Farming Gold Strategy

In terms of raiding other players, I've found it to be laborious and unnecessary to carry out full raids on other players.  Frequently I lose all 52 of my Griffins in these attacks and some of my heroes get killed as well just for 50-150k gold.  Totally not worth it when there is a viable alternative.

My latest answer is to use my Druid, Serpent Queen, and Angel on raids.  All of them attack from a distance which is the key here.  I cycle through lots of player's setups looking for instances where buildings are positioned in a way that I can attack them without being attacked by anything but towers and where gold/mana is nearby too.  It's about 1 in 20 setups at this point.

I send in the Serpent Queen first so she can start getting charged because her toxic mist is critical to the process.  Once it is activated you start reaping solid amounts of gold/mana from the nearby buildings even while you attack a different spot.  Meanwhile the Angel and Druid keep the Serpent Queen healthy.  Just make sure you quit the battle before one of your heroes gets close enough to initiate with a hero or troops since you want to repeat this again and again and won't want to wait around to heal.

If there is only one isolated gold/mana, I just send the Angel.  She's invulnerable to the cannon tower which is good and can attack from the greatest distance.

All of this costs a few honor badges, but can help you reap a large amount of gold in a relatively short time.

I've found I can get about 100k in gold in about 10 minutes on average doing this.

Town Hall, The Great Limiter

Over the weekend, I was reminded that the Town Hall is the great limiter in this game in terms of levelling up your base.  I had a surplus of mana to raise my gold vault to level 14.  However, when I went to level it up, I was reminded I couldn't due to the level of my Town Hall at level 11.

The 540,000 gold I need to raise the Town Hall level may not seem much to many, but it's hard to save that much without getting farmed to high heaven.  So, I spent the mana on my guild so no one else could have it :-)

There is no solution in sight right now.  I am only 24 shards away from getting a Druid.  Once that happens, I will level him up and sacrifice a lot of lower level heroes currently garrisoned in order to lower my might.

That should lower my might meaningfully so that I can attack weaker bases and farm them for gold and upgrade my Town Hall, Griffins, Arrow Towers and Gold Vault.

After that I'm not sure how much fun will be left in the game for me.  I'm not really interested in guild culture or ever spending a dime on the game.

Gold Vault Strategies

I recommend making and upgrading one large gold vault rather than 3 small ones.  It's easier to protect one vault compared to 3.  Mine is nestled amongst 3 arrow towers.

Once it is big enough, you can develop the other vaults and use them as part of your wall to protect the one that matters.

In terms of upgrading vaults and mills and mines, try to balance between the mana and the gold because each depends on the other for upgrades.  Failing to upgrade on either side can leave you lopsided.  Keep your balance!

Should I Defend at All?

There is a radical notion that I personally do not apply that says you should set up your layout such that you can get 100%ed in battle so that you can use the 10 hours of active shield to save up a lot of gold and mana for upgrades.

This can work if you upgrade your mana mills and gold mines such that the production rate gives you what you need for upgrades.

As a variation on this, I've been known to move all my mana to unprotected areas while keeping my gold protected.  This allows others to farm the mana I don't care about while protecting the gold that I do.  If you can have all the mana for free, many people will just take it and end the battle to avoid the inevitable losses of trying to get the gold.  You can easily do the reverse too in order to save mana.