Why do players lose villages?
Many players fail to defend their villages because they react too late or don’t recognize the signs of a conquest attempt. Knowing how conquering works — and how to respond effectively — can make the difference between losing your village and turning the tables on your attacker.
A well-prepared defense not only prevents conquest but can cripple the attacker’s army.
Precautions
Spies (Scouts)
Scouts are cheap, fast, and often underestimated, but they’re one of your best early warning systems.
A failed scout attempt discourages attackers — they risk losing their army if they attack blind.
Even if the attacker succeeds, you’ll be notified that you’ve been scouted, giving you time to prepare.
The Wall
Your wall increases the defensive strength of troops stationed in your village — up to +81% depending on the tribe and level.
Even a smaller defending army can deliver devastating results with a strong wall in place.
Alliance Support
A strong alliance can deter attacks by reputation alone, and more importantly, provide reinforcements when you’re under siege.
Good diplomacy and coordination are crucial — inform your alliance early when under attack.
> Alliance
Celebrations
A Town Hall level 10 allows large celebrations, which:
Slightly reduce the effectiveness of enemy administrators during conquest attempts.
Generate Culture Points to help you expand further.
Administration Buildings
Every village should have one of the following:
Residence
Palace
Command Center (Huns only)
An attacker must destroy this building before being able to conquer your village.
Analysing Incoming Attacks
Types of attacks:
Raid attacks: Fast surprise attacks meant to plunder, not conquer.
Fake attacks: Used alongside real attacks to confuse defenders.
Conquering attacks: Usually arrive in multiple waves — cleaner, catapults, and administrators.
Each conquering attempt requires rams and catapults to destroy your wall and administration building — both are slow units.
If you see a slow, multi-wave attack, you’re likely facing a conquest attempt.
Use your Rally Point to check the attack’s origin and speed — this helps you determine what kind of units are coming.
Tip: Attacks landing on your high-population or military training villages are more likely to be conquest attempts.
Defence Strategies
1. The Wall Defence
Fill your village with as many defensive troops as possible — ideally a mix of infantry and cavalry.
Combine armies from several of your villages and allies.
Ensure there’s enough crop to feed the troops during defence.
2. Administrative Building Upgrade Trick
If your administration building is being targeted, you can queue a building upgrade timed to finish after the clearing wave but before administrators arrive.
This causes the new level to complete just in time, preventing the conquest.
Example:
Clearing wave & catapults land at 10:00:01.
Administrators arrive at 10:00:02.
Queue the upgrade to complete at 10:00:02 — it will rebuild a level 1 Residence/Palace just in time.
3. Wave Splitter (Sniping)
You can time defensive troops to arrive between attack waves.
Ignore the first (cleaning) wave.
Send reinforcements to land between the cleaning and catapult waves.
Risky but effective — you may lose some buildings or resources, but save your village.
Skilled attackers may send extra clearing waves or time attacks within the same second, making this harder to execute.
4. Celebration Defence
Start a large celebration in your Town Hall before the conquest attempt lands.
Reduces the effectiveness of enemy administrators by up to 5%.
The attacker will need to send additional administrators to compensate.
However, experienced attackers usually send enough administrators to counter this — so use it as supporting strategy, not your main defence.
5. Using Tablets of Law
Each Tablet of Law used by your Hero increases loyalty in their home village by 1%, up to a maximum of 125%.
This forces the attacker to send more administrators.
Still, a careful attacker will often anticipate this, so combine it with other defenses.
Counterattack Strategies
Stealing Crop
If an attack is several hours away, send a raid on the attacker’s village to destroy or steal their crop.
If you or your allies succeed, their army might starve before reaching you.
Conquering the Attacker’s Village
Rarely possible due to timing — but if you can capture the attacker’s village before their army arrives, their attack vanishes with it.
This is easier with close allies who can act faster.
Re-conquering & Destroying the Offence
Let the attacker successfully conquer your village, then immediately counterattack:
Your army arrives moments later and destroys their remaining troops.
Use your own Administrator to reclaim the village.
Quickly rebuild the administration building to raise loyalty.
Watch out: attackers sometimes send defensive troops in the final wave to secure their new village.
Enemy Self-Annihilation
A highly advanced and risky tactic:
Destroy your own administration building and lower your loyalty below 20%.
Let the attacker conquer the village.
Their first Administrator succeeds — the rest crash into their own army, destroying it.
Retake your village afterwards.
You’ll lose one random building in addition to your administration building, but this can completely wipe out the attacker’s army.
Recognizing Fake Attacks
Signs that an attack might be fake:
Targeting low-value villages while real waves focus elsewhere.
Long gaps between incoming attacks.
Identical unit speeds across multiple waves (typical of fake spam).
Inclusion of allied attacks that arrive off-timing — often fakes.
Stay alert and communicate with your alliance before reacting to fake waves.
Uncontrollable Factors
Lag & Event Jams
When servers are under heavy load, lag can delay events (like building upgrades or troop arrivals).
This affects both attacker and defender — timing becomes unpredictable.
Server Failures
Although rare, server crashes can interfere with planned actions, like sending catapults or reinforcing in time.
Both attackers and defenders can suffer from this unpredictability.