Our Strategy Guide

This is Clash of Clans Wiki's very own Strategy Guide. Players who consider themselves experts at different aspects of the game are welcome to add their own touch totals Strategy Guide with the aim of helping other less experienced players.

The best thing about this kind of strategy guide is that everyone has something to add. Even if you are a level 20, all the level 19s out there will greatly appreciate your help. For the level 60s out there, there will still be people who are going through the part of Clash of Clans you can give the best tips for.

I will write the first chapter shortly but I first want to apologize to all the people I steal from. All rights to Clash of Clans belong to Supercell and plenty of the terms I use will be stolen either from them or from Flammy, another user. If you see a name and you have a better one, chances are I just made it up so give me a comment or something like that and I will adapt it if I agree.

Thank you for reading this far, and good luck in helping me write this strategy guide.

Matted (please edit out my name once its obvious a fair few people have edited this intro.)

Chapter 1: Beginning from the Beginning
When you first start on Clash of Clans, you are given a tutorial. Note that you don't have to spend the gems it recommends and you do not need an army of wizards to take out the goblins. After you have completed this tutorial and got to grips with the game, you have several looming problems.

You will have a three day shield, this is essential in getting your defenses and resource buildings to a safe level before being attacked.

The first thing you need to do is upgrade your Elixir Collectors and Gold Mines to a sensibly high level. I recommend at least level 3 or 4 at first. This will give you enough of a resource base to keep you going for a while.

Once you have completed this, you need to see to your storages. You have a maximum of two storages of each, elixir and gold, and it is probably best to get both to maximize your resource amounts.

Don't worry too much about Barracks and Army Camp upgrades at this early stage as they won't protect you from invasion and will only help when you are on the offensive, but do try and get your Town Hall to level three.

As soon as you have completed these tasks you must turn to your defensive buildings. You will already have a cannon from the tutorial but apart from that, your first defenses need to be your most important ones, walls. Use all your walls around your buildings, bear in mind that the buildings that are most valuable are your storages and your Town Hall, make sure you can surround your storages and town hall completely but remember that enemies can spawn in the corner too, it's not safe to build with no walls in the corner.

Surround your base with the less important buildings to slow your attackers and upgrade your walls to at least level 2.

When you are confident your base is stable, begin Town Hall level 4 upgrade and begin building your cannons and archer towers. Upgrade them as much as possible and save up to get a mortar as soon as you can. Put the mortar with your TH and your storages in your walls and keep upgrading them. You want to fit as many of your defensive turrets in your walls as you can whilst keeping your less useful ones outside your base. Keep upgrading your walls and your turrets and you are ready to face the world.

Chapter 2: Your First Raid
Since your three day shield is such a blessing, it is not advised that you break it early. Once it has run out however, you are ready to go out in search of trophies, gold and elixir.

Attacking involves three fundamental parts each covered in depth here, they will be explored later in terms of applying them at higher levels.

Part 1 - Army composition
At later levels army composition is an essential part of strategy. Based on the type of bases you will encounter at first however, I recommend a simple army of Barbarians at first. This should help guarantee a win against anyone with badly used walls and defenses.

Before you begin your battle, it is a good idea to upgrade your barracks. By the time you have finished raiding they will be done.

Part 2 - Picking the perfect base
At this earlier a level, you can afford to be picky on who you attack. Huge numbers of people begin the game and then quit very quickly so you can look through bases to find the best catch. Ideally, you want a base that you can 3-star for a large amount of trophies so as to lift you up into the trophy levels of active players.

Look for no, or badly deployed, walls with an exposed Town Hall and weak defenses. Ultimately however, you want someone with a good amount of resources and at least 25 trophies up for grabs. Winning a battle like this will set you well on your journey to the leader boards.

Part 3 - Strategy
Strategy is a pretty endless subject. However, there are countless variations on attack techniques. I thoroughly recommend you simply target the defenses and the Town Hall with your Barbarians until a greater variety of troops are available.

Part 1 - Defensive Units
After beginning and finishing Town Hall level 4 upgrade, build an Air Defense as soon as possible and begin to upgrade your defensive buildings in this order - Mortar, Archer Tower, Cannon. Once Mortar  is level 2, begin your Archer Tower upgrade. Once that is level 4, start your Cannon upgrade. Once that is level 5 (This may take some time), try to max out your walls and put everything neatly in place. If you have problems with your layout, check noteworthygamer's YouTube channel for a guide. Once you get your first defense result, see if you had won or lost. If you lost, try a different layout. If you won, you are ready to rock the leaderboards.

Part 2 - Hitpoints
As higher players have noticed, upgrading your buildings will increase the number of times a building has to be hit. This is most effective to defensive buildings and especially the Clan Castle. Try to upgrade as much buildings as you can, but start with your defenses.on

Chapter 4: Base Design
Are you farming or hunting trophies?

Position the structures you want to protect most (usually gold storage, town hall, or both) in the middle, within firing range of all your defences.

Followed by mines, collectors, drills. By positioning them on the outside of your defences, your defences can focus on defending your most important buildings. You defences will still attack enemy units within range.

Followed by misc. buildings that won't give resources but act as buffers to your resources let long range defensive structures like mortars and archer towers to deal some damage to troops.

Chapter 5: Farming
Pick and choose your targets. You're farming, not trophy hunting.

You're looking for targets with lots of available resources and defences weak against your army.

Chapter 6: Trophy Hunting
Pick and choose your targets. You're trophy hunting, not farming.

You're looking for targets with exposed town halls or defences weak against your army.

Chapter 7- Balancing your Base
Keeping a balance with your base.

You whould always try to max out everything for your town hall level so that you get the best advantage when you upgrade the town hall.

When upgrading the buildings, try to upgrade the defensive buildings first then try to upgrade the Resource Buildings, followed by your useless Barracks, Lab, SPell Factory and Army Camps.

You should always try to be upgrading something in the lab as it does not require a builder to do so. Also when the tier 1 infantry get to a high level they can  can dish out monstrous damage.

Always upgrade your buildings in the least time consuming way, so try to keep all your cannons in the same level (5&6) instead of having them spread apart (10&2).

Also not all defensive structures are the same. It is important to have a centralised Clan Castle and a mortar triangle in the centre, all covered by walls and with the wizard towers there to protect the mortars as the mortars have a "Dead Zone"(they do splendid splash damage to your enemies and will also destroy tonnes of enemies while the enemy is destroying other buildings.

You should ALWAYS have at least 1 air defense centralised as if someone is attacking with 12 dragons, your air defense may have a chance of destroying the enemy. Also if you have all 4 air defenses centralised it is ok to keep them at about level 4-5 but if you only prioritise 1 air defense you MUST make sure it is MAX LEVEL for you current town hall level.

Remember: Having a powerful army is very important because you have a better chance of destroying the enemy's defense and stealing all their Money. Also make a good defense and if you are trying to protect resources I highly recommend placing the town hall outside so there is higher chance of a weaker player destroying your town hall. (giving you a shield)