Tagging 1,000+ Clash of Clans base layouts: the tiny taxonomy that made search work

Base Layouts — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 02:48:11 +0000

When I started building a free iOS library of Clash of Clans base layouts, I assumed search would be the hard part. It turned out the hard part was deciding what a "base" even is in data terms.

The three fields that mattered

Town Hall level – the single filter every player uses first. Stored as an integer, never as a string like "TH16", so ranges (14–16) are trivial.
Purpose – war, farm, trophy, or hybrid. Players think in goals, not in building positions.
Source link – the in-game copy link. Everything else is metadata; this is the payload.

What I dropped

I tried tagging "anti-2-star", "anti-3-star", "ring base", "island base"… and nobody used those filters. They were opinions, not facts, and two people tagged the same base differently. I kept them as free-text notes instead.

What I learned

Model the decision the user makes, not the object. Players decide "I need a TH16 farm base", so that's the index.
Keep opinionated labels out of filters. They erode trust when they're wrong.
Validate the payload. A dead copy link is worse than no entry, so links get re-checked before they ship.

Disclosure: this is my own app, Base Layouts: War & Farm Maps (free, iOS). If you play Clash, you can try it here: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6804564319?pt=2720803&ct=devto2&mt=8

Happy to answer questions about the data model in the comments.

What I learned building a free iOS base-layout library for Clash of Clans

Base Layouts — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:49:17 +0000

I play a lot of Clash of Clans, and every Clan War League season I watched the same thing happen in my clan: people spent 20 minutes scrolling random image dumps, found a base, then rebuilt it by hand building by building. So I built a small iOS app to fix that for myself, and later shipped it for free. A few things I learned along the way:

1. The "copy link" is the whole product. Supercell lets players share a base through an in-game link. Screenshots are nice, but a working copy link is what people actually want. Every layout in the app has one, and I check them regularly because a link that opens to the wrong Town Hall level is worse than no link at all.

2. Organise by intent, not by date. Players don't search for "newest base". They search for "TH16 war base" or "TH14 farm base". I sorted everything by Town Hall level first, then by purpose (war, CWL, farming, trophy), and that one decision made the app feel useful.

3. Game updates break content. Each balance patch shifts the meta. A base that held two stars last month can get flattened after a troop buff. I treat the library like a product backlog: older layouts get re-reviewed after big updates instead of piling up forever.

4. Small, honest App Store copy beats buzzwords. My first description was full of marketing words. The version that converted better simply says what it does: browse layouts by Town Hall, tap, copy into the game.

5. Talk to players where they already are. Most of my early feedback came from clanmates and forum threads, not from ads. People tell you very quickly which bases are outdated.

If you play Clash and want to try it, the app is Base Layouts: War & Farm Maps (free, iOS). Full disclosure: I'm the developer.
https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6804564319?pt=2720803&ct=devto&mt=8

Happy to answer questions about the build or about keeping game-content apps up to date.

DEV Community: Base Layouts

Tagging 1,000+ Clash of Clans base layouts: the tiny taxonomy that made search work

The three fields that mattered

What I dropped

What I learned

What I learned building a free iOS base-layout library for Clash of Clans