Clash of Clans Vault Designing Guide

Clash of Clans Vault Designing Guide by OJM

How to design a vault. If you don’t want to know, this isn’t for you. If you do want to know, read the whole thing. How to attack a vault at the end. Omg, there’s picture(s)… Keep scrolling

Concerning Vaults

I consider any base, that has some or all of the containers (or just TH) in a single cloister, which is very heavily protected, a vault. Many people consider such bases inferior compared to their cloistered brethren. The idea behind it is to not try to limit the resources lost but to prevent it altogether. How successful the base is in action depends on many factors, which this guide will dig into bit deeper.

It is not recommended to use a resource vault too much over 2000 trophies as the attacks in higher trophies are typically much more powerful, GoWiPe or full dragon armies. While a well working vault can endure such an attack, limiting the damage might still be a better option. At the time when this guide was written, I did test my own build up to 2100+ where it worked just fine. Without knowing the possible changes to the game in the future, take the trophy range as a mere estimate.

The other kind of vault design, what I myself call a 1-star base, is quite common in certain circles. It’s use and full potential is limited to top 200 players, as there you want to be sure, you will only lose few trophies to any attack, instead of a total wipeout. I think the guide how to build such a base is simply: check the top 20 players and copy one.

Before changing your base, you have to make it clear to yourself the possible risks a vault carries.
– It will be much more difficult to breach all the way and get all, but once an overwhelming force breaches in, it is more likely to lose maximum amount of resources.
– Poorly upgraded walls and defences will attract even more unwanted attention.
– Your clanmates might laugh at your fort if they haven’t ever tried such.
– A vault is a valid design from TH8 and up as you need a lot of walls and defences to make it work. TH7 and under is just not going to cut it, sorry.
– Works best from 500 – 1800 trophies. Well made ones 0-2100…
– Your defences and walls HAVE to be upgraded well enough to withstand the attacks. Walls lvl6+ is bare minimum, splashers one or two from max. Making a vault with low level defences will only get you ransacked.

Designing a vault

Core
The most important part of any such design is the core. This is where all your precious stuff is located so it is the most important area of your fort. But not necessarily the one that needs most planning. We’ll get to that later. First, you have to determine what do you really want to protect. There is only limited room in the core, so this is an important decision. Which of your resources do you want to be most protective about? I myself prioritize Gold and second comes DE, Elixir I hold in least value but not giving it for free on regular basis either. This decision will determine the size of the core and a lot of the layout for the rest of the base.

From my own experience, you can have 4 containers out of reach from almost all attacks. More than that and you better have your walls and defences really high up. If you do have all stuff upgraded really well, having all containers in the core can work just fine, too. Next step, after you have decided how many containers you will be protecting, is do you want to keep the core as small as possible and spread defences in outer layers, or have some of your defences in the core as well, making it bit bigger. Both have their merits and flaws. One other building, besides your containers, that will always be in the core is your Clan Castle. CC full of ranged units will be one of the key factors. Take note on these key factors:

Small core with only CC+few containers
– Giants will not target the area.
– Easy to surround with defences
– More of your defences will be vulnerable to archers
– Can be segmented for bit of extra protection

Bigger core with some defences along
– Few more defences will be protected from attacks
– Will attract giants to the core
– Wizards, mortars, air defences and xbows go along here. How many and which ones is up to you. Two wizards and two AD makes a good core for shorter range
– Can be segmented for bit of extra protection

If you go for the really big core, place all splashers and at least half of your air defences along with your CC and containers. Segmenting the big core might be beneficial but will use a lot of walls that could be used elsewhere.

Always put the best walls to this ring to keep those pesky goblins away. Archers can and will shoot over the walls so we have to keep them far enough.

Couple sample cores, for TH8, replace xbows with AD or archers.

Core defence ring
This is the buffer that keeps most units out of reach from your goodies. There are couple of ways to do this and it is very important to keep it well balanced. The outer layer of this part should have your second best walls as this is where WBs will be landing and in most cases, stopped.

Easiest way to do this is a moat. You put a second layer of wall one or two squares away from the core. This will keep the archers out of range from your core. Against WBs this design will not be the most efficient, but in many cases, it is enough. The good side of this design is that you will keep the range maximised between the outmost layer and core, messing with the unit AI. All units pick the closest appropriate target so if there is plenty of distance, they will go sideways instead of straight to the core. Making bit wider gap allows you to hide some teslas in there.

Bit more complex from the moat is a defensive circle. Here you leave enough room between the next layer of wall to fit a full round of defences. It’s a good idea to use funneling and spring traps on this ring on such a design to handle giants. Good side of this is that you can fit almost all your splashers and ADs in this ring, overlapping their ranges heavily. You can also have some segmenting on the ring, but funneling+traps is more efficient from my experience.

Most complex, wall consuming but WB safest is a cloistered shell. On all sides of the core, you create cloisters, housing 1-2 of your defences in each. Balance the splashers and ADs all around. Keep the cloisters small enough so WBs from any side need to open two or three before heading to the core walls. Take extra care on which buildings you put side by side in regards of lightning attacks.

The outer layer

This is the playground where you want to keep the attackers. Surrounded with your least upgraded walls and almost all of your point defences and traps, this is where you want the attacker to go, stay and die. Again the are couple of options how to do this. Just make sure the outer wall is outside the reach of your CC. You don’t want to show your cards before someone really tries to get in.

Cloistered outer layer is one of the options. I think Ping’s Tesla Theme Park has a great example on how to create the cloistered, funneled outer layer. Use all your remaining walls and point defences here. You can even put your TH inside the outmost wall for bit of hybridy look. TH’s high hitpoints makes it a good tank building. Again balance the towers all around and protect the remaining resource buildings as much as you can. Spread the resource buildings all around so that a goblin rush will spread out evenly and get butchered without any chance to heading to the core. Traps to funnels, air traps all around.

Other option, which I find better, is a running circle. This is the playground for goblins and giants where they can roam quite freely and die on their own time without doing any real damage to your previous resources. Just put all the remaining walls around your defence ring 1-9 squares away from it. You can save some walls to funnel the ring and trap it, but making more cloisters here isn’t good. I like to keep it in one clear ring with traps in narrow spots. Place the rest of your defences and as many resource buildings evenly spread around behind the wall. Even the smallest change in the order of the buildings can make a difference, so count the squares and keep the distances so that the next building to attack is somewhere on this ring, not deeper in. Well, try at least. Adjust the buildings according to how the attacks come. When all the traps are triggered, the circle loses some of it’s defensive power, but still remains a bane to many attackers. It is vital to space the buildings to keep units attracted on the ring and not aim inwards.

Behind the last wall rests your non essential buildings. Push the deployment with them as much as you feel like, preferrably at least to prevent WBs deploying straight on your wall.

I think that covers pretty much all of it… Try it out, or not. No such thing as perfect base.

How to attack a vault

Find out yourself! I ain’t teaching you how to get my gold, fool.

More discussions about this topic
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea…ments-Vs-Vault

And finally, 4 vaults that are tested some hundreds attacks and breached less than handfull of times: