Talk:Gems/@comment-15500402-20130815032354/@comment-25891480-20141218211235

This is quite a clever (although badly explained) strategy. Basically, the cost of buying 6,048,000 gold or elixir is 1,946 gems if you buy directly from the shop. This tactic reduces that cost by using the boost function on your mines and collectors. To see the benefits you must first upgrade your mines or pumps to level 11 (or 12 as of December 2014). It will obviously take a significant investment of time and gold/elixir to get to this level, but the reward will be higher. Here's the breakdown:

Say you purchase 500 gems. That will buy you just 811,473 gold or elixir from the shop.

A better idea is to boost all of your level 11 mines at a cost of 11 gems per day each. That's 66 per day total.

7 x 66 = 462  -  this means you can get 7 days worth of boosting from your 500 gems, and you will have 38 gems left over at the end of the week.

One level 11 mine nets you 3,000 gold per hour, 72,000 per day or 504,000 per week. The gem boost doubles this to 1,008,000 gold per week.

If you have 6 mines, you end up with 6 x 1,008,000 = 6,048,000 gold at the end of the week for a cost of just 500 gems, rather than 1,946 gems.

It seems like a good strategy on the surface, but you have to take into account the fact that the gold you buy in the shop is awarded instantly, and you can spend it straight away. Using the boost method you have to avoid getting raided for an entire week, which is pretty much impossible.

One way you could do it is to buy a one-week shield at a cost of 250 gems, bringing the total investment to 750 gems. Still a ginificant saving on the 1,946 gems for a direct purchase, but it takes a lot of time and effort and you can only buy a shield once every 35 days.

If you're that bothered about saving gems that you have to Clash for an entire week without sleeping, you might as well not buy any in the first place.