Preface:

All the accounts and statements written forthwith are not intended to disrespect the quality of this club,
fellow members, seniors, VPs, and certainly President. This is simply the experience of joining a top 100
club and the methods witnessed to get (and stay) there.

Before reading further, there are three questions that everyone should ask themselves.

1. Why are you in a club? (War, CoM, Fun) (Rate each from a 1-5 scale, 1 being least and they can
be equal) (Reason optional)
2. Are you willing to change current club methods for War or CoM? (Y/N)
3. How important is it to be in the top 100 of Club Wars? (What amount of time are you willing to
put in) (Same scale values, reason optional)

There will be other questions proposed throughout this report, but those three are the most important
to consider in the opinion of the writer.

This report is divided into the following key areas:

- General Experience
- Schedule
- Ranking
- Communication
- Depot Management
- CoMs
- War
- Team Balance
- Exploits

Each of these are just general. Further breakdown will be explained.

Before I continue, I must answer those questions for everyone. That way my perspective can be fully
understood.

1. I am in this club for all aspects (3,3,5). 3’s are given because I will not make this a second life.
2. Yes
3. 3, fun is the primary aspect of my game play. Wins/rewards are great, but once enjoyment
expires, I will not spend my time. I consider it a goal is all.

General Experience

Prior to departure, I took note of roughly 10 club names within the top 100 that I would be able to
search. Other than simply being in the top 100, the noted clubs were based on current member
capacity and the likelihood of being English speaking.

It was not surprising that most clubs were private or were full by the time I had searched. Of the clubs I
was able to apply, one ended up not being English speaking (The Goliath – 70 at time). I quickly left.
The second (Merchants of War – 73 at time), I got little response upon acceptance, other than the VP
who accepted. There may have been a time zone issue for the lack of response. So, I decided to leave.

The third one, Global Simsters – 45 rank at the time (23 members when joined and 25 by war time),
quickly accepted. I said hello immediately, and was welcomed by roughly seven or eight members. One
VP took charge and began to question how I found their club, where I was from, and if I was
male/female. My response was as follows:

“I had been in a club for a little while, but did not find them to be competitive enough with War.
I looked at the top 100 clubs before leaving and found you all were taking applications. So, I decided to
apply and see how it went. I am male from U.S.”

The VP said:

“Great! We are divided between time zones across the globe and have a U.S. team and an Asia
based team. All of our times are based on U.S. EST time zone. It works pretty well. Are you on
Facebook? We post all of our updates there and communicate through messenger because of game
lag.”

Now, for those who do not know, I am not on Facebook. I have never created an account. Just never
found the idea to be for me. It threw me off a little bit, but was honest and said exactly that, but I
questioned if that would be a problem. He said:

“We have others who are not on FB as well. We try to keep updates posted here as well.”

I knew at this point to get information, I would need to see what else was being said besides just in
game. So, guess what, I created an account and found their group. How else would I get everything I
needed to know. I never thought this would be the reason for creating an account though. Fuck it,
right?

The next question regarded how active I was in CoMs. I simply said above average, but that everyone’s
opinion of average may be different. The response was as follows:

“We have a minimum for Neighborhood league of 35k and it increases by 7500 each league up.”

Clearly I realized how serious this group took things. At this point, the VP I was speaking to begins to
give me the general rules and that the President would be on shortly to complete the acceptance
process.

Within ten minutes, the President was on and began to give me some background information about
how they operated. From there, I said:

“Everything sounds good. I will do my best to keep in line with the rules and help.”

Several untruths, but this is how it began….

Schedule
They War twice a week. It was scheduled around the CoM start and end times. War initiation began 12
hours prior to start of CoM, so attack begins at the start of CoM. Now, I only took part in the first war,
but the weekly schedule went like this for U.S. EST (Our time equivalent):

Monday: 12:00PM (Tuesday: 5:00AM) – Initiate War

Tuesday: 12:00AM (Tuesday: 5:00PM) – Attack Phase (Start of CoM)

Wednesday: 12:00PM (Thursday: 5:00AM) – War ends

Then there is a 60-hour break for CoM activity and just basic recuperation/relaxation.

Saturday: 6:00AM (Saturday: 11:00PM) – Initiate War

Saturday: 6:00PM (Sunday: 11:00AM) – Attack Phase

Monday: 6:00AM (Monday 11:00PM) – War ends

The concept here is to produce regularity and provide sufficient time for CoM activity at a very high
level. For reference, we were at third chest reward in less than 24 hours. Didn’t even need the 60-hour
interim.

Now, obviously, we would want to change this to better fit our time schedule. The key point here is
regularity. With set days and times, there is a greater possibility of everyone being available at the start
and end of war. This is a component to winning that should be very easy to define, and we will not be
asking the question of “Are we going to war tonight?”. I admit to being a culprit of that at times.

Ranking

This is not necessarily from the experience, but important to understand how we approach each
opponent. This is probably known by some, but maybe not all of us. It does not account for the match
pairings entirely because some of ours have seemed unusual, but it should define how plan each war
after an opponent is matched up.

A club’s rank follows the Elo system. I will try to portray the results with a scenario.

There are twoclubs:

Club 1 (C1) – Rank 1800

Club 2 (C2) – Rank 1850

C2 is significantly stronger based on ranking, but a possible match-up. C2 should destroy C1. If they do,
then their rank will increase by a reasonable number while C1 will drop in rank by a similar amount. If it
is close and C2 only barely wins, C2 may or may not gain any increase in rank. They could even lose rank
points. C1, at the same time could lose a small amount or even gain rank. And the last result, where C1
defeats C2, we know what would occur.
The point here is to look at our opponent and figure out a target margin number regardless of final score
totals in order to continue gaining or maintaining rank. In theory, this should always be possible if the
match algorithm works properly.

Communication

There are a number of aspects to this beyond just talking in the game chat. As mentioned, this club
used FB and Messenger to provide updates and talk while in game. There are a few reasons as I found
out.

1. Single location for everyone to keep up to date. You wont miss posts like in game chat if you
have been away for a long period of time.
2. Avoidance of lag, which we all are experiencing.
3. War preparation (will explain more in that section later)

Now, that does not mean that the game chat is not used because it still is quite a bit during the war.
This is where everyone calls out what they are doing and who they are targeting. This is crucial for
avoiding accidental knockouts with low cards.

New members have to be actively communicating because they will not always understand the tactics
and plan. Now, I was surprised, after joining FB, they let me just join the group. I don’t recommend
that, especially after what Ashly told me happened last war.

We need to seriously consider a common place for guidelines and other means of communication to be
successful.

Depot Management

Ill try to be short here, but this is something they were very clear about. While some of us may have a
large storage capacity, some may not. I, for example, have never really focused on expanding it, so it is
small. It is only 170 at this time. I have to be very efficient.

What they did was define their depot as open (OD) or closed (CD). These were added to the end of their
name, and changed frequently. If it was open you could buy. Closed, meant do not touch.

I went looking at all of their depots regardless of how it was defined. I say that I could have raided some
of them and just got the hell out after. Even in (OD), there were stores of war parts just sitting there. As
the new member, I wasn’t going to take because I needed to stay in there for as long as possible.

This is basically just a way to expand storage without needing those items to actually do it. It was an
arsenal of parts.

The question you may ask is what do they do once they have put them up? How could the same mayor
use what is In their depot? They worked together and used the term “volley” to get what they needed.
“Will someone volley my ducks?”, for example.
This is not risky with a core group, but certainly would be with new members. I need more storage
space, so I like it except for that fact.

CoMs

Most of this has already been stated in the General Experience. Extremely active. Extremely helpful to
each other. Even more so than us. Minimums per week were required. I am in favor of that,
personally. Bigger chest, bigger rewards which can help with War potentially.

There is one more aspect to this which will tie into War and is explained in the next section.

War

This was the main focus of the infiltration effort, obviously. What are they doing? What is the strategy?
What do they have to attack with?

There were several parts to the approach that we already understand and utilize. I will start from the
beginning though.

War had a direct link to communication methods. Once a war was initiated, and opponent matched,
investigation by the VP’s and President began of each target. It wasn’t just about prepping war items
and building an arsenal. From target assessment, a list was made. This list was posted on FB. It was the
order in which targets would be attacked and who was attacking who. You were assigned a target. This
list continued to be updated as the war progressed, either by the President or a VP (there were several)

Once the war was initiated, the President asked for everyone to check in and make sure they would be
on time. Almost everyone checked in.

The 12 hours of prep pass and it is go time. Attack like hell. However, there are only certain
attacks/cards that were recommended to be used. Only low cost or high point-to-energy ratio. These
are Comic Slap and Magnetism. For the first 30 minutes, it was acceptable to bubble a target with a
Slap. As said, just attack like hell.

The goal was not crates. It was the win. And winning leads to increased rank.

Certain attacks were never an option. Never use “Not In Kansas” or “Tentacle Vortex”. It doesn’t
matter what level, they are both wasted energy. (I would like to make that a standard)

So, for example a level 4 slap gets you 130 for minimal cost. Ducks and plungers are quite plentiful as far
as I can tell, and it’s only one each. Level 3 Magnetism is 365. That’s 1095 for the math majors out
there when attack phase starts and it takes a target down to the desired 1. Clearly, it costs more, but
the war part focus is on binoculars, anvils and hydrants. You don’t have to forget about the others, but
most are bypassed. They only ones not are those which allow for a hit 900 or more. That was the
minimum for a knockout of a 1 target.
For the first 15 minutes (after the first energy is restored), it was ok to bubble a target with a Slap. Still
following the list though. You could wait for 30 minutes, however, and then use Magnetism again. Yes,
huge stores of those parts.

The point ratio is what matters here. If I used six level 4 slaps, that’s still 780 and didn’t cost much.

Now, there were higher level cards of each of those than I had. One guy had a level 6 Slap and level 5
Magnetism.

This was also true of our opponent (rank 11 at the time). And, they attacked the exact same way.

After the first 30 minutes, it was wait for energy and build supplies. Constant communication looking
for common items to complete war deliveries. Lots of ‘volleying” at this point.

As most of us already understand (at least those reading this), there was no repair until bubbled, and no
leaving bubble until full energy. Attacking then took a slightly different approach. Once you leave the
bubble, hit a target with 1 left by 900 or more. Then, use Magnetism or Slap to finish your 12 energy off.

This would continue until the last two hours, of course. At this point it was supposed to be a free for all,
just attacking as much as possible. Unfortunately, when we were at 18 hours left, the score was 144k to
147k, losing. The opponent was entirely bubbled and they never came back out. PSYs. The club was
pissed calling them all kinds of things, and suggesting EA make changes if a club does not make a move
in a certain amount of time, they begin to lose points. Not a bad idea in basic theory.

The tie to CoMs here is that they would always leave one full green target for 2k CoM attack assignment.
These could only be attacks by Slap, and if there was more than one, it would always be the lowest score
left.

I’m probably leaving something out, but I know there will be questions regardless.

Building this kind of arsenal and group will take time. The organization should not take long if we scale
this method down to fit our current group.

Team Balance

This is probably a no go, but it’s what was found. In the General Experience section, I said they had
people all over to the globe. A U.S. based team and an Asia based team. It allowed for half to be up at
all times, so the guard was never completely down and targets were constantly getting taken out.

It might not be a terrible idea, but I understand the nature of this Club.

Exploits

No one announced purchasing cards to get the card levels I mentioned. But, I suppose it is possible to
do without if you War enough. I did hear about second cities/accounts/clubs where they would go to
war and just tank to get parts. Members were leaving and going in between wars. Probably the reason
it was open and accepting applications. Is that cheating? The game allows it in its current structure.
Conclusion

How important is the top 100? Great goal, but is it realistic for the amount of time we may have put
forth in order to get there? As I have said, this is not my life, nor do I believe it is any of yours. We can
implement some of these things to benefit the Club very easily, in my opinion. Others will take time and
consistent effort, communication, and schedule. I am all for improving our current rank, but I am more
interested in having fun and letting this be a mental release from the real world. I never felt that once
when in war with Global Simsters. They were all very friendly people, but it sure didn’t feel like home.