(guide) How long do you need to collect iron until TC 20 - or why raiding and gathering iron is important

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Or how long you need to work on your base until you gather enough iron.

tl;dr: for tc 20 from scratch = 187 days + 7 for the research = 194 days

Basic assumptions:

  • not counted iron sources like raiding, farming, chests and other awards
  • this also doesn’t care for longer building duration, it’s just about iron collecting
  • order of levelling - SH, all mines, all storage (up to lvl 18, x5 for iron, up to lvl 12 x4 fod food), 1x TC, farms (up to lvl 15 x8) - basically you build as you go and just what is needed, and houses basically can wait a lot (up to lvl 7 x4)
  • mines and watchtower hourly production is the same (usually watchtower brings more than one mine/farm, but that depends how many provinces you finished and which level of WT you have)
  • you don’t spend any iron - no items in forge, no building something else (for this table)
  • and after all this is finished, you need research training tc 20 (7 days)

And then you have this:

Screenshot_2018-06-19_14-12-34
Screenshot_2018-06-19_14-12-341488×610 154 KB

So basically - gather iron wherever you can (farm, raid, quests, aw, titans), don’t build something you don’t need, nor forge items you don’t use, and it could be somewhat faster.

After I redid the table few times taking all comments in the account, now it should include all necessary.

I now see that VIP pass + raids and all other iron gathering sources really help a lot, I’m at around 80 days of playing and waiting for SH 18 to finish, and by the table I should play around 125 days for that, just to collect iron.

update: SH 20 done, in a week less than 4 months of playing, TC currently going to 17
It seems that waiting for stuff to finish for this last few levels will be bigger factor than gathering iron. With mines in 18, now I even hit ‘too much’ :smiley:

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Are you accounting for the iron it takes to upgrade all iron storage to level 18 (needed to level SH to 20) and food storage levels up to sufficient point to do the research at TC20?

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I thought I was doing for SH, now realised that I used wrong column :rofl: Thanks, it’s repaired now.

Heh, I thought food storage is trivial, but no. I’ve put that as a note now.

And farms are stil not counted, they also need iron :man_facepalming:

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With my second account, knowing in advance what I needed to prioritize I managed to reach TC20 in 172 days (now I do not remember if I already counting the investigation or without counting it)

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After last edit and reordering, now bigger table is visible, I think I’ve finally taken everything in the account, and final number is 194.

You definitely did it faster :slight_smile:

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I’ve been playing 94 days. I’ve had the VIP second builder since day 2 or 3.

I’ve been very focused on getting to TC20. The only things I’ve built which aren’t absolutely needed to get me there so far are one forge@16, another forge@8, and barracks@3 [plus the forge@5 under the barracks]. My storage buildings are not above the minimum I’ll need to run TC20. (Forges mainly so I could craft stuff to kill titans, and bombs & dragon attacks for challenges) I’ve used iron for crafting … but not enough to stop me from keeping both builders running all time unless I was saving iron to start a stronghold upgrade.

Between now and my first TC20 hero, I’ve got 6 days of iron storage upgrades to get them all to 18, a day or two to save iron for SH20, 7 days for SH20, 4 days for TC20, 7 days for TC20 research, and 2 days for my first hero to come out, which would put my total at 122 days. [My alliance leader calls me a leveling machine; she wonders if I sleep sometimes!]

I’m assuming that I’ll have one builder doing that exact sequence, and that my other builder will have enough iron to simultaneously get my current TC from 16 to 19, do the food storage to be able to research TC20 (currently 12,13,13; build new one to 9 after SH20) and housing to 102 recruit capacity (currently 5,6,9; build new one to 6 after SH20, or 5 if I upgraded the lowest one already) without slowing down my build process at all. (I’m actually guessing it will have spare time to get my watchtower from 17 to 18 by then. I’ve more than got the food for that.)

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Thanks for the work. Do you have any way of calculating how much the second builder helps to decrease this time? I don’t think it decreases by half but almost that. Afaik, VIPs can get to TC 20 in around 4 months, opposed to the almost 7 in your calculation.

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Let us know if you manage it that time :slight_smile: I didn’t catch what is your current state of the buildings.

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Second builder won’t decrease this time. Time mentioned here if for collecting iron only. If you’re raiding a lot and gather iron all around, then you have possibility to make this faster. Second builder but without gathering iron except from the base, will end in this same result.

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Building status @ 94 days:
Stronghold 19
Watchtower 17
Mines 4x18
Farms 1x15; 7x16
Houses 5;6;9
Food storage 12;13;13
Iron Storage 3x17;17(upgrading);18
Forges 16;8;5;1
Barracks 3
Training Centers 16(upgrading; 13; 11

And apparently, between various loot chests, map farming, and raiding, I found a significant amount of iron, as I have also crafted some battle items in addition to all this building.

In practice, my first limit slowing me down is build times keeping my builders both occupied. I’ve occasionally been limited by iron to build with, but often could upgrade a mine or my watchtower with food using one builder, and had enough iron to keep the other one busy. The only times my builders sat idle was if they finished while I wasn’t able to get into the game and start them on a new upgrade, OR saving up iron to use in a stronghold upgrade, I often had one builder idle for a while…

If I can find this post and remember when I get TC20 running, I’ll be sure to give you an update. That said, I’m pretty sure my 28-day estimate is close.

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11

Stronghold 20 is finished. I’ve built my tiny house, food storage, and farm, and built my fourth TC to level 4 in the space that opened up

I was impatient a couple times when I had a builder free, but didn’t have the iron for whatever was next on my build plan, so I used food to upgrade two of my mines from 18 to 19. I probably would have arrived here a few hours early if I had just waited on the iron without taking the mines out of service. Ultimately I’m ahead, even if it slowed down TC20 a tiny bit. (But only a few hours)

Fortress status, day 108:
Stronghold: 20
Watchtower: 17
Mines: 2x18; 2x19
Farms: 1; 15 (upgrading; 6h); 7x16
Houses: 2; 2x6; 9
Food Storage: 2; 3x14
Iron Storage: 5x18
Forges: 2; 5; 8; 16
Barracks: 4 (sitting on Forge-5)
Training Camps: 4; 11; 13; 19 (upgrading; 3d23h)

During the 4 days of this build I’ll be upgrading food storage so I can hold all the food to research TC20, and I’ll also be saving food for that. I used to have something upwards of 10M food banked away in TC13, but I ran TC19 for the better part of a day, and upgraded 7 4* troops after my barracks upgrade, and I spent it down to 460k food left that I could pull back out of it(!!!)

If I haven’t already, I’ll be upgrading my houses during the week of TC20 research. I was intending to have at least 140 recruit capacity to make it possible to pull two heroes worth out of my old TC13 food bank, and ease the transfer. :rofl: Since I’ve pretty much spent it all, I probably will anyway, but I don’t think I’ll have much in my bank yet!

I’ve been delaying forge upgrades. I want to get it to 18 (timestop) and then 19 (tornado), but during upgrades and research, I wouldn’t be able to craft a few bombs or dragon attacks to spend iron… During long builds, my iron storage and mines get completely full. I’d much rather craft things than waste the iron! Just the same, I believe I’ll be able to do manage my iron usage and do some forge upgrades too.

Continuing on as I start researching TC20, getting my forge to 19 will be a priority, and if my food surpluses build up enough, I might need to upgrade my barracks one more time before I exhaust my feeder troops. That along with bringing a second TC up to 19, then 20, and getting my final TC to at least 11.

Geez, its gonna be months of fortress upgrades after TC20 is online! All that plus farms, mines, watchtower, food storage, etc.

I appear to be slightly ahead of that projection and should have TC20 running on day 119, and have my first hero from it on day 121.

And this point, can slow me down except a failure to manage my food and have enough for the research when the TC20 is done.

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12

Got Azar as the first result of TC20 last night, about when I expected a month ago.

Fortress status, day 121:
Stronghold: 20
Watchtower: 18
Mines: 2x18; 2x19
Farms: 9; 8x16
Houses: 5; 2x6; 9
Food Storage: 13 (upgrading); 3x14
Iron Storage: 5x18
Forges: 3; 5; 12; 17 (upgrading)
Barracks: 4 (sitting on Forge-5)
Training Camps: 11; 12; 16; 20

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