Released in 2012 by Finnish developer Supercell, the mobile game Clash of Clans has been popular with highschool students for years. The game pioneered the genre of “idle strategy”, a style marked by its method of enabling players to advance their development while offline. This is most prominently shown in-game through the upgrading of buildings, whose completion routinely takes multiple days. Players “check-in” on the game, start upgrades, and then return after their completion.

From this feature branches two distinct strategies that make up the basis of contemporary Clash of Clans study: “rushing” and “maxing.”

To “rush” a base simply means to upgrade the town hall (the central building of a base, which when upgraded unlocks more buildings and subsequent upgrades) without upgrading the other resources/defenses beforehand. This strategy is largely associated with new players, who don’t have the patience for creating a strong base and upgrade their town hall prematurely in the pursuit of the cooler-looking buildings exclusive to the higher town hall levels. “Rushing” here means the same as it would in any other task, as in working with haste and resulting in an incomplete product. The word is stigmatized and often used in a derogatory manner. Being accused of rushing is one of the worst things you can hear as a Clash of Clans player.

To “max” a base would be the opposite. A player “maxing” would upgrade every building to the highest level available with respect to their town hall. Popular opinion dictates maxing to be more respectable than rushing. Traits associated with maxing players may include patience or strength, as opposed to the impatience and immaturity of rushers.

No issue has ever been so divisive. The debate between the creeds has plagued lunchroom tables for decades, in both elementary and high schools.

I would stand to argue, in the face of popular opinion, that the rushing strategy has at least some merit.

Most central to my argument is the observation that rushing players unlock resource collectors (mainly gold mines and elixir collectors) before their maxing counterparts. While a maxing player is busy upgrading non-resource producing buildings, a rushing player will have already advanced to the next town hall and with it the ability to create even more resource collectors. By reinvesting the profits of their resource collectors into more resource collectors (rather than the non-resource producing buildings) the rushing player will have accrued more overall wealth than a maxing player. This disparity is amplified if both players take short breaks from the game (as is typical in people’s busy lives). While both players are gone, the rushed player has more resource collectors to produce profits.

The analogy that I would use to best describe the situation is that of two runners in a race. Imagine that the first runner jogs throughout the entire race, while the second runner sprints for the first 10 seconds. After his sprint, the second runner then slows to a pace slower than that of the first runner, before finally speeding up again ever so slightly so that both runners maintain a pace equal to each other.

I would argue, in this metaphor, that the second runner would still be ahead of the first runner, despite his period of slow running. Further, now that both runners are running at an equal pace, the second runner will forever be ahead.

In the context of the rushing vs. maxing debate, the first runner would be a typical player and the second runner a rusher. Although the rusher would eventually stall, taking longer than a typical player to advance to the next town hall (playing “catch-up” with their extra upgrades), they would have still accrued a greater net worth.

Opponents of rushing may argue, however, that resource collection is insignificant in comparison to the loot gained through attacking other bases, an area in which maxed players supposedly triumph.

It is true, admittedly, that the majority of loot gained by a player comes from their attacks rather than their domestic production.

However, attacking power may not be as important in the acquisition of loot as pro-maxers may imply. While yes, maxed players have greater attacking power through their upgraded barracks and army camps (the structures responsible for troop level and army size respectively), the attacking system as a whole is centered on player choice. Clash of Clans is a strategy game, afterall.

Allow me to be more specific.

Prospective attackers have the choice of their prey; undesirable or tough bases can be skipped for a relatively low cost in gold (the cost is dependent on town hall level, which would also be low at the stage in the game where rushing would be most viable, more on that later).

Rushers could then search for loot-rich bases of low defensive capability to attack. This type of base is not uncommon in the slightest. According to ActivePlayer.io, Clash of Clans boasts over 100 million players. With such a large pool to choose from, it is inevitable that an “easy target” will become known. For example, a player may come into a windfall of resources, but they are unable to use them as they are waiting for another upgrade to finish and don’t have any spare builders.

Yes, maxed players can also attack these “toss-ups,” but this only shows that (loot-wise) both types of players benefit roughly the same amount from attacking bases regardless of military might. Rushed players still have the advantage of the greater resource collection.

Opponents of rushing may say that a rushed base is ripe for an attack. With weak defenses, and large stores of loot, it seems that a rushed base would not last long in the face of adversity. This is true, to an extent.

Even so, it is important to remember that maxed bases will have their loot raided as well. A player with strong defensive buildings is not necessarily immune from enemy raids.

The range of bases eligible for attack is based largely on trophies, not town hall level (only players within a few town hall levels of each other can find each other in matchmaking). Older and higher level players will generally have higher trophies as their attacks are often successful, more frequently waged, and have been done more times than a newer player. It is no wonder why higher level players have high level town halls, too. To upgrade the barracks (to unlock new/stronger troops), players need to upgrade their town hall. Logically, people with high trophy counts would then have high town hall levels. These high-level players would only be pitted against other players of a similar trophy count (who would also be likely to have high town hall levels).

But this is not always the case; a player not as concerned with attacking may have a higher town hall and barracks than other players in their trophy range. Alternatively, some high-level players choose to purposely fail their attacks in a strategy called “trophy-dropping” in order to be matched with weaker bases later on. It could be said, then, that defenses are not that important at an early stage in the game because there is always a “bigger fish” to defeat your base entirely and take your loot. Any avid Clash of Clans player can recall a time where their “maxed-out” base was steamrolled. It is also noteworthy that attacks do not take too much loot, and players are able to reclaim some of their lost loot from the loot cart. This can help alleviate the effects of an enemy raid.

Rushers may also be able to take advantage of the shield system that is so often exploited by trophy-droppers. For readers unaware, shields are temporary items that protect bases from any/every attack. Longer shields, lasting from a few days to an entire week, can be bought from the item shop with the valuable gem currency (which can only be obtained en-masse with real-life money through microtransactions). More pertinent, however, is the shorter free shield awarded after a raid on a player’s own base. This shield ranges from 12-16 hours (depending on the severity of the attack). With this in mind, rushers can purposely design their base to be weak in hopes of attracting weak attacking players. This can be done by placing the town hall in a relatively undefended area one’s base, with the intention that a player who would typically be too weak to attack the base at its full defensive capability would cleverly destroy only the area containing the building. This attacking player, unable to defeat the rest of the base, would promptly retreat, taking home minimal loot along with the more coveted “victory star” awarded for destroying the town hall of another’s base.

I have been on both sides of this coin; having played both a shield-hungry rusher and a trophy-eyed beginner trying to sneak a victory star. I believe the scenario is so common as it serves as a win-win: the weak attacker gets a victory star and the clever defender gets a shield from stronger would-be attackers.

Upon hearing this method, one may think: Couldn’t both rushing and maxing players attempt to swindle shields this way? Although true that both types of players could equally defend their bases with shields, this method lessens the disparity between loot lost by maxing and rushing players through raids by restricting the number of times their bases can be raided. If a rushed base loses more loot than a maxed base on average during raids, then less raids would lessen one of the core advantages pro-maxers often flaunt: their defensive and loot protection capabilities compared to rushed bases. Again, the superior resource collection of a rushed base prevails.

Another common pro-maxing talking point is that rushed bases, in their weak attacking prowess, are unable to steal the loot of others. It is true that the majority of loot a player gains is through attacking.

But there is more to the story. Just as there are people not interested in attacking, some players are not interested in defending. Some players may even leave their base spread out in pieces in an effort to drop to the lowest trophy category (similar to the aforementioned shield method), or just for the fun of crushing smaller bases. Other players may just be bad at building a defensive base. In any case, there are certainly players out there that can be easily attacked, and sometimes they hold a decent amount of loot. This is important, as players are able to choose who they want to attack and can skip bases of above average or average defensive capabilities in favor of attacking a weak base.

To recap: Rushed bases (with poor defensive power) can be completely defeated by other players with ease. However, it is not uncommon for maxed bases to also be destroyed by trophy-dropping or other strong enemies. Rushed bases also project poor offensive power, making it hard for them to steal loot from bases of equal town hall levels. However, there are many players (for whatever reason) that create bases with horrid defense, making it easy for a player of any strength to defeat them and steal their loot.

This may seem contradictory to my previous claims, but I am not some pro-rushing stooge. I concede that rushing is a poor strategy for higher level town halls and competitive play. There are only so many town hall upgrades that unlock resource collectors to maintain rushing as a viable strategy.

I would advise, then, that players rush only when it is most effective, before weaning onto a more moderate progression plan. I would label the early-game to be this period of most efficiency.

As the end game approaches, it gets to a point where having the lowest level cannons and the weakest troops makes the foundational concepts of attack and defense completely moot.

I would label the bases of any rusher above town hall ten to be “terminal,” as in that they may never have the ability to change course. Is the game even enjoyable anymore at a “terminal” stage? Yes, there may still be chances to defend from a trophy-dropper or to snag loot from a shield-farmer, but the point of rushing has been lost. The benefit of rushing came from a push in the early game, before reentering the mainstream at an advantage. “Terminal” rushers rob themselves of the joy felt when perfectly executing an attack on a complicated base, or the pride of seeing one’s base design defend flawlessly against a strong enemy raid.

The real answer to rushing vs. maxing debate is somewhere in between. A wise player may even go as far as to compromise the doctrine of rushing and to upgrade offensive buildings alongside their collectors (to an extent, perhaps only moderately), in an effort to be more effective in their attacks. Higher trophy brackets (“leagues”) also award more bonus loot upon the acquisition of 5 victory stars (only available once every 24 hours), providing further incentive to have successful attacks and a higher trophy count. During an event such as clan wars, where a player’s corresponding opponent is often of the same town hall level, it is undeniable that a base lacking in offensive competence will be rewarded less loot.

Nevertheless, players who rush get an immediate early game advantage. It is those who continue to rush beyond the middle game who give proper rushers a bad name.