I've been playing for a month without spending any real money. It was tough to figure out the best base defense, but now I rarely get raided successfully...and I've finally started winning offensive raids. Things won't really start coming together until around level 18 (I'm at 24 now), but remember that there's always bigger fish in the pond who can smack you down. But that goes the other way also. I know this may be hard, but show me a screen grab of your defenses.
One tip I can give you is to keep the higher range guns like sniper nests behind the base. Machine guns for flankers. I have a row of three cannons right in the front middle.
It's frustrating, but can also be very rewarding. I'm in awe of the awesome game SuperCell created.
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