Base Layouts

There are numerous schools of thought surrounding the best layout for a base. Generally these are impacted by the amount of money a particular player has - obviously if you can upgrade everything and build tons of walls, you will have a concentric set of walls protecting your most important buildings. The more hoops the enemy soldiers have to jump through, the better.

However, when your Town Hall is at a lower level and you are not able to afford or support a complete set of Walls, you may want to consider placing sections of Wall at strategic locations. If you are able to funnel enemies down a particular route using walls or buildings, you can then place Mortars and Wizard Towers along this route to take out multiple units at a time.

Bear in mind that natural obstacles, like bushes and rocks, will not stop enemy units. Trying build walls around these will not work. Similarly, trying to use a building to plug a hole in a wall will not stop the enemy either. However, depending on the type of units that the enemy is sending your way, you may be able to distract them with buildings so that they stop to attack them. This tactic always leaves you at risk of certain units, like Goblins, who will always runs straight for the nearest resource structures.

Common Base Layouts

The Basic Base:

The easiest and generally the first base that people build, early on in Clash of Clans, follows this theme. All your most important buildings should be inside the Walls. If you cannot yet build enough Walls to surround all of your buildings, consider placing other structures, such as Barracks, Army Camps, even Mines and Extractors, beyond the Walls. While a complete set of Walls is not a necessity, any gap is an invitation for enemies to spawn at that location, so be sure to defend it to the hilt. The key buildings to have inside the Walls are your defensive weapons, Town Hall, and Storage structures.

Weaknesses: Once you reach a level where you are regularly seeing Giants, the single-wall base is not so effective any more, as they are adept at pounding a hole in the wall. Enemies now will focus on the area of your base with the fewest Cannons and other defensive weaponry and it is hard to protect every corner of your base equally well with these.

Compartmented Base:

Once Giants are on the scene this base has definite advantages. The general idea behind it is to have the Town Hall right in the middle of the base, then defensive weapons around it, each with a square wall surrounding it. The bigger these walls, the better, but that depends on what you can afford. Giants will go for the weapons and walls first, and take a lot of damage in the process, as the Cannons etc. around the Town Hall will have overlapping target areas. If you are lacking in Walls, you can put multiple important structures in each compartment - the main thing is to be able to keep your defensive weaponry alive for as long as possible to wear down the invading army.

Weaknesses: Archers are able to fire over the Walls so if attacked en masse with these, you may find it hard to combat them.

Dual Base:

A sensible tactic is to have almost two separate bases. This forces your opponent to split their attacking force between the two, inevitably being weaker than if it could attack as one cohesive unit (bearing in mind also that a lot of players just send all their units in at the same point). The idea is to split your defenses and important buildings between the two bases, so that there is no clear preference of what the enemy should attack first.

Weaknesses: While the enemy are splitting their attackers, you are also splitting your defenses. A Cannon or Mortar is not going to be able to cover both bases at once and you will struggle severely to be able to damage the enemy the whole time they are attacking - something which is crucial in Clash of Clans. Early on in the game you really don't have the numbers required of defensive buildings to be able to split them like this. The enemy is also likely to favor the section with the Town Hall in it, as this will earn them 1 star - if, however, you can construct a two-part or segmented base which defenses can cover, this is a good strategy.

Funnel Base:

The funnel base uses Walls and some buildings to direct the enemy towards your strongest defenses. A lot of this requires knowledge of which enemies prefer to attack which buildings (see our Unit Guide for that), as Wall Breakers will obviously just go straight through. If you can use funnels and Walls to delay the enemy significantly enough that they take massive damage before they reach your buildings then you are on the right lines.

Weaknesses: The funnel strategy doesn't work against all units, as mentioned above. Once a hole is created in the Walls, everyone will stream through it. This strategy requires a lot of tinkering to get right.

Diversionary Base:

This base aims to exploit the enemy AI to encourage them to attack less important structures first. While they are doing this, your defensive weapons can damage them significantly. You should keep the important structures behind Walls and if possible in sections, so that if one is breached by the units that survive your diversion, the whole base doesn't fall. The absolute key to this strategy is delaying the enemy for as long as possible - this is precious time to damage them with your defenses.

Weaknesses: Your diversionary buildings will always be destroyed using this tactic, which means that if the enemies do reach your inner sanctum, they don't have to do much damage to ensure at least a 1 star victory.

TIP: You can move buildings around as much as you like, so feel free to experiment and adapt your base as necessary. An absolutely essential piece of advice is that you watch the replays of enemy invasions which have been successful (the unsuccessful ones can also provide an insight), as this will show you a few things. Firstly, where the enemy are getting in and where your weakpoints are, and secondly, how other human players are thinking, and how certain units behave. Understanding human and AI behavior has great advantages to a Clash of Clans player.

TIP: Depending on whether you want Trophies or to protect your Gold, Elixir, or dark elixir it requires different base designs.

Protecting the Dark Elixir