Like a lot of similar scale casual games, Clash of Clans has a lot of nuance that is not really documented. As such, there are little tips and tricks you can learn over time, which can amount to a significant edge against the competition. Here are the top 10 tips I’ve learned over my time playing the game.

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1. Revenge is a dish best served often

Like it or not, it will often be the case that you get attacked while you are away and your shield is down. Sometimes you will get plowed, and that sucks – but getting attacked also presents a rare opportunity! When reviewing the list of punks who defaced your village while you were away, you have the choice to “Revenge” – to attack them back. This is a huge strategic advantage, because you can look at their village before attacking, and plan your attack – even train different units for a special assault. I recommend checking their storages (which you can do visually, or better yet by clicking on them and checking their levels), and also the location of their Town Hall. Since you may have a big list to go through, check farmers first (folks that attacked you with just a few units then gave up) since they are likely to have big resource stockpiles. If an opponent is shielded or online, just check back later.

2. The Wall Breaker Elixir Bank

Did you think your Barracks was just for training troops? Wrong. If you hadn’t noticed yet, you can queue a large number of troops to train, even when you aren’t online. When you queue troops in this way the elixir you need to train them is “spent”, but you can cancel training at no penalty for any queued troop. This means you can queue all of your barracks till they are full, and Elixir spent this way will be “banked” safely away from would-be attackers. When you return to your village, you can cancel the queued troops and recoup your “banked” Elixir. Looking down the roster of potential troops, the Wall Breaker has the highest cost per slot. This makes it an obvious choice. As you increase the level of your Barracks and Wall Breakers you can protect several hundred thousand Elixir this way!

3. 1250 trophies is what it’s all about

Perhaps it isn’t a big secret that you get 450 gems for reaching 3 stars on the “Sweet Victory” achievement. What could easily be more of a secret is that this is really easy to do. Starting as low as a level 6 Town Hall (maybe even lower), you can search for villages which have a town hall outside of their walls. Taking out this one building guarantees you a star and some trophies. When you are just starting you might think “why would anyone do that?” See Leaving you Town Hall out in the cold. Though you may not yet understand why, plenty of opponents do this – and you need only search diligently until you find such a target, and then take your cups and smile.

Editor’s Note: After the 2015 December update, it isn’t quite so easy to snipe Town Halls because you need to get at least 30% destruction in addition to the TH. Maybe this makes “Sweet Victory” a little tougher, but it is still something you should shoot for early.

Continue reading with Top 10 best kept secrets in Clash of Clans (part 2) …