Starting as a new Town Hall 12 in Clash of Clans, you will have a long road ahead regarding upgrades. It takes a few months to max out a TH12 base. To reduce the upgrade time and get the most out of your time at Town Hall 12, it is essential to follow the right upgrade order.
This article will discuss the correct upgrade order for upgrading a TH12 base.
Buildings Upgrade Order
Here are some of the most important upgrades at TH12, listed in order:
- Laboratory
- Elixir Storages
- Army Camps
- Blacksmith
- New Buildings (Inferno Tower, Hidden Tesla, Workshop, and Traps)
- Dark Elixir Storage
- Gold Storages
- Clan Castle
- Barracks
- Dark Barracks
- Workshop (Delay if you are in an active clan)
- Grand Warden
- Archer Queen
- Barbarian King
- Giga Tesla
- Eagle Artillery
- Inferno Towers
- X-Bows
- Air Defenses
- Archer Towers
- Wizard Towers
- Hidden Teslas
- Bomb Towers
- Cannon
- Mortars
- Gold Mines, Elixir Collectors, and Dark Elixir Drills
- Traps
- Walls
The logic behind these upgrades
By Town Hall 12, most players have six builders available to them. You should ideally have six or at least five by this point. Allocate one of your builders to the Laboratory as it always takes a higher priority at every Town Hall level. This is important because the Laboratory provides access to powerful troops for attacking other TH12 bases.
For the second builder and third builder, prioritize the Elixir Storages. In the early stages of Town Hall 12, we focus on offense upgrades, and upgrading your Elixir Storages facilitates storing more Elixirs. This, in turn, aids in starting multiple upgrades simultaneously, minimizing the need for extensive farming.
Once these two builders have completed upgrading the first pair of Elixir Storages, use them to upgrade the remaining two Elixir Storages.
Assign your fourth and fifth builders to upgrade two Army Camps. Higher-level Army Camps will increase your army’s capacity by an additional 20, enabling you to deploy more troops in battles. This, in turn, improves your resource farming and prepares you for clan wars in the later stages of your TH12 journey.
Once these two builders complete their tasks, assign them again to upgrade the remaining two Army Camps.
Now, if you have the sixth builder available, assign him to upgrade the Blacksmith to level 5. This upgrade unlocks the new Healer Puppet equipment for the Archer Queen, allowing her to spawn Healers when using her special ability.
Additionally, upgrading the Blacksmith enables you to upgrade your common equipment to level 12 and epic equipment to level 18. This upgrade is among the most important upgrades at TH12, so be sure not to overlook it.
After upgrading the Blacksmith, shift your focus to the new buildings obtained at Town Hall 12, namely the Workshop, Inferno Tower, Hidden Tesla, and a couple of traps. Allocate two or one builder to upgrade these buildings to the level of your existing buildings. Keep the Workshop at level 1.
The introduction of these new buildings greatly increases the DPS (Damage Per Second) value of your base compared to existing buildings. Therefore, it is essential to construct and upgrade them to improve your defense.
Start upgrades for the Gold Storages and Dark Elixir Storage whenever you have available builders. These upgrades will increase your resource storage capacity which will be needed later in your TH12 upgrade journey.
At this point, you will still have four important offense upgrades remaining. These upgrades include the Clan Castle, Barracks, Dark Barracks, and Workshop. Upgrading the Clan Castle at TH12 increases its troop housing capacity from 35 to 40.
The Barracks upgrade provides access to the Yeti, a key component of many popular attack strategies, while the Dark Barracks upgrade unlocks the Headhunter, an essential troop for clan wars and serious attacks.
I would recommend postponing the Workshop upgrade to later stages, especially if you are in an active clan. The Workshop allows you to train Siege Machines, but if you are in an active clan or participate in Raid Weekends, you can easily obtain these Siege Machines from the Clan Castle, saving you the lengthy 12-day upgrades for the Workshop.
Heroes
After completing the offense upgrades, it’s time to shift your attention to your heroes. At TH12, you have three heroes: Barbarian King, Archer Queen, and Grand Warden. I recommend upgrading two heroes simultaneously.
Begin by upgrading the Grand Warden and Archer Queen together, and then transition to the Barbarian King. Meanwhile, you will still have additional builders that you can allocate to the defense upgrades mentioned next.
Defenses
The defense upgrade order follows a straightforward approach. Prioritize defenses that offer higher damage per second and have a greater impact on your base’s defense. At the top of this list is the Giga Tesla, which targets multiple troops simultaneously with massive damage per second and releases a bomb upon its destruction. With four upgrades available for the Giga Tesla, dedicate one builder to its upgrades.
The second most powerful defense is the Eagle Artillery because of its long range and high damage per second. Make it a priority during your defense upgrades. Following closely is the Inferno Tower, with the X-Bow coming in fourth. Given the superiority of Inferno Towers over X-Bows, prioritize upgrading them first.
Shift your focus to Air Defense next, as air attacks are common at TH12, and these defenses play a major role during air attacks. Archer Towers should follow due to their decent range, capable of targeting both air and ground enemies, placing them higher than defenses like Wizard Towers and Hidden Teslas.
Next in line are Wizard Towers, valued for their ability to target both air and ground units, delivering splash damage to grouped troops. Hidden Teslas come after because, while they can target both air and ground units, they have a smaller range.
Cannons and Mortars are assigned to the end of the upgrade list. Cannons, effective but limited to ground targets with a short range, and Mortars, restricted in their damage per second and exclusive to ground attacks.
Conclude your defense upgrades with traps and resource buildings. Reserve one builder for upgrading walls when working on traps and resource collectors.
Troops Upgrade Order
Here are some of the most important troop upgrades at TH12, listed in order:
- Barbarian
- Dragon
- Balloon
- Electro Dragon
- Freeze Spell
- Ice Golem
- Yeti
- Wall Breaker
- Headhunter
- Hog Rider
- Miner
- Bat Spell
- Lava Hound
- Invisibility Spell
- Poison Spell
- Baby Dragon
- Lightning Spell
- Rage Spell
- Witch
- PEKKA
- Wizard
- Minion
- Golem
- Valkyrie
- Archer
- Goblin
- Giant
- Skeleton Spell
- Siege Machines
The logic behind these upgrades
When focusing on troop upgrades, prioritize your farming troops as the initial upgrade. Barbarians are particularly popular for farming when transformed into Super Barbarians. Super Barbarians efficiently gather resources within seconds, achieving 50% destruction on bases without sacrificing trophies. This makes them a perfect choice, even over Super Goblins, and is a recommendation I consistently make to clan members.
Following the farming troops, the second priority in troop upgrades is the Dragon. Dragons are integral to numerous attack strategies and prove beneficial for casual players less focused on serious attack strategies.
Balloons come next in the upgrade sequence, offering utility in defusing enemy Air Bombs and Seeking Air Mines. These traps play a major role in countering air-based attack strategies and Queen Charge strategies that use Healers.
Electro Dragons follow as they are widely used and popular at Town Hall 12. The Freeze Spell is positioned after Electro Dragon, recognized as a necessary spell applicable to various attack strategies. The next upgrades include Ice Golem, Yeti, and Wall Breaker which are the key components of many ground-based attack strategies.
The Headhunter holds importance at TH12, especially in serious attacks, where it proves useful for eliminating enemy heroes and castle troops. Hog Rider and Miner upgrades come next, as they work well together and are the main part of the Hybrid Attack strategy which is very popular right now.
Bat Spell and Lava Hound are other important components of air-based attack strategies that should be upgraded next. These upgrades improve the variety of troops available for tackling enemy bases.
I recommend leaving Siege Machines for the end of your troop upgrades since they consume considerable time, and you can easily request them through Clan Castle.
