Double Giant Bomb Guide

Re-published:
Original Guide made March 03/2015: http://forum.supercell.net/showthread.php/577223-Base-Break-Down-Guide-to-the-3-Star-Meta-TH9-War-Bases-Creation-and-Dissection

Note: This guide is outdated, but still is informative for beginners and intermediate base builders. Some information publish here, might not be applicable for current and up to date standards as the circular shape isn't as common in today's standard anti-3 star base, BUT the Hourglass Shape still is effective, along with the fact that territories usages is important. Also please read my [Groups, Sections, and Territories] Guide to understand this guide even more better.

When it comes to double giant bombs, their main point is to set a trap for the hogs to flow and path into and ultimately all be killed. Double GIant Bomb's true purpose (to me at least) is to divide the sections between which Hogs can take and hogs cannot take. The sections that the Hogs can take though will need minimum 10 Hogs, but since the Double Giant Bomb thread (even if it's a feint) is there, Hogs users have to think more than twice due to the fact that the path of the hogs is threatened by the double giant bombs. There are good examples, and there are poor examples.

Guide to Setting Up DGB

Positioning double giant bombs is important to the base. For a base, there are 'section' which are divided based on the 'weight' of how many defenses are located within this section. The most part a section would contain an AD, a wizard tower, a mortar, 1 archer Tower and 1 cannon. Sound familar? This is because the typical base spreads out the defenses evenly to cover the North/East/South/West locations of the base.

Let's use this simple image as an example. This is a common base planning, separating the four areas in a base.

Double giant bombs are used to separate these into it's specifc areas. Here is an example which I see alot, of why double giant bombs are bad.

Let's say you put you double giant bombs between 2-3 and 2-4. In this scenario, the top 3 sections will be vulnerable to hogs since the DGB are all located within the southern section. Section #1 has no threats for hogs, no matter which direction they go towards, meaning you have isolated #2 from 1-3-4. If they Kill section #2, that means that the hogs will no longer path towards Section #2.

The good double giant bomb placements will have them parallel/covering the weight evenly between all sections. There will be a threat of the hogs going into the giant bomb no matter which sections they select. This is the reason why placing your DGB at the correct location is important, or else you will allow the place that's heavily weighted to be trampled by hogs.

Dividing it More Deeper Territories

Most bases will look something like this, having 4 sections, the outer sections (purple), and 4 inner section (yellow). The weight is distributed as such.

Here is an example of what bad double giant bomb placement is. Sure the double giant bombs are placed parallel in order to prevent the top and the bottom from reaching each other, but notice how there is that concave shape (white) that allows hogs to have access to the base. The Inner sections (yellow) are completely unprotected by any DGB, as long as they can kill off that outer area of DGB/trigger it, they have full access to the whole base going up and down.

There are 3 main checklist which you have to address when it comes to DGB. The Outer Layer, The Inner Lead, and the Buffer Zone, which creates "The Hourglass" effect (will talk about that in another section). The Purple represents the outer layer which are all the point defenses that will protect the inner defenses (which are usually the AD, WizardT, and Xbow). Using the inner section as a magnet, you are essentially trying to force them into the inside (the lead), in order to bring them into the true giant bomb locations. In this section, it's hard to dismantle, as well as you have the direction of the hogs under control. The last component you need is the 'Buffer Zone'. This is a KEY thing that most people ignore (like putting teslas beside the giant bombs...), because buffer zone serves as a region where hogs will not path across, as well as giving a parallel effect hourglass qualities to a base.

Example Using my Metaki Series

This is Metaki Base Series#1, you can see that it has the buffer zones, the inner yellow sections, as well as the purple outer layer. The Buffer serves to separate and guide the outer purple layer into the yellow section.

This is Metaki Base Series#3, alittle more pleasing to the eye, but it still shows the 3 main qualities of outer, inner and buffer zone.

If you follow these steps, your double giant bomb locations will be placed within the right locations that serve a better purpose of protecting your base. I will explain why Southern Teaser base CANNOT follow this steps, and why it's bad at the Southern Teaser section.

Bad Example and Bad Base Design Sections

The General's Flaw

If you look at this image, you can see that the flow of which the hogs are going are not going distributed right, as they only trigger the top giant bomb beside the Mortar. There is really no 'path' for which the hogs can actually trigger both at the same time. The only path that is possible is from the Xbow straight down to the AD, which is impossible due to the Mortar's influence of 'gravity.' Therefore, this double giant bomb location is poor.

Watch out for Dismantlement

If the double giant bomb is located on the outside with a 2x4 space, between two defenses, chances are, they can easily be dismantled by a single/double hog. Hog's AI run straight forward before they actually turn into the direction of the defense. With this in mind, the Hog (shown) will go STRAIGHT into the first giant bomb, then do a slight curve towards the closes defense, triggering a bomb, rendering the double giant bomb harmless.

A perfect example of a dismantle-able double giant bomb base is the Baconator, where both giant bombs are located out outwards of the base.

There are other ways of dismantling Double giant bombs as well, which is due to the poor pathing and the sense of how the flow of the hogs would go.

I'm going to call this the Triple Split :P, just because the cannon is in front of the two defenses, doesn't mean the giant bomb is safe. If someone brings and uses 4 hogs to kill the cannon, and the hogs survives, the AI will follow the above description and still dismantle the bomb.

This is also a common problem when it comes to placement of defenses close to the giant bomb (especially Teslas). The direction of which the hogs come from is very important and must be included within the equation due to the fact that the Hogs AI go to the path of least resistance. In this example, you can see that if the hogs came from the North, they will be closer to the Xbow, than to the Wizard Tower. Majority of the hogs will migrate and gravitate towards the Xbows, triggering only just one giant bomb, rendering the double set useless.

Example Base #1: The Side Step

Here is another example why you have to be careful for where you put the double giant bombs. In this example you can see that if let's say that the hogs come from the direction of the Xbow and then go to the wizard tower (white). At this scenario, most likely the hogs will only trip one giant bomb.
In the second scenario (Light Blue) is more of the realistic situation, where the hogs come from the north Wizard Tower, and then head straight for the Xbow, then go into the AD and trigger only one bomb.

Example Base #2: Bad Pathing

In this example, you might think that the 'DGB' is at a good location, but if you take a look at the 'sections' and the 'path' of which the hogs follow, you'd see a different story. Because of the fact that the cannon is at the north, the hogs will follow the ArcherT to the cannon (triggering only one bomb), and then go right. The Red circle shows the location of which the giant bomb has literally no chance of being triggered. Show this to your clanmates, and see if they follow the same mistakes as this.

Example Base #3: The Disconnect

In this image, let's pretend you can't trigger this double giant bomb with a single hog. In this base the only two paths of which hogs could go over this set of DGB, is either the light blue (from WizT to ArcherT to the mortar), or vise versa (orange). But if this ArcherT isn't protected, and they kill off this island ArcherT, then hogs will NOT cross over the DGB anymore due to the fact that there is no more 'pathing' for the hogs to go over. The Hogs have all of the Green section itself. In this scenario, the best area (with some minor adjustment) where double giant bombs could be place would be where the elixir storage is, so that it separates the two sections, as well as not easily dismantable.

Example Base #4: The Straightforward/Side Sweep

In this example, it demonstrates 2 potential risky behaviours which hog AI could do. (sorry clanny for using this D:)

In the sky blue, you can see that if the hogs come from the AD towards the Mortar, most likely, the hogs would go into the space beside the mortar (since they are a pack), and only trigger one giant bomb. A heal can easily then be used to negate this single giant bomb, so this could be a problem.

In the orange, I've seen this ALOT, where teslas are beside the DGB. This is extremely bad, due to the fact that it then makes it possible to head straight forward and trigger one giant bomb as it side steps into the 'pair' of defenses. Most likely it will lean towards one of the defenses, either way, it will trigger only one giant bomb. Removing the tesla won't help either, since the Archer Tower is in the center T shaped of the giant bomb. There are solutions to these problems though.

The Hourglass Effect

The Hourglass Shape

In order to have a successful double giant bomb placement, you need to have The Hourglass shape for which defenses align, and have the buffer area where no defenses are placed in order for hogs to path properly. Click on the button to re-direct to the page.