What is Crazy Joe?
Crazy Joe is an alliance wave-defense event. Joe sends 20 waves of attackers at alliance cities and the Alliance HQ.
🌊 The waves that matter
- Most waves: attack member cities.
- Waves 10 and 20: attack the Alliance HQ.
- Waves 7, 14 and 17: special elite waves that reward being online and reinforcing online targets.
If your city fails its defense twice, Joe stops attacking your city for the rest of that run — but you can still score by reinforcing other people.
🛡️ Shields do NOT stop Joe
This is one of the classic beginner mistakes. A Peace Shield does not protect you from Crazy Joe waves.
🔄 The reinforcement swap
The core alliance strategy is to let members score on each other's cities instead of everybody's own troops taking all the kills at home.
- Send useful defending troops to alliance members.
- Choose members who are not already packed with reinforcements.
- Keep your marches moving as the event progresses.
- Coordinate the HQ recall before waves 10 and 20.
🍪 COOKIE VERSION
You defend me. I defend you. We both get points. Everybody gets cookies.
🏠 What stays home?
Current community Crazy Joe strategy emphasizes sending Infantry and Lancers out for reinforcement scoring while leaving Archers at home, because Infantry/Lancers do most of the useful kill work in the common reinforcement strategy. Follow Cookie Factory's current troop call, because difficulty changes what the alliance can safely handle.
🏢 Waves 10 and 20 · HQ
These are alliance coordination checks. After waves 9 and 19, be ready to recall the march leadership requests and reinforce the selected HQ quickly.
🏥 Do not panic-heal mid-event
In the common troop-swap strategy, healing during Joe can bring troops back into your city and interfere with the reinforcement scoring setup. Unless leadership calls for it, wait until Joe is over.
⚠️ Common Crazy Joe mistakes
- Relying on a shield.
- Leaving every troop at home.
- Sending Archers everywhere when the alliance strategy calls for Infantry/Lancers.
- Forgetting the HQ at waves 10 and 20.
- Healing in the middle of the run.
- Picking a difficulty the alliance cannot survive through wave 20.
🍪 The Big Lesson
Crazy Joe is not “defend your own city as hard as possible.” It is an alliance reinforcement puzzle.