This chapter is much longer and much more detail oriented than the previous chapter. Where as I was trying to make Chapter 1: Base Defense, The Basics accessible to anyone, this chapter gets into the nitty gritty details which is probably more useful only at the higher levels of both gameplay and dedication. As such, it truly is a Wall Of Text™. I did still leave out some details that I thought were getting too specific, so if you want to know why I recommend something feel free to ask in the comments, PM me on reddit, or ask in clan chat in game of the clan I recently set up with the last patch. Now, without further ado, Chapter 2: Advanced base Defense!
Chapter 1: Base Defense, The Basics
Chapter 2: Advanced Base Defense
2.1 Are you a tempting target?
2.1.1 Large amounts of Loot!
2.1.2 Having easily accessible loot
2.2 Having a Good Base
2.2.1 The Standard Base
2.2.2 The Pocketed Base
2.2.3 The Large Pocketed Base
2.2.4 The Bulkhead Base
2.2.5 The Split Base
2.3 Funneling for Victory
2.4 Upgrading multiple defenses at the same time
2.5 Having a glaring flaw in your base
2.6 Buildings outside walls are too spread out
2.7 Turret Range Considerations: What can your towers defend?
2.8 Spawn Forcing
2.8.1 Trick Spawns
2.8.2 Why use trick spawns?
2.9 Messing with Wall Breakers
2.9.1 Decoy Walls
2.9.2 Outer walls with Buttresses
2.9.3 Using extra walls for Buffering
2.10 Upgrading walls
2.10.1 Oh, and DO NOT upgrade your walls in a polka dot manner.
2.11 Placing Traps
2.12 Clan Castle Placement
2.13 Tips and Tricks for Base Defense
2.1 Are you a tempting target? The best way to not get attacked is to not make it worth your attacker’s time. There are several things that an attacker will likely attack to get, or not attack due to the presence of.
2.1.1 Large amounts of Loot! Loot is the #1 reason people will attack at low levels. If you don’t have much to steal, you’re safe! Spend as much as you can on walls prior to starting any upgrade. Spend on removing natural decorations when the builder is available. If you don’t have a worker available, start a research project in the Laboratory (elixir) or buy decorations (gold and elixir).
Note that gold not collected (in Gold Mine or Elixir Collector) can be stolen.
Other ways to spend resources - Queuing units (even when your army camps are full), building spells, starting research, buying defenses (bombs/spring traps), buying decorations (flowers and flags, they will prevent enemy spawning on top of them).
2.1.2 Having easily accessible loot Accessible loot comes in two types - accessible mines/collectors and accessible storage. Both are bad. Make sure your storage is either empty or in the middle of your base. Make sure your mines/collectors are next to your walls (and therefore next to your defenses). Uncollected resources are easier to steal then collected ones - the buildings are more spread out and the buildings have lower HP.
You should also intermix your elixir collections and mines as well as your elixir storage and gold storage. If an opponent really wants your gold, and all of your mines are together in a nice line, it is much more tempting of a target as not as much needs to be invested to steal the single resource they are seeking.
Similarly, make sure your two gold storage are not next to one another.
2.2 Having a Good Base See Chapter 1 for details (Common issues: not protecting your defenses, mortar and air defense placement, everything-inside-walls issue, spread out defenses). Also having defenses that are significantly below the ‘normal’ upgraded amount for your trophy count/level. Here are a few more common bases and what I think of each.
2.2.1 The Standard Base The standard base follows all of the rules laid out in Chapter 1 - Defenses and storage inside of the walls, army camps, barracks, mines, extractors, etc etc etc outside of the walls. There is a single wall dividing your precious base from the hordes of horrors outside. Now What? How can you improve your base? Well this standard base is weak to giants as once they breach your wall, they can attack all of your defenses without delay. It is also weak to mass goblin attacks for the same reason - Once inside they can often outrun splash damage and steal all of your goodies, possibly leaving you with a victory, but with many less resources to spend.
2.2.2 The Pocketed Base This base has the town hall in the center, and every defense around it is surrounded by its’ own 4x4 wall. They are good against giants as the walls slow them down, while keeping the defenses are close together. They are best attacked with giants and archer support.
2.2.3 The Large Pocketed Base This base is a variant on the pocketed base, where each pocket has 2-3 structures in each pocket. It is more efficient in terms of wall usage than the pocketed base, allowing for more buildings to be placed within the walls. People who love symmetry in their bases will like the 3 pocket base, as it creates a nice spiral with no wasted space or walls. The differences between this as the Pocketed base are minimal. This base type is more common than the Pocked Base at lower levels due to lack of walls.
2.2.4 The Bulkhead Base A Bulkhead Base follows the rules laid down in chapter 1 about kicking unneeded buildings outside of the walls, then uses extra walls to segment defenses into different sections allowing for greater protection in case one section is breached (especially by giants). Bulkheads are used in large boats to prevent the entire boat from sinking in case of a leak below the waterline - The flooded sections are closed off via built in bulkheads, containing the flooding to only the affected sections. In the same way, bases use this strategy to contain (or slow) the flood of enemy troops to the breached bulkhead - Where as a single wall a breach would mean your clan is headed to destruction.
2.2.5 The Split Base A somewhat common (but poor) base defense strategy is grouping your defenses into two groups, with critical non-defensive buildings between them (Town Hall, Resource Storage). This defensive strategy seems to not violate the rules I’ve put down in Chapter 1, but it actually violates the rule of keeping your defenses too spread out. Your defenses should be able to cover each other, ideally as much as possible - keeping them in two groups should be avoided. A split base defense is very vulnerable to giant attacks as they can clean up half of the defenses without taking fire from the other half. Split bases also mean that if either side is wiped out, your critical buildings in the center are very vulnerable to a few arche
Welcome to Chapter 2. I sure was hoping to get this out a lot sooner than 3 weeks after Chapter 1, but stuff came up (mid terms) and I had some trouble with some tricky stuff (turret range details).
This chapter is much longer and much more detail oriented than the previous chapter. Where as I was trying to make Chapter 1: Base Defense, The Basics accessible to anyone, this chapter gets into the nitty gritty details which is probably more useful only at the higher levels of both gameplay and dedication. As such, it truly is a Wall Of Text™. I did still leave out some details that I thought were getting too specific, so if you want to know why I recommend something feel free to ask in the comments, PM me on reddit, or ask in clan chat in game of the clan I recently set up with the last patch. Now, without further ado, Chapter 2: Advanced base Defense!
Chapter 1: Base Defense, The Basics
Chapter 2: Advanced Base Defense
2.1 Are you a tempting target?
2.1.1 Large amounts of Loot!
2.1.2 Having easily accessible loot
2.2 Having a Good Base
2.2.1 The Standard Base
2.2.2 The Pocketed Base
2.2.3 The Large Pocketed Base
2.2.4 The Bulkhead Base
2.2.5 The Split Base
2.3 Funneling for Victory
2.4 Upgrading multiple defenses at the same time
2.5 Having a glaring flaw in your base
2.6 Buildings outside walls are too spread out
2.7 Turret Range Considerations: What can your towers defend?
2.8 Spawn Forcing
2.8.1 Trick Spawns
2.8.2 Why use trick spawns?
2.9 Messing with Wall Breakers
2.9.1 Decoy Walls
2.9.2 Outer walls with Buttresses
2.9.3 Using extra walls for Buffering
2.10 Upgrading walls
2.10.1 Oh, and DO NOT upgrade your walls in a polka dot manner.
2.11 Placing Traps
2.12 Clan Castle Placement
2.13 Tips and Tricks for Base Defense
2.1 Are you a tempting target? The best way to not get attacked is to not make it worth your attacker’s time. There are several things that an attacker will likely attack to get, or not attack due to the presence of.
2.1.1 Large amounts of Loot! Loot is the #1 reason people will attack at low levels. If you don’t have much to steal, you’re safe! Spend as much as you can on walls prior to starting any upgrade. Spend on removing natural decorations when the builder is available. If you don’t have a worker available, start a research project in the Laboratory (elixir) or buy decorations (gold and elixir). Note that gold not collected (in Gold Mine or Elixir Collector) can be stolen. Other ways to spend resources - Queuing units (even when your army camps are full), building spells, starting research, buying defenses (bombs/spring traps), buying decorations (flowers and flags, they will prevent enemy spawning on top of them).
2.1.2 Having easily accessible loot Accessible loot comes in two types - accessible mines/collectors and accessible storage. Both are bad. Make sure your storage is either empty or in the middle of your base. Make sure your mines/collectors are next to your walls (and therefore next to your defenses). Uncollected resources are easier to steal then collected ones - the buildings are more spread out and the buildings have lower HP.
You should also intermix your elixir collections and mines as well as your elixir storage and gold storage. If an opponent really wants your gold, and all of your mines are together in a nice line, it is much more tempting of a target as not as much needs to be invested to steal the single resource they are seeking. Similarly, make sure your two gold storage are not next to one another.
2.2 Having a Good Base See Chapter 1 for details (Common issues: not protecting your defenses, mortar and air defense placement, everything-inside-walls issue, spread out defenses). Also having defenses that are significantly below the ‘normal’ upgraded amount for your trophy count/level. Here are a few more common bases and what I think of each.
2.2.1 The Standard Base The standard base follows all of the rules laid out in Chapter 1 - Defenses and storage inside of the walls, army camps, barracks, mines, extractors, etc etc etc outside of the walls. There is a single wall dividing your precious base from the hordes of horrors outside. Now What? How can you improve your base? Well this standard base is weak to giants as once they breach your wall, they can attack all of your defenses without delay. It is also weak to mass goblin attacks for the same reason - Once inside they can often outrun splash damage and steal all of your goodies, possibly leaving you with a victory, but with many less resources to spend.
2.2.2 The Pocketed Base This base has the town hall in the center, and every defense around it is surrounded by its’ own 4x4 wall. They are good against giants as the walls slow them down, while keeping the defenses are close together. They are best attacked with giants and archer support.
2.2.3 The Large Pocketed Base This base is a variant on the pocketed base, where each pocket has 2-3 structures in each pocket. It is more efficient in terms of wall usage than the pocketed base, allowing for more buildings to be placed within the walls. People who love symmetry in their bases will like the 3 pocket base, as it creates a nice spiral with no wasted space or walls. The differences between this as the Pocketed base are minimal. This base type is more common than the Pocked Base at lower levels due to lack of walls.
2.2.4 The Bulkhead Base A Bulkhead Base follows the rules laid down in chapter 1 about kicking unneeded buildings outside of the walls, then uses extra walls to segment defenses into different sections allowing for greater protection in case one section is breached (especially by giants). Bulkheads are used in large boats to prevent the entire boat from sinking in case of a leak below the waterline - The flooded sections are closed off via built in bulkheads, containing the flooding to only the affected sections. In the same way, bases use this strategy to contain (or slow) the flood of enemy troops to the breached bulkhead - Where as a single wall a breach would mean your clan is headed to destruction.
2.2.5 The Split Base A somewhat common (but poor) base defense strategy is grouping your defenses into two groups, with critical non-defensive buildings between them (Town Hall, Resource Storage). This defensive strategy seems to not violate the rules I’ve put down in Chapter 1, but it actually violates the rule of keeping your defenses too spread out. Your defenses should be able to cover each other, ideally as much as possible - keeping them in two groups should be avoided. A split base defense is very vulnerable to giant attacks as they can clean up half of the defenses without taking fire from the other half. Split bases also mean that if either side is wiped out, your critical buildings in the center are very vulnerable to a few archers attacking from that side, effectively meaning your base is half as weak as otherwise.
2.3 Funneling for Victory
Funneling is critical to getting the best results out of your splash damage dealing turrets. It basically means using buildings (mostly walls) to make your enemy go where you want it to go, and then die as you want it to die.
This is how my current base funnels enemies.
Proper funneling turns this into this.
Do I need to say more? Funneling is also critical to proper trap usage. See section 2.11 below.
2.4 Upgrading multiple defenses at the same time Your defenses don’t attack if they’re in the middle of being upgraded when you’re attacked! Try not to be upgrading 40% of your defenses at the same time. This is doubly true for splash damage buildings (mortar, wizard tower) and air defense.
2.5 Having a glaring flaw in your base
Such as a spawn point where you moved a turret out of but didn’t put anything back. Or not having an air defense turret. Or putting your air defense turret outside of your walls.
2.6 Buildings outside walls are too spread out
At higher levels, more players start caring about trophies. If an attacker sees your base is easy to 1-star (kill 50% of the buildings) without having to place too many troops they will see you as a good target. Keep your buildings close to your walls (and defenses) to prevent this, if you care about maintaining your trophy count.
2.7 Turret Range Considerations: What can your towers defend?
One of the goals of placing less valuable buildings outside of your walls is to slow down your attackers once they are within range of your defenses. NOT to make them spawn farther back - This is of secondary priority. This section covers what that range actually means. Range in this game is also sorta screwed up - Sometimes a turret will decide it can attack a unit standing in a given square, but on another base (with identical unit and turret placement) it won’t attack. This ambiguity is why it has taken me about 2 weeks longer to post Chapter 2 than I was hoping. I still haven’t figured out why it does this.
What can and can’t be attacked without taking return fire is summarized in these pics.
Cannon - Range 9 Archer Tower - Range 10
Archer - Range 4
2.8 Spawn Forcing
Spawn forcing refers to forcing your opponent to spawn further away from your important buildings, or your base in general. The objective is to attempt to persuade your opponent to attack from a different side of your base and to delay their reaction time (placing reinforcements). You can create this gap outside of your base by arranging your exterior buildings, placing extra walls, placing decorations and utilizing natural decorations. It is not recommended to use buildings to force your opponent to spawn further away, as buildings are more useful to delay your opponent once they are in range of your turrets. However, if you spread out your walls in singles (optimal distribution to create a large no-spawn-zone) wall breakers will almost never attack them. Spawn forcing allows your defenses to kill many wall breakers before they get to your walls if they are unsupported. For other wall breaker defense tips, see decoy walls below. If allowed to spawn directly next to your wall, wall breakers are able to detonate before turrets can strike, even if the wall breaker would normally be one hit by the turret.
2.8.1 Trick Spawns
Trick spawns are ‘mistakes’ in a spawn forcing situation. Usually a single hole, they are closer to the center of your base the rest of the spawn force allows. However they are intentional and you should make sure you have turrets (especially mortars) barely within range of the spawn square in question.
2.8.2 Why use trick spawns?
Spawn tricks are fun (I’ve had an opponent put down 31 archers in a trick spawn just to have them all die to a single mortar hit - they didn’t opt to continue attacking). Normally they don’t matter but occasionally they help. If created without care, they can allow your opponent an advantage (such as if they can deploy wall breakers). It is inadvisable to rely on traps to defend a trick spawn - if you get attacked twice in a row they won’t be there the second time, plus a smart attacker will place a single unit in the square in question to test for traps.
2.9 Messing with Wall Breakers
Wall breakers are often used in conjunction with giants to get them through the outer walls faster. Here are a few tips to mess with the Wall Breaker AI.
2.9.1 Decoy Walls
Decoy walls are segments of walls of at least 8 that wall breakers will target if they are closer than your real walls. They can also be used to funnel archers and barbarians into taking lots of splash damage from mortars and wizards. Segments of 7 or less don’t seem to work most of the time (seems to be partially based on spawn proximity). If you do further testing and discover any additional details, please report back (for science).
2.9.2 Outer walls with Buttresses
When used in game they look like this. The wall breaker will attack the buttress rather than the walls. Giants will ignore them and proceed straight to the inner walls. Only once the nearby buttress is destroyed will the Wall Breaker target the main wall. This works especially well with spawn forcing, as the farther away the wall breakers spawns the more likely they will target several buttresses, rather than several targeting one buttress and then the surviving ones re-targeting onto the main wall. They can also be combined with Decoy Walls - See pictures of my base in the funneling section for how I use them in such a situation.
If you're curious about the name, buttresses are these things on churches. They support the walls from outside of the church.
2.9.3 Using extra walls for Buffering
Visual of buffering
If you have extra walls you can also use them to protect your defenses from archers. They simple prevent archers from getting close enough to fire, however they do cut down on the number of buildings outside the wall your turret can protect so I generally only recommend this for situations where you 1) DON'T want archers attacking form 2) have walls to spare 3) don't have buildings which can defend your turret instead. This situation can be considered the advanced method of 'Defending your Defenses' (from Chapter 1) but is generally not viable to lower level players due to the number of walls necessary.
rs attacking from that side, effectively meaning your base is half as weak as otherwise.
2.3 Funneling for Victory
Funneling is critical to getting the best results out of your splash damage dealing turrets. It basically means using buildings (mostly walls) to make your enemy go where you want it to go, and then die as you want it to die.
This is how my current base funnels enemies.
Proper funneling turns this into this.
Do I need to say more? Funneling is also critical to proper trap usage. See section 2.11 below.
2.4 Upgrading multiple defenses at the same time Your defenses don’t attack if they’re in the middle of being upgraded when you’re attacked! Try not to be upgrading 40% of your defenses at the same time. This is doubly true for splash damage buildings (mortar, wizard tower) and air defense.
2.5 Having a glaring flaw in your base
Such as a spawn point where you moved a turret out of but didn’t put anything back. Or not having an air defense turret. Or putting your air defense turret outside of your walls.
2.6 Buildings outside walls are too spread out
At higher levels, more players start caring about trophies. If an attacker sees your base is easy to 1-star (kill 50% of the buildings) without having to place too many troops they will see you as a good target. Keep your buildings close to your walls (and defenses) to prevent this, if you care about maintaining your trophy count.
2.7 Turret Range Considerations: What can your towers defend?
One of the goals of placing less valuable buildings outside of your walls is to slow down your attackers once they are within range of your defenses. NOT to make them spawn farther back - This is of secondary priority. This section covers what that range actually means. Range in this game is also sorta screwed up - Sometimes a turret will decide it can attack a unit standing in a given square, but on another base (with identical unit and turret placement) it won’t attack. This ambiguity is why it has taken me about 2 weeks longer to post Chapter 2 than I was hoping. I still haven’t figured out why it does this.
What can and can’t be attacked without taking return fire is summarized in these pics.
Cannon - Range 9 Archer Tower - Range 10
Archer - Range 4
2.8 Spawn Forcing
Spawn forcing refers to forcing your opponent to spawn further away from your important buildings, or your base in general. The objective is to attempt to persuade your opponent to attack from a different side of your base and to delay their reaction time (placing reinforcements). You can create this gap outside of your base by arranging your exterior buildings, placing extra walls, placing decorations and utilizing natural decorations. It is not recommended to use buildings to force your opponent to spawn further away, as buildings are more useful to delay your opponent once they are in range of your turrets. However, if you spread out your walls in singles (optimal distribution to create a large no-spawn-zone) wall breakers will almost never attack them. Spawn forcing allows your defenses to kill many wall breakers before they get to your walls if they are unsupported. For other wall breaker defense tips, see decoy walls below. If allowed to spawn directly next to your wall, wall breakers are able to detonate before turrets can strike, even if the wall breaker would normally be one hit by the turret.
2.8.1 Trick Spawns
Trick spawns are ‘mistakes’ in a spawn forcing situation. Usually a single hole, they are closer to the center of your base the rest of the spawn force allows. However they are intentional and you should make sure you have turrets (especially mortars) barely within range of the spawn square in question.
2.8.2 Why use trick spawns?
Spawn tricks are fun (I’ve had an opponent put down 31 archers in a trick spawn just to have them all die to a single mortar hit - they didn’t opt to continue attacking). Normally they don’t matter but occasionally they help. If created without care, they can allow your opponent an advantage (such as if they can deploy wall breakers). It is inadvisable to rely on traps to defend a trick spawn - if you get attacked twice in a row they won’t be there the second time, plus a smart attacker will place a single unit in the square in question to test for traps.
2.9 Messing with Wall Breakers
Wall breakers are often used in conjunction with giants to get them through the outer walls faster. Here are a few tips to mess with the Wall Breaker AI.
2.9.1 Decoy Walls
Decoy walls are segments of walls of at least 8 that wall breakers will target if they are closer than your real walls. They can also be used to funnel archers and barbarians into taking lots of splash damage from mortars and wizards. Segments of 7 or less don’t seem to work most of the time (seems to be partially based on spawn proximity). If you do further testing and discover any additional details, please report back (for science).
2.9.2 Outer walls with Buttresses
When used in game they look like this. The wall breaker will attack the buttress rather than the walls. Giants will ignore them and proceed straight to the inner walls. Only once the nearby buttress is destroyed will the Wall Breaker target the main wall. This works especially well with spawn forcing, as the farther away the wall breakers spawns the more likely they will target several buttresses, rather than several targeting one buttress and then the surviving ones re-targeting onto the main wall. They can also be combined with Decoy Walls - See pictures of my base in the funneling section for how I use them in such a situation.
If you're curious about the name, buttresses are these things on churches. They support the walls from outside of the church.
2.9.3 Using extra walls for Buffering Visual of buffering
If you have extra walls you can also use them to protect your defenses from archers. They simple prevent archers from getting close enough to fire, however they do cut down on the number of buildings outside the wall your turret can protect so I generally only recommend this for situations where you 1) DON'T want archers attacking form 2) have walls to spare 3) don't have buildings which can defend your turret instead. This situation can be considered the advanced method of 'Defending your Defenses' (from Chapter 1) but is generally not viable to lower level players due to the number of walls necessary.
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