Picking a good base layout is key to success in Clash of Clans. There are two types of base layouts in Clash of Clans: farming defense setups and trophy defense setups. A good farming base layout will help you keep more of the resources you own, making it difficult for enemy players to steal your hard-earned gold and elixir. A good trophy base layout will focus on protecting your Town Hall and structures so that it will be more difficult for enemy players to score 2 or 3 stars when attacking you (or even 1 star if they use a weak army).
Clash of Clans Base Layouts: General Tips & Strategies
in the links above, I have provided full base layout guides for each Town Hall level. Note that before TH7, all of the base layouts focus on protecting resources (farming bases), whereas at TH7 and above, I have provided guides for both this guide to base layouts, I have provided both farming base and trophy base guides. Early base layouts should focus on protecting your resources above everything else.
Trying to protect your trophies is pointless before Town Hall 7, as before that range, higher Town Hall players can easily wipe your entire base no matter what your setup with cheap units (due to superior army size and laboratory upgrades). Instead, if you want to push for the 1250 trophy achievement (for the 450 gem reward – useful for getting your third builder early) before TH7, you need to do so through attacking rather than defending.
Starting at TH7, you may want to work on saving trophies to push for achievements (since they give out a lot of gems) or for participating in Clan Wars. The rewards for Clan Wars before Town Hall 7 are very low and your base will be easy to 3 star by TH7+ players, so TH6 and below players are considered a serious liability and do not get much out of Clan Wars.
Note that you can now set up a separate base for Clan Wars. It is a good idea to set up a trophy-oriented base for Clan Wars, as this will help make it more difficult for enemy players to score 2 or 3 stars when attacking you (or even 1 star if they use a weak army).
Tip #1: Understand the Difference Between Farming & Trophy Bases
Rather than build your base to try and both defense your resources and your trophies, it is much more effective to build separate bases for each of these functions. The reason that you should separate your farming base from your trophy base is simple: with a farming defense setup, you always want to keep your Town Hall outside your base. If an enemy snipes your Town Hall and then forfeits the match, you get a 12 hour shield and barely lose any resources. As a result, you cannot have a great farming base and a great trophy base at the same time.
A good defense actually does not play a major role in trophy pushing until higher ranges when the army you need to build to get trophies takes longer to train. Before 1600 trophies or so, you can push with just Barbarians and Archers. You can get several attacks in (or more) without having to wait for units to train. While you wait for a large number of units to be trained, you can look for bases that have an exposed Town Hall that you can snipe with a few Archers or Barbarians. You can alternate between a few Town Hall snipes and a full out raid once your army fills up. Continuously play rather than base layout is key for trophies before TH7 (and really is the case for TH7/TH8/TH9 players too if you get high enough in trophy count).
Tip #2: Put Multiple Walls Between Your Resources & Your Enemy
When setting up your base, you want to make sure your enemy has to break down multiple walls to get access to your storage units. Before TH8, if possible, you never want more than a single storage unit within the same wall complex. After TH8, you never want more than two storage units within the same wall complex. Make sure your enemy has to always break down another wall to get to your next storage point.
Tip #3: Avoid 4-Way Joints
As often as possible, you want to try and avoid a 4-way junction between your walls. Our brains like perfect lines and shapes, such as a square-shaped base layout. This is a very weak defense in Clash of Clans. The reason is if you have 4-way intersection of walls, all the enemy player has to do is break down the center joint in that 4-way intersection and then they have access to 4 new compartments. It makes your walls much less effective.
Instead, most of your joints should be 3-way. Your square-shaped compartments have to be off-center with one another to prevent these 4-way joints from occurring.
Tip #4: Protect Your High Value Towers
While your most important towers vary by level range, it is safe to say that the Mortar, Air Defense, and Wizard Tower are high value defensive towers and as a result need to be placed centrally in your base layout (side note: things change a bit at TH10 in regards to Mortar placement at high level, but that is a rare scenario and 99.9% of players will never reach a trophy count where they have to worry about this).
The outside of your base should include your Archer Towers, Cannons, and Hidden Teslas. These towers should be your first line of defense. Mortars, X Bows, and Air Defense can protect your outer towers from the inner portion of the base due to their large range. Meanwhile, Wizard Towers should be placed near storage units to protect against Goblins and Archers.
Try and place walls between your important towers as well. While some players like to stack their mortars, you never want to stack Air Defense or Wizard Towers. You need to spread these out so that a player cannot easily take them out after gaining access to that portion of your base.
Tip #5: Funnel Giants Into Spring Traps
Giants (and at higher levels, Hog Riders) have a predictable pathing as they always go after the closest defensive structure. The easiest way to take advantage of this is to note where the enemy often attacks first. Right next to that tower, place 1 unit of space (make the gap just 1 unit of space wide with walls) and drop another tower. Place the spring trap between the two towers. After attacking the first tower, the Giants (or Hog Riders) will automatically head towards the other tower and go right into the spring trap.
You should set up these formations throughout your base, taking time to put these traps in for every spring trap you have. This really becomes an effective strategy at TH7 and above, as you really do not have enough walls or towers to set up elaborate traps before that level range.
