I’m writing this as a reference I want to link to when critiquing baseplans in the
base design thread. To be clear, I'm specifically discussing the design of farming bases at TH8 and TH9. None of the ideas in this thread are new, original, or secret. They can all be found in many places on these forums and other CoC websites. On the other hand, I’m happy to make additions if folks think that I’ve missed important concepts.
If you want a critique of your individual base, please post it to the base design thread rather than in this thread.
Also, I’m under no illusions that I’m the most amazing CoC player ever. Feel free to link a screenshot of that one time that I attacked your base and failed miserably. God knows that I attack often enough at high levels to earn my share of failures.
THE GUIDE
First, bear in mind that because loot penalties make resources scarce at TH9, TH8 bases become prime farming targets for max level bases with 220 pop armies and level 6 troops. Those are the armies you need to plan around. However, those armies are also expensive in both training time and elixir. If I only make 60k gold and 60k elixir off your base I’ve wasted my time. It wasn’t a cost effective attack. Start thinking of your defenses in those terms. Max level offense in this game is much stronger than max level defense even ignoring crazy stuff like level 30 heroes. Don’t think of your base in terms of stopping attacks, but rather in terms of making attacks cost-inefficient.
Tip 1: Bulkheads. You may have beautiful level ten walls, but if you’ve distributed them in a single ring around your base, they’re only as strong as the first hole my wallbreakers blow. After that hole, your base may as well not have walls except for funneling effects possibly clumping targets for splash damage. By dividing your base into multiple segments that I have to open individually, you force me to make multiple holes in your walls and increase their effective strength. Ships work under this principle in which hulls are subdivided into bulkheads to prevent a single leak from sinking the ship.
This is particularly true of resource placement. Don’t put them all in a single compartment. This is probably the most common and most significant error I see in bases TH8 and higher – having all their resources in a single compartment. Subdivide them into multiple compartments to slow the attack and make it cost-ineffective.
Example: Level 72? Level six wizard towers? X-bows? High level walls? Strips to deter wallbreakers? No problem. He has made the biggest and most important error of basebuilding in keeping all his resources in a single central chamber. I’ll pass on lower level bases with subdivisions but I’ll eat bases like this for lunch.
Example2: This base design does a nice job of subdividing, but it has the disadvantage of allowing me the freedom to blow essentially any wall I choose. How do you constrain wallbreakers to attack where you want them to attack? Read on.
Tip 2: Strips and Spikes. Not everyone uses wallbreakers for TH9 farming, but many do and I’m personally a fan. Wallbreaker AI is such that the first wallbreaker will attack the nearest wall, and subsequent wallbreakers will follow the path the first took, hitting the next wall in that line regardless of if other walls are nearer. This can lead to behavior with wallbreakers following long paths through other walls to break walls deep in the core of your base. Spikes are designed to stop your base cracking quickly to these attacks. Do not place single, unconnected, wall segments around your base. Wall breakers ignore single segments.
Bear in mind that most max level attacks with farming troops will fail at some point. Often they’re geared around saturating defenses with too many targets and grabbing resources while they’re saturated. Speed is important in these attacks and wallbreakers speed things up. Spikes and strips slow them back down.
In my opinion, spikes are easier to do well than strips, but both have their strengths. Try to keep them as far apart from one another as possible without letting wallbreakers slip between them. Making this determination involves comparing a wallbreaker’s possible starting point to the length of the spike and the distance between them. Making longer spikes offers another avenue to increase the effective strength of your walls.
Example: A spiky version of a design TNT posted to the base design thread. As far as I can tell from watching replays, there is no possible wallbreaker starting point that won't be pulled to a spike. Note that the spikes are in line with walls behind them. Remember that wallbreakers launched from the same spot as previous wallbreakers will follow the same line to the next wall in that line. Lining spikes up with internal walls has the advantage of denying wall breakers an unimpeded path to the base's core even when the spike is destroyed.
Tip 3: Surround your base with decorations and collectors. This is a couple tips in one, but it accomplishes a few things. Forcing enemy troops to start farther away gives your defenses more opportunities to shoot before they’re engaged. It can also be helpful in making wallbreakers target the spikes you want rather than dancing between them. Also, if you place collectors around your base, sometimes a goblin rush can be diverted from the core supply dumps to a collector on the periphery. A few extra seconds allowing mortars to shoot once or twice more can be the difference between success and failure of a goblin rush.
Tip 4: Town Hall. Put it outside and undefended. Losing your town hall is paid in a currency (trophies) you don’t care about and carries the benefit of earning a shield in exchange.
Tip 5: Clan Castle. While in farming range, your clan castle and mortars followed by your wizard towers are arguably your strongest defenses. Your clan castle needs to be in the middle of your base. I have no idea why so many people devalue the clan castle to the point of placing it peripherally to their base, but it’s a huge mistake.
Tip 6: X-Bow. Point it at the ground. Yes, I know about that one time that someone revenged you with max level dragons and cleaned you out. But if someone is going to take that kind of time to design a tier 3 army with complementary spells specifically to revenge you, they can just look at your X-Bows pointing skyward and choose to build PEKKAs instead. Tier 3 troops are designed for trophies in terms of both cost and build time rather than farming. There are no air-based farming troops. If you’re in a trophy range for farming, build your defenses accordingly. Aside from the futility of planning for an air-based attack in farming range, X-Bows are really excellent at killing wallbreakers.
Tip 7: DE Supply. Don’t put other resource storages immediately adjacent to the dark elixir storage. Multiple lightning attacks on the DE storage are really popular right now. Keep other storages away to prevent these attacks from being too profitable.
Tip 8: Bombs. I personally suggest forgetting about the large bombs unless you've got them in a spot that they rarely get tripped. If you're farming the cost of each detonated bomb becomes a part of the overall cost of the attack. A couple exploded bombs at 50k can make even small attacks expensive quickly. Small and cheap bombs I'd replace as soon as they're detonated. Remember that you don't need a free worker to replace them.
Originally Posted by Hannibal
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