrage artillery that is to be used NOW.

Don’t spend diamonds to rebuild troops, unless in a pinch.
Don’t spend diamonds to make up for missing resources, unless there is no other way (which means you screwed up…it happens tho)
Don’t spend diamonds for things unrelated to armory

Order of upgrades

Upon reaching a new HQ lvl:
– armory first (to unlock new troops lvls )
– radar to have more things to spend gold on and get more stuff to Boom
– Sculptor to have more statues
– Landing crafts
– storages and Vault
After you have upgraded that, upgrade anything you like to reach a new HQ lvl. It makes little difference what it is , as long as it’s bringing in xp .

High Resource Raid

Same thing as with Predator. One thing to note , a major difference – Dr T himself. Thing is , the more lvl you do, the more buildings each lvl has.After you have reached your Resource Goal and made the upgrade, you should try to defeat as many lvls of Dr T that you can. Each lvl has more buildings then the one before – more buildings, more purple shards. More purpule shards, more MPs…and more Power Powder.
This leads to another feature of the game which is unique to this development path…

The Shard raid

You are boomng every beach ,every day – all the time.While this not only makes a lot of fun- it also brings great difficulty if taken lightly (high VP – high stakes). You are after another resource in the game , a one others see as random – shards and crystals. Crucial to your plan …..

Shards as a pseudo resource

Have you ever wondered why some players have all those awesome statues? How lucky they are? To them , shards are another resource , for almost all intents and purposes . It’s not only the statues they are after- they are after the Power Powder .

I already talked about the Power stone chance Master piece and it’s importance. It is almost unimaginable to be realistically a true Raider without it.

I’m not going to talk in detail exactly how does the “random shard mechanism” work . For additional info, I suggest checking on the forums here- we have a whole sections “All About Statues”

Fact is, players that clear their map daily cycle a LOT of statues and therefore gain more PP then others.

Power Powder Stash

Every building you destroy brings you a random chance of a shard. Collect enough shards and you will create Idols , Guardians and Master Pieces-so you keep the the ones you like, and crush the rest to get Power Powder . As soon as you can, try stashing as much as you can – for a rainy week. That one week where you have trouble keeping up.

Usage of Power Powder

Boosting everything on Dr T day is a given- but let’s take a deeper look for a second. It takes 343 shards to create a single Master Piece and trade it in for 7 PP.
If you do a daily raid (later on that) 6 times per week , spending one PP per day ,you will spend 6 PP a week.
Clear your map once a day for 6 days a week. Take the seventh day off to . Or stretch the 6 raids over 7 days. Pick one statue to boost on each raid. Which one depends on your army. Warriors will probably use Troop DMG, or GBE . T med will use Troop Dmg.
Meaning , your already maxed army for the HQ lvl is made even stronger when you raid.

Some PP math…

Example:
1 PP for six days to boost Troop dmg = 6 PP a week
3 extra PP on Wednesday DR T to boost Tht,GBE , RR = 3 PP a week
3 extra PP on Saturday DR T to boost Tht,GBE , RR = 3 PP a week
—————————————————————————————
Total = 12 PP a week to keep it going

Conclusion : If I can create 2 MPs a week , I will have enough to have my army boosted (more or less) every time I raid . I will also have 2 PP left.
Of course, this is just an option that is by no means obligatory . If the PP boost is needed – fine. If not – better .

Daily Raid

In order to make use of PP, I suggest clearing the map once a day in one go. It serves several purposes :
– you get used to clearing your map, and playing carefully not to take lots of losses
– you can make best use of the boost
– you can do the harder bases first , then do the easier ones in the meantime while your army rebuilds
– before you start it, “find new opponents” while your VP is still low
– practice clearing NPC bases with one LC less so you can cope with heavy losses if they appear
– get used to dealing with the time pressure

Reasons for clearing your map are numerous :
– you practice
– you gain intel
– you gain shards
– you gain resources to do smaller upgrade
– you gain resources to have them raided (important !)
– you clear NPCs , to make them come back stronger and with more loot
– you gain VP , leading to opponents that are higher in VP , but not necessarily better at defense (but probably worth more loot)

Matchmaking and the Circle of Development

The ever-living topic all over the forums , MM system which will always be debated and argued over. Your success depends on understanding it, and taking advantage of it .
The system for you is:

Take some resources (Vp goes up) – Get raided (loose resoureces and VP goes down) – Do a HRR with Dr T in it (Vp goes up , major upgrades are done) – Get raided (Vp goes down)

Circle of Development means the resources are , unwillingly , spread around and they circle between players. They are not transfered in a 1:1 ratio. The amount of resources you gain from a raid is influenced by your lvl, your target’s lvl, his vault lvl, your RR MP %…and so on. The only thing that is important is to gather enough resources at one time to upgrade. And it goes on…

Losing is Winning

You should encourage EVERYONE to raid you. Every time you succeed in it – GOOD.
Your Vp will go down, and you can get lighter opponents (in theory at least ) . I suggest you read the Predator article on “Baiting”. That requires you to build some defenses . This can be done , but it should never be a priority over attacks. There is no guarantee that the small amount of defense you do build will stop determined raiders.
Having your base filled with resources is the best way to ensure your base will be utterly run over by anyone: Farmers, lazy people, Predators, Raiders, Incompetent guys – EVERYONE!
If you pop on other peoples’ map – hope they will raid you.

Shapeshifting ,the Final Phase

Shapeshifting is my term for …flexibility. No one trick (or a series of them) can work for everyone. This is why BB is a great game. If Farming works for while , but you feel you need to step it up – take some Red statues and go on the offensive !
You certainly have every option open to you. A single MP of a different type boosting only a part of your strategy can lead to great things !

I’m currently working on this 4th path : The Shapeshifter
I cannot explain in detail how it works as it takes different strategic options from Farmer, Predator and Raider and then merges them into a style greater then the sum of it’s parts .

Thank you

Thank you for reading. It was a long , long topic and now we’ve come to the end. Now that you’ve red about the 3 basic ways of development , you know and can come back to the basic steps,tricks and tips on how to develop your base easier.