The document provides 9 tips for playing the mobile game Clash of Clans. The tips include saving gems for important purchases rather than speeding up timers, focusing on offense or defense depending on play style, using shield times productively, strategically designing base layouts, carefully selecting targets for raids, coordinating with clans for attacks, prioritizing unstarred villages in clan wars, and tailoring armies to specific war opponents. The document encourages sharing additional strategies in the comments.

1. Clash of Clans: Top 8 tips, tricks, and cheats!
1. Be patient, save your gems
The biggest caveat with any casual free-to-play game is the premium currency system.
Just about everything is on some kind of timer, and as you progress, those timers get
longer. Don’t cave and spend your precious gems on speeding up production - save
them for something important that you get to keep. Make a point to complete missions
and clear natural obstacles to build your gem count. Maybe it’s a building that’s only
available for a limited time. Maybe it’s your next builder’s hut. The point is, you need to
save the gems you earn from missions and terrain clearing for stuff that’s more than just
a convenience. You shouldn’t even spend the gems they suggest you do during the
beginning tutorial session.
When you do have enough gems, think long and hard about what’s important to you in
the game, since if you want to get through this without paying dime, it’ll take awhile
before you make another major purchase. On the flip side, you’ll have a hard time
getting through the competitive end-game content without spending some cash.

2. 2. Offense is the best defense (and vice versa!)
Your upgrade and build order will vary significantly based on if you want to sit back
and collect resources, or take the fight to other players. Odds are you'll regularly be
bouncing between these two. If defense is your primary interest, your first upgrade
should be your town hall, then walls, then defensive structures - first mortar, then archer
tower, then cannons. Mortar and air defense are your most important towers, so make
sure they’re close to the middle and have lots of protection. After that, start working on
your various resource production buildings, and make sure they’re fully upgraded. Some
players intentionally leave a few elixir gatherers and mines outside the walls so other
players can farm them without destroying everything they have, though it’s often
practical to leave lower-priority buildings like those outside your walls so you can make
sure the important stuff is better-protected with overlapping fields of fire rather than
covering a wider area.
Also, remember that players with higher level town halls earn less from raiding lower-
level players - don’t be in a rush to upgrade your town hall if you’re playing
defensively. Just because you're playing defensively means you should neglect your
barracks - in fact, you can queue up troops to train there, and then get a refund on those

3. in the queue later on, turning your barracks into a kind of temporary, unraidable elixir
storage.
If you’re getting aggressive, the order is similar. First build up your town hall, then get
your elixir production up and running so you can start stockpiling resources right away.
Then get your barracks and camps upgraded so you can get started on building an army.
Neither of those structures provide resources to raiders, so feel free to plant them outside
your walls. After that, flesh out your defenses with walls and cannons.
The only things left would be the laboratory for upgrading troops, spell factory for
added offensive power, and gold mines for upgrading structures.Since matchmaking is
based on trophy count, some players intentionally keep theirs low so they can clean up
against lower-level players, so be careful about which fights you pick early on. That
said, if you want to farm players that are lower level than you, intentionally lose trophies
by raiding with a single unit.

4. 3. Shields up!
Getting attacked can suck, but luckily if 40% of your town is destroyed, or your Town
Hall comes crumbling down, you’ll have a 12-hour shield. If 90% of your base is wiped
out, you’ll get an extra four hours. How do you best make use of this time? Well, don’t
go out and start attacking right away, that’s for sure. That will cancel out your shield
immediately.
The safety time is valuable, so use it to your advantage - take some time to figure out
how you can improve your economy, build up your army, upgrade towers (since they
don’t fire when upgrading) or simply stockpile and spend resources before the pain train
comes rolling around again. Shields are useful enough that you may even want to
voluntarily move your town hall out into the open; you'll lose trophies and some
resources, but often the amount of safety time you get out of it is worth it. If you get
really itchy for battle, remember that Clan Wars don't affect your shield timers at all.

5. 4. Learn the lay of the land
The core strategic mechanic of Clash of Clans combat is to have as many walls between
your resources and the outside as possible. To do this, you’ll want to make sure there are
no gaps in your perimeter, and definitely make sure that there are no spawnable tiles
within your base. You’ll want to make sure that structures are tight together, so cannons
and other defensive structures can cover as many of them as possible.
Putting your buildings into small compartments formed by upgraded walls is vital to
slowing an enemy's advance. You’ll also want to have your most powerful defenses
positioned more closely to the center of your base; provide as much of a buffer zone
with other buildings and walls as possible, so attacking troops have to take longer
chewing on other stuff to get to the guns.

6. 5. Pick your targets
When finding opponents, there are a few things you want to take into account before
you start dropping troops. First, look at their Town Hall level - if it’s far lower than
yours, you’ll be getting a smaller cut of the spoils. You’ll get to see exactly how many
resources are available for plundering. At the very least, you want to be able to earn
back the resources you spend on troops. If resources are all you're after, it's often more
profitable to send in a handful of goblins than a full-blown assault.
Before you deploy your first troop, be aware of which resources you’re going for. If
you’re going for trophies to climb the ranks, you’ll need to be investing a lot of troops to
get two or three stars on your raid. You’ll also want to tap elixir reserves if you want to
replenish (or earn back) resources for troops. Once you've done that, it's simply a matter
of targeting the most powerful defenses for those resources.Use giants to draw fire from
towers initially, then wall breakers to breach, then more giants to mop up defenses.
Barbarians, wizards, and archers can chew on structures once areas have been cleared of
cannon and mortar fire, while goblins can bee-line for resources. Be mindful of how
many troops you drop in, though. You want to be able to pull off a win while burning
through as few as possible.

7. Remember that you have no direct control over your troops - know what the unit’s
favorite targets are and deploy accordingly. Barbarians will run head-first at the nearest
building, which isn’t great news if there’s a well-defended mortar just a little further in.
Send the wall breakers and giants in first to take care of that first. Smart players will
create bases that funnel troops right into areas with a ton of traps, which can blunt your
offensive very quickly.
6. Get raiding buddies
Once you’ve maxed-out your village level, gone through the single-player levels, and
rebuilt your castle, you’re probably pretty hardcore about the game and ready to start
getting into organized clan play. Not only are these great ways to socialize in the game,
but coordinated attacks can help you bring in some pretty good hauls, too.
Keep in mind that although you can use clans to call in back-up, you’ll be expected to
contribute troops too - it’s a team effort, after all. Communicate regularly about what
you’re up to, get advice from senior members when you’re trying to figure out what to
do next, and have fun! Your clan may have aspirations for competitive league play,
which can get pretty intense.

8. 7. Punch your weight in Clan Wars
Attack unstarred villages first, since you and your clan have the most to gain from
attacking them. When picking targets for the first time in Clan Wars, let the game's
matchmaking figure out a good opponent for you. If you end up succeeding against
tougher opponents, your lower level allies may have a hard time dealing with an
equivalent increase in challenge. If you go for easy ones, then you're taking away good
opponents for those lower-level allies, forcing them into battles they can't win. Punch
your weight, and the whole clan wins.

9. 8. Tailor your armies in Clan Wars
You've got a whole day to prepare before war kicks off. Use the scout function for your
target enemy encampment to get a lay of the land, and build your army around defeating
it. If the walls are low level, go land. If the air defense isn't upgraded, go air. Make
specific requests in your clan chat for the types of troops you want to send in.
Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of who you are attacking will help you build
the best army to take it on.

10. 9. Your top Clash of Clans tips, tricks, and cheats!
For a casual game, Clash of Clans has a surprising amount of depth. If you've got any
personal strategies for winning bigger, faster, and better, leave them in the comments, or
sing out for help with particularly tricky situations.