Talk:Clash of Clones 2014 Event/@comment-108.33.55.123-20140826020118/@comment-25021853-20140827171039

You can also see if a house is under attack by the dark grey dust being kicked up, and castles throw stuff out at the attackers. I tend to send nerds out regardless, but do sometimes send more when I see clear signs that someone is only checking in once or twice a day and not likely to catch it in time, but they usually have more than one house destroyed, at least one castle trashed, and plenty of other houses under attack (lots of properties, especially ones that take 8 hours or more to payout, waiting to be collected is another sign of an infrequent player). Most of the time I just send one Nerd after each Castle or House every 2 hours, and usually only 2 or 3 per town so I can come back later and attack again. I'm often up late so I can often send nerds out while others are asleep and have a better chance of winning, but I mostly concentrate on sending them all out as often as I can, usually every 2 hours  while I'm up. I don't bother with revenge, it actually pays out less, raiding random towns, via the crossed sword and axe icon pays the best if you win, and I only use my Cheater 20's on random castles for an instant 140 Elixir and 50 Gold.

Speaking of Cheaters 20's, I've gotten them while defending my Castles as well as Houses, I don't think I've ever gotten one from repairing a wrecked house or Castle. I'm not sure of the drop rate, which does seem to be random, but I usually get 4-8 free Cheater 20's per day and use all but one of them on random castles late at night. It's good to keep one as a "hidden house under attack" detector of sorts, after defending or fixing all the Castles and Houses I can find I tap on it in the upper right corner, if I get the all-clea pop-up then I know I've gotten them all, if I get the "Tap anywhere to Defend" text at the top then I tap the icon again to undo it and check my houses again looking carefully for shields, usually on the edge or near the corners of my house farm. I've noticed that some people group the 5 attacks together, while others try to spread them out hoping you'll miss one off in a corner.