TH7 Farming Base - Seth

Credit for this base goes to Seth from the clan Youngwild&Free. I saw this base and I thought it had enough merit to put it up on the blog. Seth had a barbarian king in his arsenal which is substituted for one of the collectors or mines. You can switch it for an inner canon if you want to use it for defense.

As usual the base has the clan castle in its center and a nice triangulation of mortars. Like all good farming bases the Town Hall is placed well outside the normal base to get free 12 hour shields. I did adjust the archer towers to give the base a better chance of holding off air attacks.

The traps in this base are in obvious locations so the seasoned vet will try to plow through the wall with wall breakers, only to find a bunch of bombs waiting. The most important part of this base is of course the central location of all of the storage buildings. This base should give you ample protection against attacks your level.

TH8 Farming Base - Flying Giants

This design is based on the previous series of Flying Giants bases. Like the previous bases in this series it has some vulnerability to resource lost but it will come at a high cost as all resource collectors and storage are well protected. The mortars and air defense are in a standard triangle pattern. The clan castle is put in the center with the dark elixir storage to provide maximum protection for your dark elixir.

Attacks leading with giants will go down quickly as they will go for the quick open kill of defensive buildings in the corners. The giants surviving the spring trap will be punished with a giant bomb and a tesla in addition to the other defensive buildings in the surroundings.

The Best Guide I have found - Flammy's Strategy Guide

I have been thinking about writing a guide for a while now, but I came across this guide.  It has everything you could possibly want to know about CoC.  It even shows you how all of the different troops tend to path and explains why they path the way they do.

So what are you waiting for? Check it out.

Flammy's Strategy Guide

Raiding

There are different purposes for raiding. the main reason for raiding is of course to acquire resources. You can also raid to do gain trophies to move up in leagues. The purpose of this article is to help you create an army that will get the resources you want.

Resource Location
One of the most important parts of raiding is understanding where the resources are. Here is a chart that shows where to find your resources and how much you can get from them.

Building Type	Gold/Elixir	Dark Elixir
Town Hall	You can steal 100% of the loot for a max of 1000	Not available
Storage	You can steal 20% - 2% per TH level past 5, Cap is 200k plus 50k for every level past TH5	You can steal 6% - 1% per TH level past 8, Cap is 2000 plus 500 for every level past TH8
Collectors/Mines	You can steal 50%, Cap is the storage capacity	You can steal 75%, Cap is the storage capacity
Clan Castle	You can steal 10% - 1% per TH level past TH5, Cap is the storage capacity of the Clan Castle	You can steal 7% - 1% per TH level past TH8, Cap is the storage capacity of the Clan Castle

As you can see the highest level of loot is from the collectors, which fortunately for the raider are usually located outside of the village walls. The first thing you need to do is to see if there are any resources located in the collectors. I have created an article labelled Identifying Abandoned Villages to aid you in this endeavor.

Tips and Tricks

1. Check town hall placement first. If it is a farming base with a town hall in a corner attack it but use only 4 troops unless it is also an abandoned village.
2. Check the amount of resources that can be looted and make sure it is an abandoned village. If not move on. 
3. Don't worry about the amount of gold it takes to find the right base to attack. In the law of averages you will gain a lot more than you spend if you just keep searching for the right base.
4. Don't use all of your troops if you don't need them. If you get your resources and go over 50% of the village destroyed there is no need to drop any more troops. 
5. Don't use spells when you are farming for resources unless you think you will gain more than you are spending by a lot.
6. Start off your attack by hitting the corners. Sometimes they will give you the added percentage you need to get a few trophies.

Goblin Raid
Composition: 100% goblins or 8 to 10 wall-breakers and the rest goblins.
When to use: Use a goblin raid if you only care about resources. Add wall-breakers if you want to go deeper into the base to attempt to get dark elixir.
Positive: Cheap and quick. The goblin army will rarely net you a loss in resources and the speed in which you can make goblins means you can constantly be attacking.
Negative: It is very rare that you will gain trophies on a goblin raid. The goblins will skip normal buildings in their thirst for resources.
How to attack: Dump goblins in groups of 15-20 around the perimeter of the base. If you are trying for dark elixir wait until they are about to go after a wall before dropping your wall-breakers.

Barch Raid (preferred attack strategy until Gold 2)
Composition: 30% barbarians and 70% archers, add wall-breakers for dark elixir
When to use: Use Barch Raids to get a high amount of resources and a good chance of earning a small amount of trophies.
Positive: Cheap and quick. The barch raid will rarely yield a loss in either resources or trophies in the lower to mid levels. The barch army is also a quick army to build.
Negative: When you reach Gold 1 and above it will become increasingly difficult to gain trophies on raids.
How to attack: Draw a line of barbarians across one of the edges of the village. Select the archers and draw the same line. Continue this all the way around the base.

Archer Raid (preferred attack strategy for Gold 1 and up)
Composition: 100% archers
When to use: Use archer raids when you want a high percentage resource yield with an almost  guaranteed chance of getting trophies.
Positive: Cheap and quick. Although the archer raid is double the cost of a goblin raid it is still a very cheap army to create and it can be created in a short amount of time. You are also almost guaranteed trophies on your attack.
Negative: Costs more than the barch or goblin raid and takes longer to create.
How to attack: Draw a line of archers across one of the edges of the village. Continue this all the way around the base. Reinforce areas that need it.

Traditional Raid (preferred attack strategy for getting dark elixir or trophies)
Composition: 15 giants, 1 healer, 8 wall-breakers, 10 wizards, 15 barbarians, 20 archers and 20 goblins
When to use: Use this raid only when you need to go deep inside a base for dark elixir.
Positive: This base has the potential of clearing a village but usually it is used to get deep inside a base to get to the dark elixir storage.
Negative: Can cost up to 100k elixir to create. Also takes a lot of time to cook wizards and healer.It will probably limit you to 1 attack per hour.
How to attack: Use your barbarians to pull CC troops if they are present. Try to aim your giants at an air defense so you can get your healer down as soon as possible. Once you have a few giants down start putting down wall-breakers and more giants. After they have penetrated a bit start unleashing your barbarians and archers while keeping to lead your giants through with the wall-breakers. Once the dark elixir storage area is reached unleash the goblins.

Identifying Abandoned Villages

Many players have trouble getting the resources needed to fund building upgrades. It is quite simple to raise over 1 million resources per hour if you have the patience and knowledge to do so. the first part is being able to identify abandoned villages. With an abandoned village almost all of the resources are in mines and elixir collectors. This makes the resources easy to take from the village your attacking without the need of penetrating into the defending village.

Here are the major signs of an abandoned village.

1. Missing league rank
2. A lot of resources
3. Resource containers appear to be empty
4. Resource levels are close to equal
5. Both gold mine buckets are full
6. There are tombstones all over the place
7. There are a lot of obstacles 
8. No clan
9. Builder huts are inactive
10. Crossbow is not loaded
11. Inferno tower isn't charged

In this picture you can see most of the signs that are needed to identify this village as abandoned. 

To get the resources from an abandoned village all that you need to do is to unleash your barbarians and archers on each side and let them pillage away. 

TH8 - Anti-hog/dragon War Base

I present to you the anti-hog/dragon war base design.   This is a variation of a base that I found on the internet that I believe have improved on.  The most common attack on a TH8 base are Hog Riders and Dragon attacks.  This base is designed to defend against both.  

Notice how the bombs are clustered together.  One small bomb on its own doesn't do a lot of damage especially when the attacking army has a healer in the raiding party but when you cluster bombs together they are usually able to kill the attackers even through a healers healing powers.  The damage accumulates so fast the healer doesn't have a chance to heal the damage that was done. 

Air Defenses are located behind the second wall making the tougher for your attackers to get at.  Therefore your attacker either has to spend more on ground troops to get to Air Defense (AD) or attack you with very high level air attackers that can soak up the damage.  The AD is placed in a triangular pattern so that if one AD is being attached the other can reach the attacking troop.

If you have questions or comments please leave them in comments section or hit me up in clan chat.

TH8 War Base - Schimmy

I wanted to create a TH8 War Base with the following elements:

• Inner triangulation of mortars and air defense
• Centralized town hall and clan castle
• Outer layer of giant funneling with traps
• A ring of archer towers, teslas, and wizard towers to help prevent air attacks

Many of the attacks against town hall 8 and up are air attacks, either balloons or dragons. By creating an inner ring of air defense it is difficult to disable the air defense without a great troop investment forcing your attacker to go all air or all ground. 

If the attacker goes all air there will be little resistance until the troops reach the second ring of defense. The likelihood that their troops will survive as all of your air defense will work together to thwart your attackers.

If the attacker goes ground giants will start flying and PEKKA will be greeted with teslas minimizing their abilities to get very far.

TH8 Farming Base - Flying Balance

TH8 Farming Base - Balance

The idea of this farming base design is balanced defense and balanced resources layout.  It is compartmentalized to make it difficult to get far into the base without have to sacrifice a lot of troops. 

Again the BK and Clan Castle are central to the design and in the middle of all of the resource storage tanks.   

TH8 Farming Base - Typhoon

Much like the "TH8 Farming Base-Schimmy" this base is designed to funnel Giants around the core of the base and make them fly.  Even if your would be attacker uses Wall Breakers on your outside wall the Giants will still be force around in a circle.  The Clan Castle is pretty much dead center in the middle of the base.  This is important because it is your most valuable defensive structure in a farming base.  Always make sure to request troops for it before you log off no matter what base design you decide you to use.

Make sure to rotate in and out of the center your most valuable resources that you are trying to accumulate for that next upgrade.

When to Upgrade Your Town Hall

Having trouble figuring out the best time to upgrade your Town Hall? This simple guide will make it easier for you to make the decision. 

Town Hall Levels 1 -2

During the first two levels it doesn't matter when you upgrade. Get your storage buildings upgraded then get your town hall to level 3 as quickly as you can. 

Town Hall Levels 3 -4

At this level you need to make sure all of your buildings are built and your storage buildings are high. Once that is done focus on your laboratory. The lab is now your main focus, you need to keep it upgrading at all times. This is your first priority. You should upgrade your town hall when you get close to running out of things to upgrade in your lab.

Town Hall Levels 5-9

Your lab is still your first priority for upgrading but instead of upgrading your Town Hall based on lab upgrades, you now need to make sure you are close to maxing out all of your buildings before upgrading. Don't worry so much about maxing out your mines and elixir collectors, they are important but not crucial to your success in the upper levels.  

TH7 War Base - Pink Mist

This is a variation on the ball that is used frequently in TH8 bases. The base uses forced paths at the outer level to force your attackers giants into springs. If your attacker manages to make it past the outer levels they are forced into the center where they will be greeted by 2 teslas and some major explosions. Getting 1 star from this base is possible but getting 3 will be very difficult.

TH6 War Base - Flying Giants

This base has worked really well for me through two accounts. Although it looks very simple the giants are forced into a path of destruction.

TH7 War Base - Jon

Is farming season over and you are ready make a move up the trophy ladder?  Are you looking for a solid Clan War base?  

In the image below you will see the base layout intended for use in Clan Wars.  You can tell that this is a Clan War base because all of the structures are spread out to make it difficult to pull the Clan Castle troops. This base works well for a few different reasons:

• It is harder for the attacker to aim their wall breakers at the spots they want them to go.
• Wall breakers have a tendency to head for the corners of the walls.  
• Long straight walls make it easier for an attacker to aim WBers.
• There are multiple layers of defenses to get through in order to get to the mortars and air defenses.  
• This design takes advantage of all the resource structures having to be attacked first by ground attacks.
• Your defenses can kill a lot of troops before they even get to your walls.

NOTE:  This design is missing two structures.  The Barbarian King and the Dark Elixir Barracks.

If you want to use this design for Trophies make sure you bring your resource structures closer to your walls so that they are better protected to make it harder for the attackers to get one star.

TH7 Farming Base - Jon

This base is designed for the free give away of your Town Hall in exchange for a 12 hour shield.  The Town Hall is strategically placed out of the range of all defense structures.

If your attacker really wants to get at your resources this base design will make them work for it.  All four sides of the base have a wall opening with a spring trap at the openings to make Giants Fly.  Each one of the openings is also protected by either a cannon or wizard tower.  Making anything that happens to make it through the spring trap be a target for at least three other defense structures.  

Note:  This design is missing two structures.  The Barbarian King and Dark Elixir Barracks.

The BK structure should be located where the Spell factory is currently shown.  The spell factory can move to the left hand side by camp and barracks.  The DE barracks can be located on the right hand side by the barracks and camp.

TH4 War Base - Flying Barbarians

Here is a design for a level 4 town hall that you can use for clan wars. This design is very simple but effective. Ignore the level of the buildings, I designed this with my current village.

the main part of any war base is the town hall and clan castle. In this design they are both exactly where they need to be, in the center. The mortar and wizard tower are put together for maximum protection for each other. The air defenses are spread out all over to prevent balloon attacks and healers.

The spring traps are conveniently located to make giants fly. By putting a path on the outer level of the base the giants will follow the route and start flying.

The storage units don't factor into clan wars so you can put them anywhere. The main idea of the outside buildings is to make it hard for your attacker to pull your clan castle troops out. Leave them spread out for clan wars. They may get 1 star from you but it will be very hard for anyone to get more than 1 if they are near your level.

TH8 Farming Base - Schimmy

This base is an all around good design that has my favorite element, making giants fly. Starting in the center you will see that your most important defense, your Clan Castle, is well protected. I always keep archers in there as they can kill almost anything that your attacker can throw at you. the next thing to look for is the mortars. In this base the mortars are evenly spaced and cover almost the entire base.

Surrounding the mortars are all of your resource storage. This combined with an outer layer of really good trapping and troop funneling and your attack will have to pay dearly for any resources taken from you.

TH7 Farming Base - Flying Giants

Here is my latest Town Hall layout. The focus was trying to force the attacking giants into the spring traps. This also works on most of the other troops but it is most effective against giants. This layout is also very good against air assaults. I rarely get attacked in Clan Wars and very rarely do I get 3 starred by anyone.

Upgrade Checklist

I created these lists to keep track of all of the upgrades that can be done at each level. This can help you in the planning of the development of your village.

Building Upgrade Checklist

Troop Upgrade Checklist

Troop Comparison

I put together a cheat sheet so you can get a quick comparison between troops. There are some things to consider while looking at the chart. The value of a troop is determined by adding the dps/sp + hp/sp.

Troop Comparison Chart

Chart Definitions:
Space - How much troop space a unit occupies
HP - Hit Points the unit has
HP/SP - How many hit points the unit has divided by how many spaces it takes up
DPS - Single target damage per second
DPS/SP - Single target damage per second divided by how many spaces the unit takes up
Value - HP/SP + DPS/SP
Splash - If the unit damages everything in one area instead of just a single target
Flying - If the unit flies
Training - How long a unit takes to train
Speed - How fast a unit can move (higher is better)
Att Spd - Attack speed, how often does damage
Target

• G - Ground
• A - Air
• W - Wall

Notes

• The Witch's DPS does not factor in her skeletons
• The highlighted fields are the most for that area
• I included a DPS/space and HP/space to give a comparison of what you are getting per troop space
• I did not include a troops target preference
• DPS does not factor in splash damage

TH6 Farming Base - Giant Killer

I leveled my Town Hall to 6. This gave me the opportunity to explore more in depth the AI used for giants. The main goal of this build is to stop giants from killing you in clan wars. I do this by luring them into a death trap. If you look at the village you will notice that there is a small gap on both outer sides of the village. Giants will travel a long ways to get to that gap. Once inside they are doomed.

There is a spring trap at each entrance. That will get rid of the first wave of giants. If the attacker throws all of his giants down at once it could possibly send all of his giants away at once. The next area bottlenecks any giants remaining. If they manage to get through this spot the remaining giants will hit another spring trap and that should clear the rest of the giants.

Like any other village this build is susceptible to high level ranged attackers. So far I have only had 2 attackers, both were a minimum of seven levels above me and neither has taken a star from me although one of the two broke into the center area.

Here are some highlights of the defense.

• Giant gauntlet
• Clan Castle located in center for clan wars
• Coin and essence storage can be switched to the center if you want to farm instead of doing clan wars
• The center area is very difficult to hit with wall breakers
  
  If you have any questions or comments please feel free to use the comment section of the blog.

TH5 War Base - Flying Barbarians

This is a generic defensive strategy for a level 5 town hall. At this level you are still early in the game and you really don't have a lot of choices. Here are the main things to keep in mind.

• The town hall is your most important building. Keep it in the middle and well protected.
• Your resources are also important. Keep those well protected too.
• Putting less important building close to the outside of your walls means all but the giants will have to attack those before they go after your defense.
• Attacking troops will use open gaps before going through a wall. You can lure giants through these gaps and kill them with well placed traps.
• Mix your air and ground defense together. If you keep all of one type together you are leaving weaknesses in your defense somewhere.
• Upgraded defense attack structures are more important than upgraded walls. Upgraded walls will slow your opponent down but it takes the other structures to kill the attackers.
• For a clan war defense you should move one of your storage structures out and switch in the clan castle. You can switch it back once the battle has begun.
• While upgrading, try to upgrade different types of buildings at the same time. If you have two or three archer towers upgrading at the same time you will leave yourself very vulnerable to attack.