Clash of Clans: Base Building Guide and All Buildings List (2024) (2024)

In Clash of Clans, players are given access to a huge number of different buildings to use. From army camps for holding your units and gold mines busy extracting valuable resources, to various defensive buildings, there is no shortage of things you can add to your base, and no shortage of what you can do with them.

Here in this guide, we are going to be explaining to you how we like to setup our bases to maximize our chances of a successful victory. We will then be giving you a complete list of every building in the Home Village. With all that, let’s get right into the article!

Clash of Clans Base Building Guide: Top 7 Tips

When it comes to setting up the perfect base, you are going to want to make sure you understand where to put what buildings. In this first section, we are going to be giving you some tips and tricks on how to make a base that will maximize your chances of a successful victory.

Tip #1: Decide Between Having a Symmetrical or an Asymmetrical Base

When it comes to designing your base, there are two ways to go about doing it: making a symmetrical base, or an asymmetrical base. A symmetrical base (see image below) is a very balanced and well-rounded base, with an even amount of buildings/walls/defenses on all sides. This is a very common type of base employed by many Clash of Clans players. Alternatively, there are asymmetrical bases. These are uneven bases that look more natural and organic and can have areas that are stronger or weaker to defend.

When it comes to which base you should do, many would argue that it depends on what level your town hall is. I don’t know if that is true, but what I do know is that it is generally better to have an asymmetrical base. There are a few reasons for this. First and foremost, when an attacking player first comes across your base after matchmaking, they will only have 30 seconds to prepare an attack strategy and start launching their troops.

With a symmetrical base (see image above), it is generally pretty easy to think of a good strategy for attacking, as all sides of the base are more or less the same. With an asymmetrical base, there is a lot more to consider. Secondly, asymmetrical bases give you more freedom in how you want to design your base.

Tip #2: Know Where to Place Walls – Good For Countering Wall Breakers

Walls are some of the most important structure types in Clash of Clans. They are responsible for controlling where enemy units go and where a player will deploy his or her troops. When it comes to putting down walls, generally it’s a good idea to have multiple different layers of walls around your base. So maybe one that is wrapped around your town hall, and another one that goes all the way around your main base.

This is a great strategy when it comes to dealing with wall breakers. Those units will explode when reaching a wall, which results in their death. What this means is that they can only break through one layer of walls at most before they die. This means that enemy players will need to have a lot more wall breakers in order to get through all your defenses, which they are unlikely to have.

Of course, you should try to get creative with how you place down walls in order to make even more layers. For example, you could have two sets of walls wrapped around some buildings like you see in the image above. The benefit to doing this is that if the enemy units break into one wall, they will still have to break through the second one. Having multiple layers of walls like this also makes Jump Spells less effective. Below is an image of what NOT to do:

Tip #3: Put Other Structures in Front of Defensive Towers – Good at Slowing Down Most Unit Types

One other way that you can slow down enemy troops besides using walls is to place certain buildings in front of your defensive towers. This way, when an attacking force arrives to the outer edges of your base, they will be drawn towards the buildings instead of immediately starting to attack your walls. This means that your defensive towers will have even more time to kill off some of the enemy forces before they break through the walls and get into the base.

This is a good counter to most types of units. Giants, however, will walk right past them and head for your defenses. And goblins will ignore them in place of resource storage units. Even with these facts, it’s still beneficial to have as if the enemy has units that will attack the non-defensive buildings first, they won’t attack your defensive towers right away, meaning the towers have a better chance at survival.

Just make sure that you be careful with what buildings you put where. You don’t want to put your resource storage buildings or your town hall on the frontlines (the town hall does make sense if you want to keep your trophy count low, however). Also, make sure that your defensive towers have enough range to shoot the units that are attacking your other buildings. The point of this strategy is to give your towers more time to kill enemies, but this is made pointless if they can’t shoot them!

Tip #4: Use Traps to Cover up Weak Points – Great Against High-Health Targets or Low-Health Targets in Groups

This next tip is even more important if you are planning on using an asymmetrical base instead of a symmetrical one. As you are building out your base, you may notice that there are some weak points that can be easily overrun by enemy troops. It is here at these spots that you are going to want to place down some traps in order to make up for the lower amount of defenses.

Which traps you should use really depend on where the rest of your defenses are. If you have an area with very little air defense, you should place down some anti-air traps (see image above). If there is a gap in the wall of your base, then place down some spring traps to re-direct enemy units to go further down the line.

One thing that you should try to do is be careful about making it too obvious where the traps are. If you have literally no defenses in one area of your base, more intelligent players are going to suspect that there are traps there. They will then respond by sending out a few single units to trigger the traps before deploying the rest of your forces. Because of the previously stated fact, this tip is generally better for units with large health pools or low-health units in big groups.

Tip #5: Spread Out Your Resource Storage Buildings – Excellent Counter to Goblins

Make sure that you are not putting all of your resource storage units in one place, even if it is at the center of your base and is well-defended by towers and walls. The reason why you should avoid doing this is very simple: it’s much risker to have them in one place instead of spreading them out. A player who knows what they are doing will be able to get to your resources easily, even if they are well-defended and surrounded by lots of defenses.

Goblins are a unit type that prioritizes resource storage buildings. Using this tip, they will need to run all throughout the base in order to get to each of your storage buildings. This gives your defenses more time to damage and kill them, effectively stretching them too thin for them to be a big threat.

Generally, I recommend keeping your dark elixir stored at the center of your base, as this is the rarest and most difficult-to-acquire resource in the game. Gold storage units and regular elixir storage units should all be spread out as evenly as possible. It’s a good idea to keep these storage buildings behind or at least next to your defensive towers. For many players, these buildings are going to be priority targets. And because of that, you are going to want to go above and beyond to make sure that they are safe and well-protected.

Tip #6: Have at Least One Building at Each Corner of The Map – Good For Slow Moving Units

One final tip that we have for you is to make sure you always have at least one building at each of the four corners of your village. Every time an enemy player is attacking your base, they will be given a limited amount of time to destroy everything and achieve three stars. So, it is important that you try to waste as much of your enemy’s time in order to lower their chances of getting max stars.

A great way to do that is by placing one building (usually a builder’s hut) at each of the four corners. Your enemy will usually be completely preoccupied with trying to destroy your main base that they may not notice or attempt to send units after each of these four buildings. If your main base is completely destroyed, all the remaining enemy units will then turn their sights on any remaining buildings left on the map… This includes the four buildings you have at each corner.

They will then have to run from one corner of the map to the next trying to tear down each of the remaining structures. This can be time-consuming, and it will sometimes result in the enemy player running out of time to completely destroy your base, preventing them from getting three stars.

Tip #7 Understand The Meta Attack Strategies For Town Hall Level 15

Level 15 is the highest level (currently) for the Town Hall. Once a player reaches this rank, they will have unlocked every building, unit, and spell in the game. This allows them maximum freedom in how they want to organize their armies and what units they want to recruit. If you find yourself getting attacked often by TH level 10 players, then you may want to understand some of the meta strategies and how to counter them properly.

The Super Miner Army

When it comes to defending against armies consisting mostly of Super Miners, you are going to want to do two things. First, make sure your buildings are as spread out as possible. This is because Super Miners will explode upon dying, and will do damage to nearby buildings. So it’s a good idea to keep buildings spread out to minimize damage.

Second, always make sure to have plenty of buildings in front of your defensive towers. Super Miners do not have a priority target, so they will always attack whatever is in front of them. Putting more buildings between them and your defensive towers gives your defenses more time to wear their health down.

This army composition commonly consists of Balloons to support the Super Miners. A good way to fight back against them is to set up air mines across the outside of your defenses. You should also make sure to have at least one X-box covering each corner of your base. This is a great tower for fighting back against Balloons.

The Dragons & Balloons Combo

This army comp consists almost entirely of Dragons and Balloons, almost always with some rage spells to reinforce them. To deal with the Dragons, it’s a good idea to heavily upgrade your air defenses. Hidden Teslas are a great defense for dealing with both the Dragons and Balloons. You can place them just outside your walls. It’s better to do this than inside your base as that will arouse suspicion, and the other player might respond by spawning their troops elsewhere.

A common spell that is used in this attack composition are Lightning Spells, which are used to destroy your towers. I recommend that you space out your towers a bit in order to minimize the damage done to them. Usually, when people drop them, they place them in the corners of a tower to destroy any towers that are right next to it. There really isn’t anything that you can do to counter the Rage Spells. All you can do is focus on destroying the enemy’s main forces.

Mass Lavaloonions

Lavaloonions’ support by Balloons and Archers is another strategy that I see a lot of high-level players use. Enemy players will deploy Balloons first, followed by a massive wave of Lavaloonions after that. The Balloons will prioritize defenses, so you will need to keep them away from em. Using Air Sweepers are a pretty good way to do this, and I recommend that you keep them in front of your towers.

First, ensure that your Clan Castle is stocked up with troops that are good with attacking Lavaloonions. Wizards are pretty good against them, so those are the units that I recommend you stock up on. Another tip is that Lavaloonions are weaker to the Archer Queen compared to other defenses. Because of this, you are going to want to make sure that the Archer Queen is surrounded by walls and towers to help defend her while she attacks the enemy’s troops from a safe distance.

All Home Village Buildings in Clash of Clans

With that guide done and out of the way, let’s get into our complete list of each Home Village building in the game and what they do.

Army Buildings

First up, we’ve got army buildings. These are buildings that feed into the PvP and PvE aspects of Clash of Clans, giving you access to units and spells that you can use in battle. They include buildings for training and storing troops, but also buildings that will upgrade your troops and allow your units to get various buffs.

Army Camp

The Army Camp allows you to store units that you have trained. It can store all types of units (except for heroes) but has limited space. Upgrading the building will increase the number of troops you can store.

If you want to get some resources early on, either through attacking other players or the PvE campaign, then this is a good building to upgrade.

Barracks

A Barracks is where you will be training most of your troops. From this building, you can choose which units you want to create and then use elixir to train them. After they’re finished training, they will be sent to the Army Camp to be stored for later usage.

Upgrading this building will allow you to train more different types of troops.

Laboratory

Next, we have the Laboratory. From this building, you will be able to spend resources to upgrade your troops. These upgrades are pretty basic and will usually just increase the stats of your unit, instead of providing any unique bonuses or benefits.

You shouldn’t worry too much about upgrading this building during the early game. Eventually, however, you’ll need to invest in the Laboratory to gain access to better upgrades for your troops if you want to defeat stronger enemies and players.

Spell Factory

The Spell Factory is where you can choose from and create various different potions. These potions can be used on the battlefield to aid your troops in combat and help you achieve victory. For example, there is a healing spell to recover your units, a lightning spell that does damage to the area it’s dropped in, and much more.

Upgrading this building unlocks new potions for you to craft.

Barbarian King Altar

Next up is the Barbarian King. This “building” is a platform you can place down onto your village that will spawn a Barbarian King. He is a melee unit that will patrol your base, attacking any enemy forces that want to raid your village. You can also take him with you into PvP/PvE and deploy him like you would any other unit.

While the Altar itself cannot be upgraded, you can upgrade the Barbarian King to boost his stats and effectiveness in combat.

Dark Barracks

Dark Barracks work similarly to regular Barracks. It acts as a place for you to train units that you can use in fights. However, instead of training normal units (barbarians, archers, giants, etc), it will train special types of late-game units. These units are trained using dark elixir instead of regular elixir.

Upgrading this building will allow you to train more different types of dark elixir troops.

Dark Spell Factory

For the next building, we have the Dark Spell Factory. This works similarly to the Spell Factory mentioned earlier, except it uses dark elixir to make the potions. The potions created from the Dark Spell Factory are different from the normal spells and come with more unique effects.

Upgrading this building unlocks new potions for you to craft.

Archer Queen Altar

Similar to the Barbarian King, the Archer Queen is a hero unit that can be spawned by placing down the “building” of the same name at your camp. She is a ranged unit that will patrol your camp, killing any enemy units when you are being raided. She can also be deployed in a fight when you are raiding another village.

While the Altar itself cannot be upgraded, you can upgrade the Archer Queen to boost her stats and effectiveness in combat.

Grand Warden Altar

And up next, we have the Grand Warden. This is yet another hero character, similar to the Barbarian King and Archer Queen. He is a wizard that specializes in healing spells. He can be deployed in battle to heal your troops, and when your base is being attacked, he will help defend it by casting spells at enemies.

While the Altar itself cannot be upgraded, you can upgrade the Grand Warden to boost his stats and effectiveness in combat.

Workshop

The Workshop is a special building that allows you to build/train a special unit type called Siege Machines. These things can transport any units that you have in your Clan Castle, releasing your troops upon being deployed. This is useful for letting you safely transport units a certain distance without risking them getting damaged.

Upgrading this building will allow you to train more different types of Siege Machines.

Royal Champion Altar

The Royal Champion is another hero unit. As with all heroes, she can be used both for defending your base and for attacking enemy camps. Her specialty is in destroying enemy defenses, making her a great unit to deploy for tanking enemy damage.

While the Altar itself cannot be upgraded, you can upgrade the Royal Champion to boost her stats and effectiveness in combat.

Pet House

The Pet House is a building similar to the Laboratory. Upon being built, it will unlock unique animal-themed units that you can assign to your hero units to aid them in battle. You can upgrade the stats of your pets from this building as well to make them more effective in a fight.

Upgrading this building will allow you to train more different types of pets.

Resource Buildings

For the next types of buildings we’ll cover in this Clash of Clans guide, we have Resource Buildings. These structures are all based around gathering and storing resources for you to use when building your base and forming your armies.

Builder’s Hut

The Builder’s Hut is one of the most important buildings in the game. Builders are needed in order to create or upgrade a structure. The more builders you have, the more things you can build/upgrade at once. Each hut can house one builder, and you can have a maximum of five builders at once.

Builder’s Huts can only be created using gems. I recommend you avoid spending any of your gems on speeding up production until you’ve unlocked all five Builder’s Huts.

Eventually, you can upgrade the Builder’s Hut to have a short-range turret and participate in battles. However, it also means that attackers will treat the Builder’s Hut as a defensive building and attack it like one. But as long as the Builder’s Hut stands, the builder will actually run around during the battle and repair any damaged buildings.

Elixir Collector

Elixir Collectors are the primary way you’ll be getting elixir in Clash of Clans. Elixir is a currency that is used to upgrade certain buildings in the game, and it’s also used for brewing potions and training troops. Whether you plan on doing PvE or PvP in this game, you’re going to need a lot of it.

Upgrading this building will increase its max capacity and elixir production rate.

Elixir Storage

The Elixir Storage is where you will store most of your elixir. Be sure to build plenty of these and ensure they’re well-upgraded. Your Elixir Collectors can only hold so much elixir before it needs to be collected. If they run out of space, they will stop producing resources.

Upgrading this building will increase its elixir storage capacity.

Gold Mine

The Gold Mine is where you will be gathering most of your gold. Gold is used to upgrade certain buildings (usually defenses). You are going to want lots of these so that you will be able to keep your defenses nice and strong.

Upgrading this building will increase its max capacity and gold production rate.

Gold Storage

Gold Storage is a must-have if you are producing/gathering lots of gold. Some of the later upgrades and buildings will require large amounts of resources to be made, and to get enough resources, you will need to have well-upgraded storage spaces.

Upgrading this building will increase its gold storage capacity.

Dark Elixir Drill

Dark Elixir Drills are how you will farm Dark Elixir. Dark Elixir is the fourth main currency in Clash of Clans. It’s used for building/upgrading hero units, as well as training dark troops, a special unit type. Additionally, some buildings use it as ammo! This is a mid to late-game currency, so if you are just starting out, don’t worry about it too much.

Upgrading this building will increase its max capacity and dark elixir production rate.

Dark Elixir Storage

This is where you will store your Dark Elixir. As you can guess, this is a mid-to-late-game building, meaning you can’t place it down if you are just starting out in the game.

Upgrading this building will increase its dark elixir storage capacity.

Defensive Buildings

Now it’s time for us to move on to the Defensive Buildings in Clash of Clans. These are one of two different types of structures that are needed to keep your base safe from attackers. They include towers that will kill enemies and walls that will keep enemies out.

Wall

Walls are the most basic defensive structure. They prevent land units from getting to any buildings you have behind them. They can be destroyed, however, so be sure to reinforce these walls with other defensive structures (cannons, archer towers, etc) to give your base a solid defense.

You will be able to place quite a bit of them around your camp, so don’t be afraid to use them all. I recommend having one wall wrapped around your town hall, and another one around the edge of your base.

Cannon

The Cannon is one of the first buildings you’ll unlock in Clash of Clans. They are a very basic defensive structure that will shoot out cannonballs at enemy units. Cannons do not do AoE damage, instead dealing a moderate amount of damage to a single unit. They are cheap and reliable, but can only target ground troops.

Archer Tower

Archer Towers are similar to cannons, except they have the ability to target air units as well as ground units. Later upgrades will allow these towers to have multiple archers on them, which allows them to deal even more damage to enemy units.

Mortar

The Mortar is an AoE tower that will deal splash damage to any ground units that get within its range. It cannot shoot targets that are right next to it, meaning it’s good for moderate ranges only. Because of this, I generally recommend that you keep at least one tower or building in front of it.

Air Defense

Air Defense is a special type of building that only targets air units. This building is a must-have, as it’s very efficient at dispatching flying foes. I recommend you keep it near a building that can target ground units, due to the fact that ground units cannot be killed by Air Defense. These are one of the best anti-air structures in the game due to how early you unlock them and how much damage they do.

Wizard Tower

The Wizard Tower is fairly similar to the Archer Tower, except this building is operated by a battle mage instead of an archer. Both are ranged defenses that can target ground and air units. What sets the Wizard Tower apart, however, is the fact that it does splash damage to enemies grouped together, instead of just doing lots of damage to a single target.

Air Sweeper

Up next we have the Air Sweeper. This tower can only affect air units, not ground units. Interestingly, it does not do any damage. Instead, it pushes troops back away from it. It also has a very limited range, and can only attack directly in front of it. You can configure the direction it fires by taping on the tower.

Hidden Tesla

Hidden Teslas are towers that deal electric damage to enemy units. They are special in the sense that they are hidden from view until an enemy unit approaches them. Once one gets close enough, they will spring out from the ground and attack, dealing damage to enemy units.

I recommend playing it in an area where there is a gap in your defenses, such as an open spot without any walls. It may fool enemies into thinking it’s a safe place to deploy their troops.

Bomb Tower

The Bomb Tower is a defensive structure that will launch out bombs, which will explode upon touching the ground and deal splash damage to enemy troops. This is a great tower for taking out groups of ground enemies easily.

X-Bow

The X-Bow is my personal favorite defensive structure. It is a massive crossbow that can be toggled to either deal damage to just air units or both air units and ground units (at the price of some range). It can be an excellent way to destroy air units or just be a good all-rounder. I recommend putting this thing close to the center of your base. If it is on the outer edges, it will be destroyed more quickly.

Inferno Tower

Inferno Towers are up next. These are towers that deal flame damage to enemy units. When you tap on the tower after it’s been built, you can toggle it between attacking multiple targets or just focusing on one. This option between what you want to toggle gives it some versatility, which is helpful.

Eagle Artillery

Eagle Artillery is similar to the mortar mentioned earlier, except it has a much greater range. It will deal splash damage to enemy units practically anywhere on the map. Its range is very good, but it cannot attack units that are right next to it. So like with the mortar tower, make sure to place it behind at least one other building.

Scattershot

For the next building on this guide, let’s discuss the Scattershot. It’s a building with a limited range of attacks, similar to that of the Air Swooper. It will deal splash damage to groups of enemies unfortunate enough to walk in front of it.

Spell Tower

The Spell Tower is a unique building that acts more as a support for your other defensive structures. When a building located within the range of this tower is damaged, it will activate the spell loaded within.

There are several different spells available for it. One will buff the damage done by your defenses. Another will deal damage to enemy units within its range. The last one will turn all nearby buildings invisible, preventing them from being attacked.

Monolith

Up next we have the Monolith. It’s another magic-damage dealing tower that will only attack a single enemy at once, making it not that great against groups of enemies. However, it’s a fantastic defensive building for doing high damage against enemy hero units and other tankier units.

Traps

Last but not least on this list, we have Traps. Traps are similar to Defensive Buildings in the sense that they act as a way for you to defend your base from enemy assaults. These “buildings” are activated when an enemy unit approaches them. Upon being activated, they will be destroyed.

Bomb

Bombs are the most basic type of trap. They trigger when an enemy unit comes within a short distance of them. Upon being triggered, they will detonate to deal splash damage in a short radius and will knock back enemy units slightly. It’s a good little trap to place in any gaps in your defenses, such as in places where you’ve run out of walls to put down.

Spring Trap

Spring Traps will throw enemy units to a certain spot once they walk on top of it. This is great for directing enemy units into a certain location, such as knocking enemies into the radius of one of your towers. I recommend putting them directly in front of your defensive buildings so that enemy units will take damage for longer periods of time.

Air Bomb

Next up is the Air Bomb (not to be confused with “Air Bombs”). It can only attack aerial units, and works similarly to the regular bomb. Interestingly, this is a heat-seeking bomb, meaning it will go toward the enemy that came into its radius instead of just exploding immediately.

Giant Bomb

The Giant Bomb is just a bigger, more explosive version of the normal Bomb. It deals lots of splash damage to ground units and is really satisfying to see go off. I always keep a few of these around my town hall to kill off any units that get too close.

Seeking Air Mine

This is a higher-damage version of the Air Bomb. It will deal more damage to flying units, making it an invaluable contraption to use when defending your base. I recommend deploying it in areas that are light on air defense.

Skeleton Trap

The next trap in this guide is the Skeleton Trap. This is a coffin that will rise out of the ground and spawn several skeleton units. They will then seek out and attack the unit that triggered it. It can be set to focus on either ground units or aerial units, giving it a bit of versatility. This is one of my favorite traps to use, as I love how unique it is.

Tornado Trap

Last but not least, we have the Tornado Trap. When an enemy or group of enemies gets close to it, the Tornado Trap will vacuum them up and then shoot them in another direction, pushing them back and dealing some damage. This is another great way to control where enemy troops are on the battlefield and to ensure they will spend more time taking damage from your towers.

Join the High Ground!

What are your thoughts on our guide to all the Home Village buildings in Clash of Clans? Did you find it helpful? Be sure to drop a comment if you did down below! And make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter! We offer regular content on Clash of Clans and other great video games.

Happy gaming!