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Clan News Update & The Process of Creating a Base - an Example
Our Trophy Hunt has been over now for a while, and we have all focused on hard farming. To celebrate that, and my new TH8, I set my mind to build a farming TH8 base. We still have some free slots for good, reliable and serious players; The Magnet is watching for good Monsters! @@
Read the following post on our clan site here and also take a look around for some goodies there as well. http://forum.supercell.net/images/smilies/wink.png This post and some great comments and suggestions from the community can also be found in it's dedicated thread here.
RAWRR!
The Process of Creating a Base
Now since I recently spent a lot of time and energy on a TH8 design, I decided to go and try to share that experience with all of you monsters. There is really no such thing as the one ''perfect'' base design, there is no such thing as an unbeatable or unbreakable base also. There are however some simple rules that always apply, some basic guidelines that always help.
To me, first and most importantly, a base has to be tough to two-star at all cost, be it a trophy or farming base. From that point on, you have to differentiate between trophy and farming bases. Just make your mind and know from the beginning of a base build what you are going after. Lastly, esthetics and symmetry. I love pretty, neat bases. It has no functional value, though. I acknowledge this as a weakness of mine, but it just matters to me.
If you are going for trophies, your top defense priority is your TH and, not less important to me - Elixir Storages. ''No elixir - no raids - no trophies'' is the line of thought here. Everything else is secondary, including Gold Storages. Ideally, you would keep a free builder to spend all the gold from raiding into walls while hunting for trophies. We do our trophy runs for a week, perhaps two. Two weeks of good raiding and investing into walls brings you a whole lot of shiny tough new walls, it's the perfect time to do that. Keeping the gold storages unprotected (or less protected) and very very empty has the positive side effect of still luring players to attack only for them and leave their trophies to you after that, which is essentially what you should be after on a trophy hunt.
For a farming base, top defense priority obviously have the Gold, Elixir and Dark Elixir Storages. The TH becomes completely irrelevant. I always recommend putting the TH waaay outside of the base core, COMPLETELY unprotected. There is a very good reason for that, and absolutely no benefit to doing otherwise. ''Inviting'' people to drop in and pick your TH gives you a 12h shield for free. Nothing protects your resources better than a shield. You do not want to scare away people from picking your TH, as then YOU loose a 12h shield. YOU also are at a higher risk to be discovered by stronger players, that would sack your base either way. Placing sneaky Teslas around it sounds like a smart idea? Or perhaps placing it just outside the walls within the range of core defensive buildings? Well, to me it is not. This only encourages attackers to commit more heavily, and possibly even go for your resources. We want that 12h shield when we are not online while farming, it is the best possible protection for your hoarded loot. (Trophies are of no concern during farming, you probably win more while attacking, unintentionally, compared to what you can loose on players only picking your TH.)
Now that I have laid out my background thoughts on basic design and reasoning, I will try to present the process I went through on a base build, step by step. I was aiming for a farming-oriented base, but for this base particularly I wanted to make it easily convertable for trophy hunts. I generally do not recommend this, since it's always a compromise, but it turned out quite well I believe. For now, I will just ignore that aspect (it's really a secondary objective) and I'll show the ''easy conversion'' into a trophy base at the end of this post.
I used Clash of Clans Builder (http://clashofclansbuilder.com/ - link to it in the sidebar on our clan site as well) for the first time on that build and found it extremely helpful. It's great to move things around and mess with your base without having to do it online right away and be vulnerable for the time of the entire base redesign. I will be using screenshots from that site here, it simplifies it a lot for me.
Another great tool is the Clash Layout Editor (http://clash.zuuga.com/) that provides some additional functionality, ''Heatmaps'' being one of the most awesome features. Thank you @TheKnight for pointing me to that site. Look for those heatmaps at the end of the post.
Start Small, Think Big
''I need a strong core for my base!'' This was my highest priority objective here. I know I want to protect my resources, but storages don't shoot, do they? What point to have them in the very center of my design? Now I don't have much of a choice really. I want a strong defensive core with long range defenses, that would ideally do ''splash'' damage and cause mass destruction. That would be the Mortars, but not only. The Clan Castle for example is one of the greatest defensive buildings, so often overlooked by players! We donate archers by default in the clan, but often a Dragon or a Pekka would fit in there too. These are great units, not only for attacking but also on defense. (This is also one of the main reasons why Giants are not a good choice for the CC, since they perform badly on defense - they are slow and have low DPS.) Another building with a long range that is to some extent effective on defense is the Barbarian King (and Archer Queen for TH9s). For these (CC & Barb King) to be more effective however, there are two things to be considered - they have to cover as large portion of the base as possible, and also not be easily dragged out of other defenses' perimeter, so that the attacker could deal with them individually and separately. All that said, there is one more aspect to consider - Lightning Spell strikes. Three high upgraded Lightning Spells can easily clear out up to four closely grouped defenses, so we should aim not to make it too easy for the attacker on that. And of course, one more thing to consider that I initially missed, Air Defense. Not a bad idea to have one in the center as well.
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...P01_core_1.png
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...P02_core_2.png
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...P03_core_3.png
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...P04_core_4.png
These are some ideas I played around with. The general idea was to create a nice core of strong defenses, and incorporate the Gold and Elixir Storages in separate compartments on the outside, or in the gaps in-between, protected by the core. Any of these are OK and valid decisions, as mentioned in the beginning, there is no one perfect way of doing it, many things work out well. It's personal preference and common sense. It happened to me way too often to observe my CC troops lured outside of the base, so I wanted to centralize both CC and Barb King to prevent this from happening, and build upon that, as shown below:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ed-300x271.png
At this stage, some additional things I had to consider, all around protecting the storages.
First of all - Wizard Towers! No other defense is more effective at protecting your storages. Their potential is kind of ''wasted'' if used on the outer perimeter of your base, while they truly shine if used to cover several storages, deeper incorporated into the base. Wizard Towers are the ultimate Goblin slayers, so I tried to alternate my Storages with Wizard Towers and Mortars, all still in what I consider the ''extended'' core of the base.
Secondly - Traps! I always like to keep that thought in the back of my mind, even at an early stage of a base build. Generally the smaller Bombs are great for protecting Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors on the outside, so I normally reserve that use for them. The Giant Bombs, however, are a waste. http://forum.supercell.net/images/smilies/biggrin.png Too expensive to constantly renew them, and you will find yourself doing that a lot if placed on the outside. They can be worth it though, especially if placed between Storages - they will eradicate any Goblin pack running from one storage to the other. Again, not a must, just a personal preference.
Third - Air protection! It is quite needed, really, and I have done a poor job of implementing that so far. In an attempt to make up for it, I will be placing some bombs in the center. These will be very effective against Minions, but do next to no damage at all against Healers or Dragons. Alternatively, the dark elixir Seeking Mines can be placed there. I am reluctant of moving any of my Mortars or Wizard Towers out of that ''extended core'' and will have to try to make up for that decreased air protection in the more outer segments of the base.
Fourth - Walls! Time to lay some around. http://forum.supercell.net/images/smilies/wink.png
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ed-300x265.png
The top and bottom Mortars I consider totally critical, and want to later protect best. They are placed in separate single compartments each. The Wizard Towers will protect the storages even over the walls, their range is wide enough. On the left side, as a compromise, I have a Mortar in the compartment with the storages, I personally wouldn't swap it for the Wizard Tower on that side as well, in an attempt to more evenly spread the firing power & range of my three Mortars and Towers - but it's just a matter of personal preference I guess.
Now we might have some good spots for Air Defense, and we need to think of the Dark Elixir Storage as well:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ir-289x300.png
We have some decent air protection from three sides of the base, one remains as a weak side. The Dark Elixir Storage gets decent coverage from the Wizard Tower, which is just fine. I don't have as much DE to care enough about it, and it can be easily swapped with another storage when that changes. At that point I want to mention the other two storages available to TH8 but not yet featured - one for elixir, one for gold. I have them both at lvl1, on the outside of the layout. No need to upgrade them yet, protecting just four storages is way easier than six. They will become relevant for future upgrades and research, but until that time comes, I am happy to be able to completely ignore them. They each hold only 1500 so not a big deal to loose that.
What we have left now on defensive buildings are 5 Cannons & Archer Towers and one Tesla. I also try to use my remaining walls effectively, and think about traps:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...es-300x265.png
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ed-300x260.png
I have tried to place the additional defense compartments (orange markings) in such a way, that they cover the ''core'' defenses and storages, and slow down enemy advance. Enclosed wall segments with two defenses in them (could be made longer as well) are ideal for placing Spring Traps (pink markings) and a very effective anti-Giant defense. There are many variations of how this can be done, of course. I aimed to keep compartments with important defenses closed, and ''open up'' less vital compartments for anti-Giant defense.
What we have now left are all the insignificant buildings that come on the outside of the base, but before going on to that, this is a good moment to revise the walls and make sure your wall distribution is effective and think about Wallbreakers and how/where they would attack. Basically, what you want is to use your best walls for all ''junctions'' and ''sticking out corners''. Marked with red below:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ns-300x277.png
After we have done that, we're clear to move on to the last stage of that base build, placing the less important stuff outside the walls. Some things to remember - alternate Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors, don't place them all together, do place Bombs around/between them.
I like to place all buildings as close as possible to the walls, and also strictly try to have them within the reach of at least one defense. This simply gives my defenses within the walls more time to work their magic on the attacker's troops while they are busy clearing useless stuff outside. This is what I could come up with (Research Lab and fifth Builder's Hut not incorporated, also one wall leftover) :
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...al-300x270.png
Another approach to placing outside buildings would be to evenly spread them out in an attempt to deny spawn area.
As suggested by yesup, swapping the Barb King with an Air Defense is a good idea if you encounter many heavy air attacks.
As promised at the start, this would be one possible conversion to a trophy hunt base with minimal adjustments:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ws-300x270.png
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...hy-300x281.png
A great way to double-check a build is to go over the Heatmaps on the Clash Layout Editor and visualize the the damage output of a base. Very neat!
Overall Damage Heatmap:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...all_Damage.png
Single Defense Coverage:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...gle_Damage.png
Splash Damage:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...ash_Damage.png
Air Damage:
http://monstermagnet.cofc.info/wp-co...Air_Damage.png
Hope you monsters enjoy! May the Magnet Magnetize and Magnify!
Cheers,
Darthy
