Clash of Clans: Barbarian King Altar

This colossal menace soaks up huge amounts of damage and bashes everything in his path. He guards his territory fiercely when defending, and can launch into devastating rage when attacking once his Iron Fist ability is unlocked

The Barbarian King Altar is basically a Barracks/Army Camp/Laboratory for the Barbarian King. When he isn't engaged in battle, the Barbarian King can be seen pacing around the Altar, or sleeping on top of it to regenerate health.

You need a free Builder and at least 10,000 Dark Elixir to build the Altar. Once the Altar has been placed, the Barbarian King is summoned immediately. The placement of the Altar is instantaneous and no additional resources are required to summon the Barbarian King.

If you wish to see the Barbarian King's targeting range, tap either on him or on his Altar

Clash of Clans: Dark Spell Factory

The Dark Spell Factory allows the player to create Dark Spells using Dark Elixir. There are currently three Dark Spells: the Poison Spell, Earthquake Spell, and Haste Spell. It was released on the update that came at July 1, 2015.

All existing dark spells take up one housing space in the spell storage, whereas elixir spells take two spaces. The total spell storage capacity is shared between the Spell Factory and the Dark Spell Factory. The Dark Spell Factory adds one spell storage capacity to the total spell storage capacity.

Clash of Clans: Spell Factory

The Spell Factory allows the player to create spells using Elixir. There are currently 5 permanently in-the-game spells: the Lightning Spell, Healing Spell, Rage Spell, Jump Spell and the Freeze Spell. There was one limited edition holiday-themed spell called the Santa's Surprise that was released around Christmas 2012.

The Spell Factory takes up a 3x3 space. The spells themselves can be used in battle by selecting a previously created spell and clicking on the enemy's village. The spell can be placed anywhere, bypassing walls or buildings, and it cannot be destroyed by any defenses. Although multiple instances of a single spell may be created (up to the maximum 5 a maxed Spell Factory can hold), each spell instance can only be used once. Once you have used a spell, you must create it again in order to use it in your next battle.

You will not lose your spells if your Spell Factory is destroyed during the defense of your village, nor will its destruction disrupt or pause spell creation in any way. If you upgrade the Spell Factory while it is creating a spell, the spell continues building during the upgrade, and will be available as soon as the upgrade completes. It is not possible to start building new spells during the upgrade. If you have any spells already created when you start the upgrade, you will be able to use these in a raid.

You can speed up the creation of spells with gems and there is also an ability to boost spell production for 2 hours. The boost option costs 10 Gems and will increase the speed of the boosted Spell Factory by a factor of four. Note: The boost timer will continue to count down even if you aren't creating spells, so don't boost your Spell Factory until you are ready to use it. When you click to boost the Spell Factory a clock appears for a few seconds.

Clash of Clans: Laboratory

The Laboratory is the facility where you go to upgrade your Troops and Spells. For a single research fee of Elixir or Dark Elixir, a chosen unit's health, damage and cost will increase by a small amount. If you decide to upgrade your Laboratory while there's a research going on, it will continue the research progression. If you happen to be logged on when the lab upgrade completes, it may appear that the upgrade picks up where it left off. Log out and back on to see your troop upgrade progress reach its proper progress level.

You cannot cancel the research while it is in progress, but you can immediately complete the upgrade (usually for a rather substantial amount of Gems).Laboratories emit a purple (level 1-6), blue (level 7) or red (level 8) glow from the entrances when upgrading troops or spells.

You do not need an available builder to upgrade troops or spells. Different levels of Troops will receive graphical changes. However, when you are upgrading a troop, the laboratory interface doesn't show what it looks like after the upgrade.

Clash of Clans: Dark Barracks

Dark Barracks allow you to train Dark Elixir Troops using Dark Elixir. These troops will be stationed in Army Camps. Dark Barracks are unable to function while being upgraded, considerably increasing the time it takes to train your armies; this should be taken into consideration when deciding to upgrade a Dark Barracks. Any Troops that are queued up inside will start training when the upgrade has been finished.
Once you have queued Troops in your Dark Barracks, you can instantly complete their training with Gems; the amount required is directly proportional to the amount of time remaining to finish training normally.

There is also an option to boost Troop production for 2 hours. The boost option costs 10 Gems and will increase the training speed of the boosted Dark Barracks by a factor of 4.
The boost timer will continue to count down even if you aren't making troops, so don't boost your Dark Barracks until you are ready to use it. When you click to boost the Dark Barracks a clock appears for a few seconds. Similar to the normal Barracks, Troops may be removed from the Dark Barracks training queue at no penalty; 100% of the Dark Elixir cost will be refunded to you.

You may queue more Troops than your Army Camps can hold. This is useful for two reasons:
You may queue Troops prior to engaging in combat (either single-player or multiplayer). Your Dark Barracks will begin creating Troops proportional to the amount of time you spent from when you start searching for opponent to completing an attack, significantly reducing your downtime between battles

You may queue Troops to 'hide' Dark Elixir while you are offline, as long as your Army Camps are full. Currently up to at least 5,030 Dark Elixir can be hidden in this fashion (seven level 2 Witches and one level 5 Hog Rider in each of the two level 6 Dark Barracks). When you return you simply un-queue all of your Dark Barracks to reclaim your hidden Dark Elixir.

A Dark Barracks will maintain its queue if destroyed by enemy Troops, and will even continue to produce new units if your Army Camps have sufficient space.
The Dark Barracks is the only Barracks in which you are allowed to create Dark Elixir Troops. 

Clash of Clans: Army Camps

The Army Camp takes up a 5x5 space, making it the largest structure in the game. They continue to function even when they are being upgraded, allowing you to keep your armies at full capacity at all times. Unlike Clan Castle troops, troops stationed in the Army Camp do not defend your village during siege. In fact, they do not appear on the attacker's map at all (all Army Camps, full or not, appear empty to an attacker).

Prior to the Halloween 2012 update, troops would die/disappear if their Army Camp was destroyed in a raid. In the update, troops were allowed to remain even if their camp was destroyed. Due to widespread player support towards keeping this feature, Supercell made it permanent. As a result, troops stationed in Army Camps are no longer at risk if their camp is destroyed by an attacker.

The Army Camp is where your troops go when they're done training. Most troops will take up more than one space (Barbarians, Archers, and Goblins do only take up one space though). Upgrading and building more Army Camps allow more troops to be stored, allowing higher chances of victory in raids.
The maximum amount of housing space you can have for your Troops is 240 (4 Army Camps x 60 spaces). This increases to 275 if you include the extra 35 in a fully upgraded Clan Castle.
The Barbarian King does not take up space in the Army Camps; neither does the Archer Queen. Both Heroes either patrol the village or sleep on their own Altar.

You should not surround your Army Camps with Walls, as they do not need protecting. Also, the Army Camps occupy a lot of space (5 x 5). More walls are needed to contain them when the extra walls can be used to surround defensive buildings that are already inside the wall, strengthening the defense.
It is always preferable to initially build all available Army Camps, and then upgrade the lowest-level ones first. Every time you upgrade (except upgrading to level 2) the camp only gains 5 more housing space and it costs more elixir the more you upgrade. The next level is at least 2.5 times more expensive than the one before it.

Army Camps have a unique hitbox, unlike other Buildings. That means that attacking Troops will have to walk right to the center where the campfire is located in order to attack the Army Camp. The Army Camps can still hold troops while they are upgrading. Clan Castle troops do not go into the Army Camp when donated and do not take housing space in the Army Camp.If you look closely, you can see reactions from some Troops when you tap on the Army Camp. After the Christmas 2014 update the Army Camp's hitpoints has been significantly reduced on all levels.

Clash of Clans: Army Buildings

Army structures are buildings that are used to execute attacks on other players. There are many different buildings in this category. For example, a Barracks is a structure that trains troops that you’ll deploy when executing an attack. And then you can find Army Camp, Dark Barracks, Laboratory, Spell Factory, Dark Spell Factory, Barbarian King Altar and Archer Queen Altar. They are also an Army Structures.

To find out what army structures are available to you, touch the shop icon located in the bottom right corner of the screen and select, “Army.” You need both elixir and dark elixir to construct and upgrade Army structures, so make sure you collect enough to build your army.

Clash of Clans: Barracks

The Barracks allow you to train troops to attack your enemies. Barracks units cost elixir to produce and vary drastically in strength. As a general rule, the units that cost the most elixir and time to produce tend to be the most powerful based on their supply cost. However, the extra elixir cost and time equirements for these expensive units offsets their increase in strength. When farming, generally it is best to stick to the cheaper units to save on elixir costs and training time. Upgrade the Barracks to unlock advanced units that can win epic battles.

Clash of Clans: Other Buildings

These buildings are those that are neither offensive, defensive, or resource-giving. However, they are just as critically important. The Town Hall, for instance, is the heart of the village and regulates what buildings you can have, how many of them you can have, and how far you can upgrade them. The Clan Castle, on the other hand lets you connect with other players in a clan. Decorations are there to decorate your village. Obstacles are trees and rocks which can be found in your village. Clearing them will sometimes gives you Gems.

Clash of Clans: Resource Buildings

Resources are the currencies used to purchase and upgrade assets. The game has four different resources; gold, elixir, dark elixir, and gems.

Gold, elixir and dark elixir all have buildings that are used for storing and generating them.

Gold Gold
Gold is a resource that is dug up by gold mines. Once collected it is stored in your gold storages. The amount of gold you have is displayed at the top right side of the screen. Gold is used to build and upgrade defensive buildings, traps, elixir collectors, elixir storages and walls. It is also used to place national flag decorations.

Elixir Elixir
Elixir is a resource that is collected by elixir collectors. Once collected it is stored in your elixir storages. The amount of elixir you have is displayed at the top right side of the screen under gold. Elixir is used for purchasing and upgrading troops, army buildings, dark elixir storages, dark elixir drills, gold mines and gold storages. It is also used to place many decorations.

Dark elixir Dark Elixir
Dark Elixir is a resource that is collected by dark elixir drills. Once collected it is stored in your dark elixir storage. The amount of dark elixir you have is displayed at the top right side of the screen under elixir. Dark elixir is used for purchasing and upgrading hero class troops, as well as training and upgrading dark elixir troops.

Gem Gems
Gems are a resource primarily gained through in app purchase (IAP). There are other ways to obtain gems, although these methods are rather slow in comparison to purchasing them in the Shop. Small numbers of gems can be obtained by clearing rocks and trees from your village, but this is random and rate of respawn of trees and bushes is quite low. Completing achievements also awards gems. In addition, the top players in the top three clans receive gems from the weekly tournament. Lastly, Supercell occasionally holds competitions on their Facebook page for which they award gems to the winners.

Gems can be used to purchase gold, elixir, dark elixir and builder's huts. They can also be used to speed up upgrades, gold/elixir collection and to finish troop training.

Generally it's a good idea to save your gems for builders huts, as having more builders drastically increases the speed at which you can upgrade your village.

Clash of Clans: Defensive Buildings

In Clash of Clans, having a strong defense is as important as having a capable offense. In many ways, defense is even more important.

Defenses serve to safeguard trophies and protect resources from enemy troops. Each defense has its own strengths and weaknesses, and its location in your village should reflect that. For instance, the powerful Mortar is slow-firing, but deals incredible splash damage to ground troops. A downside is that it can't attack troops within four tiles of itself (or air troops at all) - so it should be placed in the center of your village with adequate protection from Air Defenses. On the other hand, Cannons and

Archer Towers deal lesser amounts of damage to groups (as they can target and hit only one unit at a time) but attack quicker and work as an effective first line of defense. The Wizard Tower deals incredible splash damage to both ground and air units, but has a relatively short range.