War Base Principles (TH4 Edition)
Goal: Minimize enemy stars at all costs
Town Hall = 1 star
50% damage to village = 1 star
100% damage to village = 1 star
Centralize and create a buffer zone around your mortar. The mortar is your best defense against weak ground forces. It does splash damage, which is devastating against tightly packed hordes. You want to defend it against giants so it can do work versus the other ground forces. It is also the only defense that has a minimum activation distance, meaning if enemies get close enough, it can’t fire at them. This is why a buffer zone around it is so important. If you let enemies run right up to it, they can take it out with little difficulty.
Spread your point defenses (archer towers and canons) evenly around your base. Keep each point defenses within range of one, preferably two, other point defenses so they can protect each other. If an attacker comes at you through the air, your one air defense isn’t going to save you, so use it as a distraction to keep giants off your mortar.
Take advantage of giants’ stupid AI to path them into your traps, especially spring traps. A single spring trap can toss 3 giants. Giants will always attack the nearest defensive structure, use that knowledge to your advantage.
Divide your base into compartments to slow your enemy’s advance; giving your defenses time to do their work.
Place a builder’s hut, barracks, or army camp in each of the four corners. It can make the difference between a 2 star and 3 star attack. The attacker only gets three minutes; make them run all over the map for that last star, or at least make them dedicate forces to take out those minor structures. The reason you do this with builder’s huts, barracks, or army camps is that those are low health structures. You want high health structures within range of your defenses so they can act as the building equivalent of meat shields.
Try to surround your walls with a buffer zone of structures so that attackers can’t drop wall breakers right up on your walls. If they have to drop the wall breakers farther away, you’ve got a chance at killing them.
Here’s a base idea. I looked at bunch of th4 base pictures and modified one of the ones I liked.
You can't see them, but are huts in the top and bottom corners.