Today was the last day I’ll most likely ever be forced to upgrade a landing craft. It felt like a massive relief as the majority of my offenses on my secondary account have finally been maxed out in terms of non-gold using resources. That leaves just heroes, abilities and defensive structures as my last remaining bits. In addition to this, I want to give some thoughts on recent updates to Boom Beach.
For my main account, I’m now at 64 and and slowly but surely progressing to a completed base. Today, I upgraded my last Flamethrower defense structure, leaving Cannons, Sniper Towers, 2 Machine Guns, 4 Mortars, the last Shock Launcher and Artifact Storage as my final pieces. Although the recommended path of defensive upgrades is Boom Cannons -> Rocket Launchers -> Shock Launchers – Cannons – Sniper Towers, etc. I decided that I needed more general AoE defense, which has led me to a more balanced approach. Not to mention doing one type of defense felt a bit boring.
One thing I noticed is that Mortars are surprisingly expensive to upgrade. I’ve felt that Mortars are the weakest defense due to speed. Their best usage I’ve seen is assaulting low hit point units in large groups such as Zookas, Grenadiers and Riflemen. I suppose when positioned correctly, they do very well against those troops and Warrior attacks. But the vast majority of attacks lately have been CRMZ and Hooka with the occasional T-Med tossed in.
That said, there’s a certain rewarding feeling when you finish upgrading a whole type of defense. The big payoff for me these days comes through Hammerman’s Monday assaults where I get to see how my week’s upgrades have improved over time. On my main account, I would say that I can reach level 6 reliably and occasionally overcome them. I think if I want to beat level 6 and eventually level 7 consistently, I would need to move to an Ice Statue structure along with three max level prototypes. But that gets extremely expensive and I’m unwilling to sacrifice my offensive statue structure at this point in time.
For my secondary account, finishing up the last Landing Craft tastes like victory. From here on out, it’s pretty much all defenses. In my troop upgrades, I just need to finish up Riflemen and Warriors as my Scorchers will be completed soon. I really don’t feel like I need to upgrade Warriors to be honest as I doubt I’ll ever use them again. So I might just save my gold for other defensive upgrade abilities like mines or push my tribal islands a little so that the Destroy function becomes more profitable.
Initially, once I complete my Landing Craft upgrade, I’ll begin a similar process of upgrading defenses with focusing on Boom Cannons and Rocket Launchers with some upgrades to Shock Launchers. But I might do a round robin thing the way I’m handling my main account due to the more satisfying experience of having a variety of defenses upgraded rather than a single type in parallel.
Now, a little discussion on the so-called recent update. It was quite pathetic to me. We had the two prototype tanks and the Cryobombs. The only thing I found useful was the Cryobombs since they could detonate mines like a cheap Crawler gunboat ability. But the prototype tanks were a massive failure due to poor balance and the fact that they were for a limited time. I bought some plans only to discover that I was unable to use them in time, thus wasting 5 million gold. WTF Supercell!
I’m hoping that the next updates from Supercell won’t just be transient with Gunboat abilities and prototype plans. It sucks that you don’t get enough time to really tests them out where you can form more reliable strategies. And from a lower level account perspective, it must suck even more considering the plans cost 1 million gold every time, meaning that you’re likely never going to get a chance until the next time around.
Honestly, I’m looking forward to the day both my accounts are maxed out. I think once that happens, I might just log in to do the dailies, run Destroy on NPC bases, collect the tickets and slowly upgrade the last of my hero abilities. I don’t see myself pushing leaderboards nor pursuing Task Force operations at a higher level. I might move to a defensive statue structure at that point unless they push out a new HQ level. At this time, I really have my doubts that will occur. But I will be able to reclaim yet more of my time, which I think will be great.