Clash of Clans: Life, Money, Progress, and an Important Update

Apoorv Sharma
5 min readAug 19, 2022

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A few weeks ago, I started playing Clash of Clans.

Yes, the game that was pretty popular amongst the gen-z before PUBG came out.

If you’ve played COC (the vicarious metaverse game) you know the feeling.

Wait, vicarious metaverse?

Yes, just think about it. It was a game wherein you were building your own mini-city, remember?

Setting up a defense system and strategizing the best-attacking strategy. All this while you’re also upgrading the fighting avatars (troops) you’ve got.

And you can’t miss the part wherein you were fighting or craving to earn more gold, elixir, dark elixir, and most importantly, gems (to get new builders and finish a task early.)

Now, how is it similar to the metaverse is a totally different topic and this article isn’t about that!

It’s about two things:

  1. Me leaving Clan Coaster
  2. And why I believe COC is very much similar to one’s life.

Let’s start with the second point first.

For the last few weeks, I haven’t worked as hard as I used to. Or to put it in another word, I haven’t kept myself busy lately.

I’ve been thinking a lot.

Spending time with friends a lot.

Been reading a lot.

Watching a lot.

Staring at a wall, and contemplating a lot.

And yes, trying to play mobile games a lot.

In this whole trajectory, I found COC (Clash of Clans). It’s a familiar game for me as, a few years back before the craze for PUBG came up, COC was a cult amongst the gen-z. And I was also a part of that cult.

I decided to play COC from scratch, and by the time I reached Town Hall 5, this contemplating brain thought of something.

“Okay, this felt better inside my head, but I’ll try to write it in the best way possible. Phew…”

When you start the game from scratch, you’re taught about the very basics of it. Like where the gold and elixir are, how can you create the army, what can you get from the shop, etc.

Now, those with Town hall 1, get a very limited option in the shop. Like a very small number of bricks, a cannon for an attack, and everything basic.

To move forward in the game, you need to earn more gold and elixir. For that, you’ve to do attacks on other town halls.

As a fresher, when you attack someone, you’ll see some great town halls with golden walls, multiple cannons, and a lot more things than you have.

“How did this person get everything from the shop to this town hall and when will you?“

You get envy? Jealous? or FOMO?

Whatever it is, it does have an impact on you. Subconsciously, at least.

But you do attack. Lose. Train your troop. Attack again. And follow this loop that has no precise end. Just with a simple goal that you want to make your Town Hall big someday.

Now, a lot of times in my life, I’ve heard of an entrepreneur getting lucky. Even though I don’t believe in luck, I started to believe it because that’s what everyone around me was feeding my brain.

When you actually look at an entrepreneur’s journey, you’ll see one who has been successful once, has gotten successful again.

“There must be a hack,” I used to think.

And this game made me realize, yes it is. But there’s no single hack, but tons of them. And there’s no SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for it, but just your experience and lessons.

Knowing how I took my game to TH 8 earlier, I had a pretty good idea to do that again.

For example,

  1. If you need a lot of gold and elixir; don’t attack multiple small Town Halls. Instead, train a lot of goblins and attack a big fish. Even if you lose a few trophies, the gold and elixir will be much more than 4–5 small attacks combined.

It saves time and growth hack your way towards reaching Town Hall 12.

  1. Or even though it’s important to upgrade your Town Hall, never miss out on upgrading all the elements of your game to the max before actually upgrading the TH.
  2. Never ever let your builder be free.

And there are tons of such lessons.

But let’s just stop there and dive into why exactly and how is COC even similar to life.

  • Town Hall = Life/Lifestyle
  • Elixir/Gold/Gems = Money/Relationship/Health
  • Troops = Skills
  • Attack = Hustle/Work
  • Defense = Not letting any opportunity miss

We all are trying to earn Elixir or Gold or Gems, with the ultimate goal of upgrading our Town Hall to the max.

Now how high you can upgrade your Town Hall to; totally varies from person to person.

Someone has an eye on Shahrukh Khan’s town hall.

Someone, on a 9–5 IT guy’s town hall.

Someone just wants to have their bank full of gold and elixir but doesn’t want to spend it.

And… you can imagine its horizons.

Troops are your skills and some people keep on upgrading the troops (skills) while some just want to get more troops.

The hack is to do both!

When you attack, you’re hustling. And fighting for your survival. And that’s the only you can move forward in the game and life.

When somebody attacks you, you’re building a defense system to grab that opportunity and win it.

I hope what I wrote makes sense. I mean, it perfectly did inside my brain.

Anyways, for the first part. I’ve left Clan Coaster.

Why?

The expectations that my co-founder and I had of our merger didn’t meet to their best.

So, we’ve decided to shut down the brand Clan Coaster and follow our own calling.

Meanwhile, I will be handling my clients as a freelancer and am looking for a job as a growth marketer.

In fact, yesterday I had my first interview and it went pretty well.

As for the last few weeks, I also realized that I wasn’t happy. I know LinkedIn isn’t the right place to say so. It’s taboo to talk about anything other than informational posts and accomplishments, but I’m being truly transparent here.

It feels good to not think much and work again.

I hope everything turns out to be good in the near future.

Well, honestly, I’m sure it will. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from Clash of Clans :)

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Apoorv Sharma
Apoorv Sharma

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