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Layouts Main

Introduction

Regardless of a player's objectives, a good base layout is crucial to success in their objective, whether it be trophy pushing, farming, or warring. A poorly designed base will easily fall to attacks, regardless of how much Gold is invested into the defenses. On the other hand, a well-designed base will be able to defend better even if the defenses are weaker.

This page is dedicated to sound strategy that will help you build your base. You should never copy any base you see on the web since any published base can have all weaknesses known. However, knowing how to build a base and having examples will allow you to create your own nuances in a base.

Foundation of a Great Layout

Building a defense means understanding how the troops that attack it work, what they target and ways to target them. Knowing the types of armies your attacker may be using goes a long way toward this goal. No base is a perfect defense against every type of attack, however building against common attacks can help ensure success.

Base Types

The first thing is to know what you want to achieve. There are many different types of bases that you can make in Clash of Clans and it is vital that you make a well designed base for the job that you want it to do. There are therefore a few fundamentals that you need to understand in order to achieve a good design.

Farming Bases

Farming Bases are designed against multiplayer opponents who are farming for your resources. You are protecting Elixir, Gold and Dark Elixir from easily being stolen by making other targets more viable than them. You are also giving up minor resources and keeping major ones highly protected.

  • The resource storage(s) that you intend to protect most should be located in the center of the base, generally guarded by your most powerful defenses and the Clan Castle. Oftentimes this may be the Dark Elixir Storage, but in some cases at lower levels (or by your choice) it can be the Gold or Elixir Storages.
  • Other resource storages should be distributed evenly around the main compartments, preferably in separate compartments, so the you won't lose all of the storages at once. In special cases where you do not consider a particular resource to be important (for example, Elixir at TH8 may often be neglected), you can choose to leave it outside of the walls in hopes of exchanging the resources for trophies from other farmers.
    • Placing all of the storages in the same compartment is a high-risk strategy. If the attacker fails to enter the compartment where you place the storages, they'll receive relatively low amounts of loot, but if they manage to breach it, it can often be easily cleared out especially with the assistance of Rage Spells, which'll mean you lose all of the loot available to them.
  • Distribute the defenses around the compartments so that the storages are well-defended.
  • If space allows, you can place your resource collectors inside the walls. This is especially the case if you are less active and are unable to collect from them regularly.
  • Placement of the Town Hall can be off-center or even outside of the walls of the base.
    • Keeping the Town Hall closer to the center will allow you to better defend the resources it holds. If you place it far from the center, keep in mind that people that "snipe" your Town Hall will be less likely to achieve 30% and give you a shield.
    • Placing the Town Hall in the vicinity of the storages is recommended if you intend to defend your storages with its Giga Tesla or Giga Inferno if you have it installed. However, keep in mind that the placement can be exploited by Siege Machines, especially Wall Wreckers (which can approach your main compartments from the side opposite the Town Hall), so you should have some countermeasures ready for them. Additionally, the Giga Tesla does not engage until the Town Hall is attacked or at least 51% damage is achieved; if you're defending your storages with it, chances are that a majority of the base has already been cleared out by then.

Trophy Bases

Trophy bases have the primary intention of protecting trophies. You will often protect the Town Hall, as its destruction means a star and consequently, trophies for the attacker. In addition to protecting the Town Hall you may also wish to prevent 50% destruction as that is yet another way to score stars.

Preventing 50% destruction is hard; many armies will be capable of achieving it by simply attacking the least-defended parts of your base (which will typically be near or outside the front-line walls) and hoping for the best. However, some layouts can make it very hard to destroy the Town Hall, thus limiting the attacker to one star in most cases.

  • The Town Hall is normally situated in a main compartment with the Clan Castle, Air Defenses and Air Sweepers. If you are a higher level player, it should be guarded with X-Bows, Inferno Towers, and the Eagle Artillery. This means that whatever level you are, you need to have a centralized Town Hall that is heavily protected.
  • There are also normally a few walled layers between the Town Hall and the edge of the base. This may have defensive buildings inside or it maybe one space between walls to make attacking troops destroy another wall layer. Either of these methods is an effective way of slowing down potential attackers.
  • As an alternative to defending the Town Hall heavily, you can choose to isolate the Town Hall, and leave a large area around it unoccupied by buildings, using Walls to wall it off and fill up any gaps that arise in the base. This means that attacking troops will often move around the Town Hall rather than towards it. However, this opens your Town Hall up to Wall Wreckers and Battle Blimps sent out at the end of an attack which can carry Clan Castle troops like P.E.K.K.As to finish off the exposed Town Hall.
  • To prevent attackers from attaining 50% easily, you should make sure that you don't leave too many buildings outside of the walls. If you do intend to leave many buildings outside the walls, be sure they are at least defended in some way (using an Archer Tower, for example), so that Archers and other lesser units cannot pick them off easily.
  • Placing your resource storages outside the walls is one way of easily gaining trophies in low-mid leagues. Farmers can simply choose to steal from the storages using a few troops or with just their heroes. However, this is less likely to work at higher leagues.

Hybrid Bases

Hybrid bases intend to protect both the player's trophies and resources at the same time and is the most typical type of base. As such, it draws aspects from both farming and trophy bases.

  • You generally want to protect the Town Hall with your most powerful defenses. Its destruction means both loss of trophies, as well as the sizable amount of resources it holds. However, you'll also want to protect the resources you value the most. Have these defenses guarding both at once.
  • You can have an interchangeable layout so you can swap storages with defences so that different things are more heavily protected. This is often achieved by leaving a reasonable amount of space inside your walls to move buildings around, but not too much space as to allow attackers to spawn their attacking forces in the middle of your base.
  • You may wish to do is to place Wizard Towers around storages and within range of each other. This way you can destroy large hordes of troops and Goblins and Barbarians easily.
  • It is also recommended that you have your Clan Castle and Hero Altars as central as possible, so they can cover your entire base. Prioritise the positioning of these defences over Cannons or Archer Towers, which can be placed on the outskirts of your base.
  • Protect your resource storages, but also be sure to spread them out. Keeping them too close together enables an attacker to easily steal from multiple storages at the same time. However, placing them too close to the outside of the base enables attackers to steal from them easily.
  • Most Hybrid bases are segmented by walls so that each compartment isn’t very big. This is a good idea so that the enemy doesn’t steal all resources and destroy your Town Hall all at once.

War Bases

War bases aim to prevent enemies from gaining stars. Typically they are designed in a way to prevent two or three stars, usually the latter. Successful war bases are capable of preventing the opponent from achieving their goal and forces them to make multiple attacks against your base.

  • Trophy layouts can often double as war layouts, depending on the player's success with using the layout in multiplayer battles.
  • Commonly, the defenses are the only ones barricaded by walls, leaving the collectors outside while storages may be left outside or be placed inside to protect defenses.
  • The Clan Castle is commonly at the middle of the base where it is hard to reach as usually in wars it is more common to have Clan Castle troops in war.
  • Oftentimes, the defending Archer Queen can be treated like a defense when building war layouts due to her very high damage output.
  • Engineered "anti-3 star" bases lean away from common practices and use troll-like lures to provide easy "2 star" access while preventing three stars.
    • These can include easy access to the Town Hall to protect important defenses and subtle rings to funnel troops away from defenses.
    • You can heavily exploit troop behavior when building such a war base. For example, you can place your Air Defenses in a straight line formation, so that Lava Hounds will move in that direction and split away from Balloons as they are picked off by Archer Towers and Hidden Teslas. Or, you can place defenses in a way that attacking Hog Riders are forced to travel through two Giant Bombs at the same time, heavily damaging them.
    • Grouping defenses together so that a particular area is very heavily defended can help deny Queen Walks and Queen Charges through that area or force the use of a Rage Spell or Freeze Spell. X-Bows, point defenses like Cannons, and single-target Inferno Towers do this job particularly well.
    • Exploiting the power of Traps are as important as good placement of defenses. For example, a well-placed Spring Trap can launch several Giants or a single Ice Golem at once, or dispose of Wall Breakers, while Seeking Air Mines are an easy way to get rid of Healers that appear in Queen Walks.
  • When building a war base, it is important to think about how you would attack the base you built. Doing Friendly Challenges with clanmates enables you to visualise how your base would hold up against attacks.

Progress Bases

Progress bases are bases that layout out all your buildings and walls in a pattern throughout.

  • You general place buildings are group-up by types
    • All Cannons next to each other, all Gold Mnes next to each, etc.
  • Progress bases help your determine what needs to be upgraded next.
  • Walls can be group either by dividing the base or by groups all small walls(groups 3, 4,5, etc.)
  • You could use different builders to upgrade different types of buildings
  • Progress bases don't perform well at defense, so be sure to switch back to a Trophy, Farming, Hybrid, or War Base before signing off

Putting Defenses to Use

Each defense has a job to do. Stopping different troop types and attack strategies is one of the most common ways to succeed.

Wall Concepts

Defense Against the Wall Breaker

Channeling method for Wall Breakers..
Wall Breakers target walls that enclose Buildings. This means they ignore and go around free-standing Walls. Wall Breakers don't just go to the nearest Wall; instead they go to the nearest compartment. Use this to your advantage by channeling them into gaps, where your carefully laid Traps can instantly destroy them. This method can also help defend against other Troops, such as Giants. In addition, the more time the Wall Breakers (and other Troops) spend moving and not attacking, the more opportunities your defenses have to kill them.

Wall Layouts in Bases

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Wall lvl 10
Base layouts can be divided into two basic commonly used categories: Symmetrical and asymmetrical. Most bases have some amount of symmetry, whether they are partially, bilaterally or quadrilaterally symmetrical; others are bilaterally mirrored. They can be further divided by their basic defensive concept. Here are a few:
  • Single Wall: A single wall surrounding all or most of the buildings. Common at lower levels where you don't have many walls to work with, but rarer at higher levels. They are generally easy to destroy, since breaking open one wall opens access to the majority of the village.
  • Double Wall: Same as a single wall except it has another layer (separated by at least a single-tile gap) on the outside of it. It prevents Archers from shooting over it and prevents Wall Breakers from penetrating both layers.
    Double Wall
    Note: Archers have a three-tile (wall) range. This means they can fire at buildings if they are one tile away from the wall. If a building is placed two or more tiles away, the Archer will not be able to reach it. However some units, like the Archer Queen, will be able to fire over the gap.
  • Double- or Multi-Layered Wall: A portion or all of a wall segment with multiple layers. Note: Wall Breakers have splash damage that can break up to triple wall layers as if they were a single layer, so it is not recommended to use this wall type, at least not as part of the outer layer or two where Wall Breakers can typically target them. Additionally, the walls can be easily passed through with the use of Jump Spells and Earthquake Spells.
  • Inner and Outer Wall: As the name implies, an inner wall protects the most valuable structures, with an outer wall fully or partially enclosing the inner wall and its associated defenses.
  • The Egg-Shell Defense: Multi-layered walls (usually 3 or more layers thick) in the center of the map with most buildings outside the wall and resources (possibly Town Hall) inside the wall. This concept is generally used for 'farming' villages.
  • Islands: A single layer of walls enclosing a large space containing only a few (if not only one) buildings, such as the Town Hall or an X-Bow or Inferno Tower, with more wall pieces used to close up space inside the "island" to prevent attacking units from being spawned inside. This concept usually arises in war bases, usually to get attacks moving around it rather than through it. Several of these "islands" may appear in the same layout, and variants may exist where more than one layer of walls is used.
  • Compartmentalizing, Enclosing or Section Defense: This manifests in different ways. The basic concept is to have various compartments of one or more buildings. It helps a lot to have multiple compartments inside your base as each must be breached separately, greatly slowing down attackers and making it difficult for Wall Breakers to reach the inner compartments in order to blow up the walls. Two walls together without any space in between isn't a good idea. It may stop Archers, but a Wall Breaker's splash damage will destroy both of the walls.
  • Gaps and Spring Traps: Leaving a few gaps is OK. You can place Spring Traps in between them to maybe kill a few troops, but this means there is a open compartment which troops can go in, which means leaving too many gaps could result in your base becoming too easy to navigate. Usally a few is good; but too many is a bit risky.

What to Put Inside Your Walls and Why

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  1. Splash Damage Defenses. Why? Because this way, when you are being raided, the attacker's troops will constantly be hammered by your Mortars and Wizard Towers. Splash damage defenses have an advantage over other defenses, such as Cannons, because those can only target one troop at a time, where as Mortars and Wizard Towers can deal damage to multiple troops in a certain area. When you put your Wizard Tower inside your walls by the storages, it can easily take out groups of Goblins and Barbarians.
  2. Air Defenses. Why? If your Air Defense is unprotected, it allows attackers to easily destroy it with a just a few Giants, and then your primary aerial defenses are gone. This allows the attacker to put down hordes of Balloons, Dragons, Minions and/or Healers without worrying too much about them being destroyed because the Air Defense is really the only defense that works exceptionally well against air units.
  3. Gold, Elixir and Dark Elixir Storages. Why? This is fairly arguable. If you are strongly trophy pushing, then feel free to put your storages out in the open to gain some quick trophies from a farmer who wants your loot. Also, it can gain you some trophies if you don't really need that specific resource as much. (ex: Elixir) But because these storages hold all (or almost all) of your resources, you'll probably want to keep them well protected, and the resource storages also have high hitpoints. Without your resources, you can't upgrade buildings or do just about anything else in the game.
  4. Town Hall. Why? As of the December 2015 update, the Town Hall serves as a storage holding significant amounts of Gold, Elixir and Dark Elixir. As its destruction no longer grants a shield, coupled with the fact that it holds a sizable amount of resources, it should always be kept inside. If the Town Hall is the destroyed, the attacker instantly gains a star and you would lose trophies.
  5. Other Defenses. Why? If you don't keep at least a few of your other defenses inside your walls, you will be defeated relatively easily. It is understandable that one may not have as many walls as are required to do so, but it is best to keep your highest level defenses within walls whenever possible.
  6. Dark Elixir Drills. Why? Because they store your Dark Elixir when you are not online and it would be sad if it were to be lost (75% of Dark Elixir can be stolen from it)
  7. Clan Castle. Why? Troops in your Clan Castle will be able to defend different areas, gives Archers and Wizards walls to hide behind, and makes it harder for opponents to lure your troops out into the open space where there are no defenses, especially in wars.

What should you NOT put Inside Your Walls and Why

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  1. Army Camps, Barracks, Spell Factory and Laboratory. Why? Because these buildings have no real purpose when you're being raided (other than a percentage to gain Trophies/3 stars) to keep them within your valuable wall space.
  2. Upgrading Defensive Buildings. When Defensive Buildings are being upgraded, they cannot function or assist in defending your base. Instead, (especially in the core of your base) they may just prove to be detrimental, attracting troops, particularly those that target Defensive Buildings. Switching these with other buildings may distract defense-targeting troops, such as Golem/Golemites, Hog Riders, Lava Hound/Lava Pups, or Giants. Letting these upgrading defences occupy the interior of your base does not help you at all. Though many consider this trivial, you have to remember that every little thing counts; It could be the difference between a devastating raid or a successful defense!
  3. Gold Mines, Elixir Collectors (and potentially Dark Elixir Drills, though see previous section). Why? If you normally play every day, there shouldn't be all that many resources in your collectors. Therefore, there's not really a need to keep them inside your walls, even if you don't play very often. In addition, Goblins will be attracted to interior Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors, making it easier for the raider to access your inner Gold Storages or Elixir Storages. The only reason to keep these inside your walls is if you're a hardcore farmer, but it is strongly advised to use your walls for more important buildings such as Cannons or other defenses. Another reason to keep collectors inside your walls is if you are using a boost on them.
  4. Put your Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors at a slight distance from the outside wall and have either a Mortar or Archer Tower inside the wall. Put a small Bomb at a slight distance from where you put your Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors. This will distract any opponent that usually deploys an Archer in order to lure your Clan Castle troops towards attacking troops in order to kill them. The key is to have as little areas as possible on your base from which the opponent can lure your Clan Castle troops far enough from your defenses. Experienced attackers will deploy their troops slowly in selective parts of your base.
  5. Builder's Huts. Why? Builder's Huts are basically just a hut your Builder sleeps in when he's not working on something. It has no defensive capability whatsoever, so there's no reason to put it inside your walls. One exception would be to place one temporarily inside your walls to take space of at least 3x3 that you're saving for another building. Another exception is to protect these buildings making a 1 star 50% win more difficult for your opponents.
  6. Decorations. Why? Because these are just waste space you could have used for something important, and could actually create a back door for enemies to place troops behind your defenses if the area they are in is at least 3x3 (see paragraph below).

Other Wall Info

Obstacles (trees, bushes, stones, etc.) cannot be used as walls or barriers! Troops can be placed directly on top of them, in front of them, or behind them! The same goes for Decorations (flags, torches, etc), Traps (Bombs, Spring Traps, etc.) and even Hidden Teslas. None of these (with the exception of Hidden Teslas, which are hidden buildings) actually have hit points like your buildings do either. Neither do they count as building space when you're under attack (even the Hidden Teslas, until they are revealed). For example, if you have a large area of at least 3x3 with only decorations or traps within that area, enemy troops can be placed directly into the area where those Decorations, Traps or Obstacles are during an attack on your village.

Advice

  • Wall Breakers have a bigger splash damage, so it is not recommended to use Double Walls, since they will destroy both lines of Walls with one blast.
  • If you find some buildings not necessary to protect, leave them outside as 'buffers'. Most enemy troops will target those buildings, even while your defenses attack them.

Defensive Buildings

Well placed defenses and traps contribute to a solid layout that will stop many attacks. To make the most of a defense, it is important to know the best places to put them.

Advices

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  • Space out defenses so they are neither too close nor too spread out. Defenses that are too close together cannot adequately protect the entirety of your village (there will be large areas that are completely defenseless). Defenses that are too spread out cannot adequately protect each other and will be easily overwhelmed.
  • Cover as many buildings as possible with a defense so you do not give away free percentage. This includes other defensive buildings as well.
  • Cannons and Archer Towers are often first lines of defense, however you can consider placing a geared-up version of them deeper in the base if you believe their extra damage output is worth it there.
  • Placement of Air Defenses and Air Sweepers are always important to prevent air attacks from rampaging about your base. You'll often want to protect these buildings. With the Air Defenses you'll often want to place them in a triangular or rectangular/diamond-shaped arrangement to ensure they can cover as much area as possible. Or, you can use the Air Sweepers as a deterrent to air attacks from one or two sides and use the Air Defenses to cover the other sides.
  • At lower levels, Mortars are among the key defenses you should protect and place in the center of your base. However, do not put Mortars directly next to each other, as two well-placed Lightning Spells will destroy them both (not to mention their common blind spot will be a further weakness). At higher levels, you can also use the Mortars to cover the corners of the village so that single Archers or Barbarians do not snipe buildings easily.
  • Placement of Hidden Teslas can vary depending on what you want to do. You can place them near the core of the base for extra damage in the core, or as a first-line of defense alongside the Archer Towers.
  • Wizard Towers and Bomb Towers are valuable defenses to protect storages from Goblins; placing them adjacent to one will make it difficult for Goblins to survive long without the use of Healing Spells. Mortars can also guard storages from afar and will be especially useful when they are sufficiently upgraded; their damage gets high enough that they one-shot the Goblins.
  • X-Bows are versatile and their high DPS can be put to work by having them defend multiple compartments at once.
  • Wizard Towers can be placed in close proximity to each other, making it easier to kill large groups more quickly as both towers will target them.
  • Placing a Wizard Tower near a Mortar can cover its weaknesses, especially its blind spot.
  • Depending on what you desire to defend against, you should set your Inferno Towers accordingly. When farming and you wish to protect your storages, they should generally be set to multi-target mode to deter low-health troops such as Goblins and also do considerable damage to other units like Miners, Bowlers and Balloons. Single-target mode is excellent for when you need to defend against high-health troops such as P.E.K.K.As and Electro Dragons, whose presence is more typical in war scenarios, but can quickly be overwhelmed by swarms of troops.
    • You can consider setting one Inferno Tower to single-target and another to multi-target and placing them in range of each other; both can alleviate each other's weaknesses. However, you should never place them too close to one another lest they both get hit by a single Freeze Spell.
  • If you have the Eagle Artillery, place it in a way so that it can cover the main compartment (i.e. ensure its blind spot does not overlap with the main compartment), but also be sure it can't be too easily reached. You should try to avoid placing it next to other key defenses (Inferno Towers and/or the Giga Tesla) so to avoid getting frozen along with that key defense.
  • Use non-defensive buildings to extend the boundaries of where troops cannot be deployed. You can also consider placing leftover walls outside for the same reason.
  • Bombs work well at wiping out lesser troops tactically. Usually two is sufficient to wipe out a pack of Goblins and attackers will often pay less attention to the activation of one. One Bomb is usually able to defeat Wall Breakers, so you can place them in a location where you think Wall Breakers will be deployed.
  • Spring Traps are excellent at launching Giants, Goblins or Wall Breakers. You can place them in an intentional gap to launch these troops, but experienced attackers will often recognise and know how to deal with these gaps.
  • Placing Seeking Air Mines on the outside of the base can ruin a Queen Walk before it even begins. However, experienced attackers will often mitigate this threat with a Balloon.
  • Keep your Clan Castle towards the middle of your village, so the troops inside can't be lured out easily.
  • A symmetrical design can be good and bad: such a design will mean that no side of the base is particularly weak, however if a weakness is discovered on one side it can often be exploited on the others.
  • When upgrading defenses, try to cover any weaknesses created from upgrading the defense. Often times substituting a defense with another defense works, but placing traps around the upgrading defenses can work well. Good substitution options include:

Base Layouts

Here is where you can find a variety of layouts which your fellow clashers decided to share, have fun picking!

You can upload images of your layouts here.



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