All free-to-play games have a way to suck the money out of your wallet. In Clash of Clans, gems are the primary way to spend money. We call these types of things “premium currencies” because they cost actual, real-life dollars. Every Clash of Clans player wonders “How do I get more free gems?” and “What should I spend my gems on?” In this article, we’ll give you the lowdown on the ways to get maximum free gems in Clash of Clans, and what you should spend your Clash of Clans gems on.
Acquiring Clash of Clans Gems
There are three major ways to get gems in Clash of Clans:
- Buy them. (duh)
- Remove landscape items from your base
- Get achievements
Buying Gems in Clash of Clans
The first one is obviously the fastest, but it costs you cash. If you like the game, though, dropping a few bucks can be a good way to show your support. After all, most games cost money up front, while Clash of Clans can be played for free for as long as you want. If you would normally drop $20 to play a 20 hour game, how much would you be willing to spend for a game as long as Clash of Clans? It depends on how much fun you’re getting out of the game, no doubt.
Another thing to consider is if you’ve got credit to, say, the iTunes store, but you normally play on an Android phone or tablet, you could temporarily install Clash of Clans on an iOS device to use that credit to buy gems. Just be sure you trust the device (and its owner) before you do this.
Pro Tip Especially around the holidays, you can find discounted iTunes gift cards. This can be a cheap way to stretch your Clash of Clans gem funds a bit further.
Free Gems in Clash of Clans
A BIG FAT WARNING There are a TON of scams on the INTERNET that claim to give you “free Clash of Clans gems!!!” Rest assured that there is no hack, glitch, cheat, etc that will give you free gems. These are all scams, to a one. They will either make you jump through hoops (for which the supposed “hack makers” get money) or they will steal your personal information. Do not, under any circumstances, trust any site that advertises free gems. If ANYONE posts “totally legit, not at all a scam” info about hacking/cheating/glitching this game on our site, I will remove it and immediately notify SuperCell with all the info I have about you so that you hopefully get banned from the game. You have been warned.
For whatever reason, though, you might not be inclined to buy Clash of Clans gems. I, myself, have a mental block about paying for anything I could just play to earn or wait around for. Thus, I stick to the free options myself. That leaves us with two choices.
Obstacles
The first is removing obstacles or “trimming the bushes” so to speak. Whenever you send a builder to remove a bush, tree, or any other misc object on your base, there’s a chance you’ll find gems. This means it pays to keep the lawn clean!
There’s one special obstacle item, and that’s the Gem Box. It gives a guaranteed, whopping 25 free gems whenever you find and remove one. They’re random, though, so you’ll just have to wait around and get lucky.
Pro Tip New obstacles will only spawn in your base if you have free space and there aren’t too many obstacles already. Make sure you occasionally invest time in removing obstacles, or you’ll miss out on your chance to free gems from gem boxes!
Achievements
Besides removing obstacles, the other easy way to get free gems in Clash of Clans is via achievements. Most achievements award gems with every level of them you complete. Most achievements you’re going to get just through normal play, but there are a few that are worthy of noting:
- Get Those Goblins – chances are you’ve neglected the single player campaign – I know I have. Once you’re powerful enough to just roll the single player levels, you might as well hit these levels for the gems. This is a good one to do while you’re upgrading walls and have no reason to hang onto your elixir.
- Nice and Tidy – you get this for removing obstacles – which is the other major way to get gems. So, double win!
- Union Buster – this achievement is for destroying builder’s huts. Many people stick these in the corners of their base, so while you’re raiding just drop an extra archer or barb nearby to earn points towards this.
- Sweet Victory! – the third level of this achievement only requires 1,250 trophies. This is a piece of cake. Just make sure you protect your town hall, and get out there and raid, raid, raid!
- League All-Star – the first level of this one requires you to get to Crystal League, which is 2,000 trophies. However, the reward is 250 gems, so it’s well worth the effort.
Make no mistake, the major gem profits are in obstacle removal. However, you can get a bit of a boost from these achievements if you make the time to unlock them!
Spending Clash of Clans Gems
People are always asking me, “what should I spend my gems on in Clash of Clans?” to which I usually reply, “uhhh, I don’t know you, but can I please have my vanilla shake now?” But they do have a valid question. Gems can be used for almost anything, so knowing what to prioritize can be tricky.
My suggestions for what to spend your Clash of Clans gems on are as follows:
Builders
If you have 3 or fewer builders, buy more builders. The fourth builder is a bit harder to justify. It can be useful when your Town Hall first levels up to have a 4th builder, or even a 5th. However, a lot of upgrades like walls and the lab upgrades just require a lot of resources and/or time, with little to no help from additional builders.
Also, the cost of each builder in Clash of Clans increases significantly, making the cost of that fifth builder kind of unreasonable compared to the other things you can spend gems on.
Dark Elixir
Once you have 3 or 4 Clash of Clans builders, the next priority is probably buying Dark Elixir. There are two major things you want to buy Dark Elixir for:
Your Hero units – the Barbarian King and Archer Queen. You can buy the Barbarian King at TH7, as long as you’ve built the Dark Elixir storage. Raiding for Dark Elixir is tricky at Town Hall 7 though. It can be done, if you are very patient. Chances are you will have a tough time protecting any raided Dark Elixir as well. Thus, I suggest saving your gems to rush the Barbarian King at Town Hall 7. Having him around means you’ve got an extra powerful unit that doesn’t take any camp space.
Now, there are upgrades to these Hero units as well, and taking them can be quite helpful. Once these units get to level 5, they also gain a special ability. I suggest prioritizing your gems for these upgrades whenever you can.
Lab upgrades for your Dark Elixir troops. Dark Elixir troops unlock at Town Hall 7. They are super powerful game changing units, but without leveling them up, they’re not particularly useful. Increasing the level of your Dark Elixir troops takes… wait for it… Dark Elixir. Hog riders in particular have been overpowered recently, and you see them a lot in raids at the higher levels. Get those riders upgraded, with gems, if needed!
Boosting
Boosting your Barracks, Dark Barracks, and/or Spell Factory can be a viable strategy if you plan to sit down and playClash of Clans for extended periods at a time. If you run fast-training troops (like, say BARCH or something similar), boosting your Barracks can let you raid over and over again with minimal downtime.
This means you can accumulate resources and trophies super quick. It also means that you’re probably playing the game continuously, which will keep enemy raiders at bay.
Bottom line – if you’ve got a couple of solid hours to play and need a lot of resources to keep your builders/lab busy, it can pay to boost your army production and raid constantly with gems.
Wrapping Up Prep Day Upgrades
If you’re a hardcore Clan Wars combatant, chances are your clan is warring when you’re upgrading.
The thing to know about base upgrades and Clan Wars is that any building upgrade in progress is “rolled back” in your war base. Thus, if you’re upgrading a mortar from 5 to 6, but it’s not done upgrading to 6 by the end of prep day, the mortar will be level 5 during the war.
Thus, it can be a good idea to wrap up upgrades that are close to being finished when prep day ends. Say that mortar upgrade has only a couple of hours left – just drop the gems, and enjoy the benefits of that shiny new mortar throughout the war!
Some upgrades matter more than others, and it’s somewhat unlikely that just one defense upgrade will change the tide of an entire war. Still, if it’s cheap, why not give yourself every advantage you can?
Upgrades that require completely full storages
If you’ve got gems laying around and aren’t sure what to do with them at this point, or you just don’t want to listen to the advice I’ve given in the previous sections, this is the third and final thing I’d suggest using your gems on inClash of Clans.
As you approach the most powerful upgrades you can get at a given Town Hall level, you’ll come across upgrades that require you to max out your gold, dark elixir, or elixir storages in order to afford them. This is hard to do, for several reasons:
- You generally have to spend this stuff in order to make it, so maxing it out is tricky.
- The more of a resource you have, the more likely it is you’re going to get attacked.
- The more full your storages are, the more enemies will take each time they hit it. Even a lone archer that survives your defenses can take a toll on your stockpiles.
For this reason, I’d suggest getting as close as possible to maxing your storages out, and then spend a few gems to push you the rest of the way. It is a lot less frustrating than the alternatives.
However, as I said, there are other, better ways to spend your gems.
Other Stuff
Beyond this point, I’d highly suggest you just hold onto your gems. No doubt SuperCell is going to add new stuff to the game. If you have a small stockpile of gems, you can be the first kid on your block (or player in your clan) to get it. This can create a small tactical advantage for a while.
Occasionally Supercell will run a Clash of Clans event where you can get extra stuff for your gems. For instance, recently there was an event where you could boost your collectors for an entire week at a cost of 1 gem. Many people took advantage of this. I kind of felt it was a good time to raid, and I probably would suggest boosting Dark Elixir drills during these events.
I personally don’t like to skip wait times in the game with gems, as the game is essentially one enormous wait time. If you’re buying gems with money regularly, you can kind of spend them however you like. However, if you’ve got a lot, feel free to use them this way if it makes you happy!
Conclusion
That’s it, that’s everything I know about gems in Clash of Clans. In this article, I showed you how to maximize your free gems by clearing obstacles and focusing on achievements. Then I gave you the rundown on the best ways to spend the gems you’ve stockpiled.
It’s my aim to make this the best freakin’ guide to Clash of Clans gems on the internet. If you know something I don’t, leave a comment! I really appreciate any corrections or suggestions other players have.
