Before we delve into the details of every troop and start exploring common strategies, we should be familiar with the resources and buildings related to those resources. After all, a stable economic system is necessary for a stable base.
Gold is the most basic currency used in Boom Beach. It is used to train and upgrade troops, unlock new areas where you can find bases to attack and many other things. In fact, apart from the upgradation of buildings you will be using gold almost all of the time.
Gold Storage is the building where gold is stored. The level of gold storage building determines how much gold you can store. You should upgrade the storage building often to make sure you are saving all the gold collected by resources and looted from other bases. The upgrades become pretty expensive quickly but it’s worth it.
Residence is the hub of your base. It is the area where people live, do business and make revenue for you. Upgrading the residence increases the amount of gold generated per unit time. It also causes a small increase in the gold storage capacity. There will be NO gold generation during the upgrades.
Wood is the most basic building material in Boom Beach. It is used in the production and upgradation of low level buildings. The wood is generated by Sawmill and wood resource bases. The trees located at the sides of your base can also be cut down to increase wood generation.
Sawmill is where the wood comes from. Upgrading sawmill will increase the production of wood and the storage capacity by a small amount. No wood will be generated during upgrades
This building determines how much wood you can hold at a time. It is very important to upgrade the storage before you actually need it. This will enable you to store enough wood to complete big upgrades. Upgrade the wood storage to the fullest as soon as possible because wood is used as a building material throughout the game and you will be needing a lot of wood for big upgrades at higher levels.
Stone is used to upgrade mid-level buildings. Stone is produced in Quarry. Upgrading Quarry will increase the production rate of stone and storage of stone by a small amount. It must be noted that while stone storage is unlocked at HQ level 6, the Quarry isn’t unlocked unless level 7 and you will need stone to get HQ from level 6 to 7. You will have to use gems instead. Once you are at level 7, you can generate your own stone. Don’t forget that there are rocks lying around your base. You can gather a reasonable amount of stone from those rocks.
Once you move forward towards high-level buildings, you will need more strength and flexibility in your buildings. This can be achieved using high quality iron from your own Iron Mine. Just like any other resource, there is also a storage building determining your capacity of iron. The Iron Mine is unlocked at HQ-10 but you will need iron to upgrade HQ from level 9 to 10. You will have to use gems instead.
Diamonds are the elite currency of Boom Beach. There isn’t really much you cannot do using diamonds. You can bypass resource requirements, speed up building processes, heal and replace your troops and what not. The problem is, like any other freemium the main source of diamonds is real money. Earning diamonds without spending real money is hard and rare. You can earn diamonds through achievements. Sometimes you will randomly find them on resource bases. Diamonds are also earned when people attack your base.
Long story short, earning diamonds is hard and you will need them. One example where you will have no other choice than using the diamonds is when Iron Mine unlocks at HQ-10 and you need iron to go from level 9-10. Unless you absolutely need an upgrade, do not spend diamonds on it.
Vault is your safety precaution in case your base gets looted. Any resources placed in the vault cannot be looted at any cost. The vault also saves certain percentage of resources present in the resource buildings at the time of raid. Upgrading the vault will decrease the percentage loot you lose after your base is destroyed by an opponent. Ideally, having a vault with 100% protection rate will allow you not to lose ANY resources even if your base has been destroyed. Having a highly upgraded vault does pay off in the long run. Specially if you play with an offensive mindset and get looted a lot.
Weapon lab is place to do research on new weapons. The weapons lab allows you to place powerful prototypes of advanced weapons on your base. Upgrading the lab will increase the number of prototypes you can place on your base. At level 5, the max level, weapon lab also provides you with additional defense.
The prototypes are automatically destroyed every 12 days. You can see how many days are left in the life of a prototype by tapping on it. To make prototypes, you will need prototype modules which can be achieved by attacking NPC bases, player bases and special bases like Hammerman and Col. Gearheart.
Abbreviated as HQ, headquarters is the single most important building when it comes to defense. A base can only be looted if its headquarter is destroyed. It means an intruder can destroy all of your base buildings other than HQ and still lose the battle. On the other hand, they can destroy ONLY HQ and your base will be marked as looted. This is why the positioning of HQ is critical.
Not only is the HQ important when it comes to defense, certain buildings, weapons and upgrades can only be unlocked by upgrading HQ. An upgraded HQ also possesses more health and lasts longer during an intrusion.
Although destroying only HQ will let you win as an intruder, it will take more time than if you destroy all of the other buildings first and then attack HQ. The reason is that HQ loses parts of its health when resource and defense buildings are destroyed. If you are attacking HQ at last, you are dealing with a fraction of its health. If intend to take out only HQ, you will be dealing with its full health.
Armory is the place to upgrade your offense: the troops and the Gunboat. Upgrading armory unlocks new troops and gunboat weapons and upgrades them. This is why your Armory should always be more upgraded than you need. The prices of upgrades ascend quickly as you move upwards but you will have to upgrade it anyway. Keeping your resource production upgraded helps you in quick armory upgrades.
Sculptor creates powerful statues to help you tremendously in the game. To build statues using a Sculptor, Power Stones are needed. A statue can also be reclaimed to get the pure Power Stone back. Upgrading the Sculptor allows you to place more statues on your base. With every upgrade, a Power Powder will be gained which can increase the statue powers for a limited time.
Statues are indestructible powerful buildings which give a boost to defense, offence or the resource production. Statues can only be built using Power Stones in the Sculptor. Based on the Power Stone used in production, statues differ in power.
There are three types of Power Stones which, when used result in three types of statues.
It is not possible to predict what type of boost the statue will provide. After completion, the color of a statue denotes what type of boost it is going to provide. The amount of boost is determined by whether the statue is and Idol, Guardian or Masterpiece.
Life statues are denoted by green color. They boost the production of gold or other resources like wood, stone and iron.
Magma statues are denoted by orange color and provide a boost to your troops. They increase either the firepower or the health of your troops. Permanent increase in the health/firepower increases your chances of taking over more bases.
Ice statues are blue. They toughen up your base against enemy invasions by increasing either the health or firepower of your defense buildings.
The fourth type of statues is Dark statues. They are as ambiguous as it gets. Dark statues can
As stated above, there is no way of knowing in advance which type of statue you are building and how much boost it is going to provide. Only after the completion of a statue can its type and boost amount be calculated. Idols can provide a boost from 5-8% Guardians 10-17% and Masterpiece 20-42%. There is always a higher probability of making a statue with lower boosts. The ones with highest boosts are rarest.
An Idol requires 7 Fragments to be built and returns a Shard when reclaimed. A Guardian takes 7 Shards at the time of building and returns a Crystal when reclaimed. In the same manner, a Masterpiece takes 7 Crystals and returns 7 Power Powders when reclaimed. This method can be used to turn Fragments into Crystals and Crystals into Power Powder.
Another important resource in Boom Beach is submarine. With submarine, you can into the deep oceans and look for treasure chests filled with diamonds, gold, iron and sometimes… wood. Every dive costs some gold but the treasure you get in return is more often than not way more valuable. Upgrading the submarine will allow you to dive in deeper parts of the oceans where you can find rare chests. It must be noted that you can only dive for a limited number of times. After that, the diving option will disappear from that map so choose your treasures wisely.
There is another mysterious dome-shaped instrument built by the young technology savvy people. It is called radar and though its main purpose is to magically detect any incoming enemies, it also allows you to explore deeper into the maps where you can find new diving sites. Upgrading the radar will unlock more diving sites. The enemy-detecting feature of radar is not used in Boom Beach.
There are three types of bases in Boom Beach: NPC bases, player bases and resource bases.
The resource bases are scattered on Archipelago aka the map. They are not owned by anybody. If you succeed in bringing down their defenses, they are yours. They are publicly visible and can be attacked by other players as well. If someone else conquers a resource base, you will have to conquer it back.
Every time a resource base is conquered, its defense gets better either by the addition of new buildings or the upgradation of the existing ones. The resource buildings on every resource base have a fixed level meaning you cannot upgrade them to increase production of wood, iron etc. Higher level resource bases have higher levels of resource buildings and so is the number of players fixing their eyes on those bases.
The resources from resource bases under your possession can be collected from the resource boats present at the south dock of your main base. The capacity of these boats is the sum of capacity of all resource boats. For example if resource base A has a capacity for 500 iron and resource base B has 700, the total iron capacity of your resource boat will be 1200 iron. Initially, both bases will be producing iron but as soon as the capacity of base A fills out, base B will be the only one filling resource boats. Therefore, it is advised to note the lowest filling time of your bases and collect just before that time is over to ensure maximum production.
With the resource bases, we are done with the resources section of the game. By now you should have the idea of how the money flows, how to build and upgrade different buildings and where to look for treasures. Let’s move ahead towards more interesting part of the game. The Fighting Strategies!!
