After the Tutorial[]
Upon completion of the tutorial, you should be Town Hall 2. Your first move should be building an Elixir Collector to supply you with much-needed Elixir, as the Gold Mine should be pre-built and already providing Gold.
In the first 24-48 hours, refrain from building/upgrading defenses and first focus on upgrading your Resource Collectors to start stocking up on resources, which will help you later on. Do not attack multiplayer targets, as that will make your 72 hour Shield decrease by 3-5 hours and leave you vulnerable to attackers, who can easily steal your stocked resources.
As your shield approaches natural expiry (>24 hours left), start building and upgrading defenses to protect your Resource Storages. Don't worry if you are 3-starred a couple of times, it's natural to be defending against higher Town Halls.
After your Shield expires, make sure your buildings are all at the maximum level for Town Hall 2. When you're ready, upgrade to Town Hall 3 (this may have happened before the Shield expires, if so, good work!)
Basic Attack and Defense Protocols[]
Main page: Basic Attack and Defense
Your attacking army consists of three main roles - Dps, Tank, and Support
Your DpS (Damage per second) troops are relatively low-hitpoint troops that do high amounts of damage, usually intended to destroy lots of buildings in a short amount of time. These troops are commonly used for funnelling, which we will take a closer look at in the Attack Strategy page. Some examples are Wizards, Bowlers, and Balloons. Your early-game choices are Archers, Barbarians, and Balloons.
Your Tank troops are high-hitpoint troops that do relatively low amounts of damage, usually used as a meat shield for the lower health DpS troops. These troops are often funnelled into the core of a base to absorb damage. Some examples are Golems, Lava Hounds, and Ice Golems. Your main early-game option is the Giant.
Your Support troops are medium hit-point troops that assist in the attack while doing little damage, usually used as a way to keep other troops fighting for longer. The only full-on Support troop is the Healer.
Subcategories include Damage-Tank hybrids like the P.E.K.K.A, Damage-Support hybrids like the Yeti, Early-game CC Bait like Archers or Barbarians, Cleanup troops like Minions, Hero-hunters like the Headhunter, and Wall Breakers like the Wall Breaker.
Defensively, your village contains 6 main roles - Storage, Town Hall, Trash, Defense (Point Defense, Splash Defense, DpS Defense, and Air Defense)
Storages are, you guessed it, storages. These are best kept deep within a base for maximum protection of your resources.
Whaddya know, the Town Hall is a Town Hall. Keep it in or near the center of your base unless you know what you're doing.
"Trash" buildings are buildings that serve little to no purpose defensively and should be left outside your wall ring. These include resource collectors (other than the Dark Elixir Drill), Barracks, Dark Barracks, the Workshop, the Laboratory and Builder's Huts.
Point Defenses are low to mid damage single-target defenses such as the Archer Tower and Cannon, and should be placed further out of your base. Splash Defenses are low to mid damage AoE defenses like the Mortars and Wizard Towers. Air Defenses are defenses that can attack air troops and are essential in defense. DpS defenses like the X-Bow along with the previously mention Air Defenses are very important and should be further into your base.