There a tons of threads out there asking for basic tips about defensive strategy, so it'd be useful to have a single thread to direct people to. This is that thread, feel free to suggest additions.
I'd like to stress that this is a BEGINNER'S guide.
No. 1 - Crossfire
Lone towers (towers which are not inside the firing range of other towers) are very easy to attack. If you want your defence to be strong, you need to maximise the number of towers covering each other. Every tower should be in firing range of at least two other towers, and you should mix tower types up - for example, a Snipe covering a Splash is good, but clumping together all your snipes on one side and all you splashes on the other is generally a bad idea.
No. 2 - Prioritize
Hatcheries, Monster Locker, Map Room, Flinger and General Store are not to be defended. Attackers don't get resources by targeting them, and they get repaired quickly and at no cost, so you shouldn't bother protecting them. Concentrate instead on Silos and Town Hall (and attacker's primary target), then resource-producing buildings (likely their secondary target). Put the first two closest to your towers, and the others as close as you can. All other building can be used as additional walls if you don't have enough blocks.
No. 3 - Walls and traps
You shouldn't deploy your traps around your towers, but instead around and BETWEEN your Silos and Town Hall. The reason is this: if you deploy traps around towers, monsters that attack towers will likely trigger traps but survive, because tower-targeting monsters generally have high HP. If, instead, you do as I say, this is what will happen. If your opponent manages to destroy your towers, he will want to attack your Silos and Town Hall next, because that's where the loot is. Monsters that are good for looting have, however, low HP - a single trap is generally sufficient to kill them at close range. So when you opponent sends in his looting wave, his monsters might take down one of your silos, but when they move on to the next, they'll blow up on one or more of your traps - no more looting for you opponent!
As for walls, as long as you don't have many blocks, there really isn't a very good use for them. Use them to wall in your important buildings, but beware that walls won't stop anyone on their own.
No. 4 - Upgrade upgrade upgrade
Maybe this should have been No. 1, since it's very important and often overlooked: you need to UPGRADE your towers. Their usefulness changes dramatically with upgrading, so try to build and upgrade defensive towers as much as you can.
FAQ Section
There's a guy who keeps attacking me on and on, I can't upgrade my defences because he always destroys them before they are completed!
First of all, try to use your time in Damage Protection to do upgrades, and try not to have more than one tower upgrading when you are outside of damage protection. Also, you should try No. 3, the part about traps - traps are cheap and, if you use the way I say, can be terrific in preventing an opponent from looting you clean. Another probably effective and cheap thing you can do is asymmetric retaliation: build a few dozens of pokeys and attack his unprotected buildings, especially upgrading Hatcheries, working Monsters Lockers (you can tell they are working by their animation), upgrading Monster Housings, which are in general difficult to protect. Ultimately, if all fails, he'll level up and won't be able to attack you any longer.
Originally Posted by srfreddy
