War Loot

This gets its own section because a lot of people get confused by it

• There are two kinds of loot. You get "attack loot" from attacking (kinda like regular multiplayer raiding). If you get any stars, you also get "war loot".
• "attack loot" isn't worth all that much, but at least it is something.
• "attack loot" is calculated differently from regular raiding loot. Destroying more buildings gets you more "attack loot", regardless of the building type. Resource buildings do not hold extra loot and are not special.
• Do not focus on attacking resource buildings during war. They don't get you much. Focus on defensive buildings, to help you get stars.
• "war loot" is worth a lot more than "attack loot"
• You only need 1 star on a base to get "war loot" from it. So if you're a weaker base, you can still make money by picking off a town center.
• The winning team keeps 100% of the "war loot" it earns. The losing team only keeps about 30%. So winning makes you more money. Stars are more important than loot.
• If we win, we keep all our "war loot". If we lose, we give up most of it. I know I just said that, but it is important enough to repeat. We win by getting stars.
• Winning makes us money. Losing costs us money. 3rd time I've said it now.
• Attackers don't take your normal loot during war. So you don't have to worry that you'll lose your saved resources.

Here's an example of why stars are more important than loot:

Dick can attack #1 and probably only get 2 stars. But he'll get 391,000 gold/food in "war loot". Or he can attack #6 for 5 stars and only get 204,000 gold/food. He only needs 1 star to get "war loot", so attacking #1 is better, right?

WRONG

If getting less stars causes us to lose the war, Dick will actually only get 30% of his 391,000, or 117,300 food/gold. So by attacking higher than he should have, Dick lost loot for himself, and he lost loot for all his teammates. Get stars, and the loot will work itself out.

Here's another example: Toward the end of the war, #14 only has 3 stars and all the low bases have already attacked. Dick is a high base, so he can use his second attack on #14 and easily get 5 stars. He'll probably only need barracks troops and not tactics, troop tactics, or mercenaries. But it costs Dick 150,000 food to retrain all his barracks troops, and he'll only get 40,000 war loot from #14. It will cost Dick food to attack, so he should leave #14 alone.

WRONG

First, because Dick can destroy all of #14's defensive buildings, he'll get back any troops that don't die. So it will cost him a lot less than 150,000 to retrain. Chances are good he'll come out even. But second, if skipping those stars on #14 means we lose the war, Dick will only get 30% of whatever war loot he earned on his first attack. If his first attack earned 400,000, he'll only get 120,000. So he'll lose 280,000 food by not attacking #14. Even if he had to completely retrain, he'd still come out ahead by making sure we won.

The morale of the story: win, win win. Stars, stars, stars. Do that, and the loot will work itself out.