Clash-of-clans – Will the archer towers still defend me while they are being upgraded

I wouldn't really classify a base as "mature" or "premature". Even if you upgraded too early, it just means you've got to be a little more careful with spending your elixir. At 1300 trophies, I would have to say that you're doing just fine.

Remember that the difference in Town Hall level will change how much loot you get off other players. Taken directly from the wiki:

• 0 - 100%
• 1 - 90%
• 2 - 50%
• 3 - 25%
• 4+ - 5%

I also got to TH8 relatively recently, and I can tell you the difference in available loot from when I was using TH7 was definitely daunting. However it isn't anything significant to fret over. As long as you can maintain relatively decent income, you shouldn't have any issues continuing to upgrade. Remember that even if you maxed out your TH7 upgrades before hitting TH8, you'll still hit a slump as you progress out of early TH8.

Attacking

Trophy range:

• For early TH8, I would recommend Silver 1 through Gold 2.
• For late TH8 where you are near the end of the upgrade path for your defenses, I would recommend Gold 1 through Crystal 3 as the optimal farming.

Attack strategies:

For earning resources, I would recommend the Barch attack pattern. Essentially this attack pattern consists of the following:

• 60-80 Barbarians
• 60-80 Archers
• 60-80 Goblins
• 3-4 Giants

The idea behind this strategy is to "snipe" the resource collectors of a given opponent. Many base layouts push the resource collectors outside of all walls, while heavily protecting the storages within the walls. You're looking for those towns with a resource count generally 60k+, nearly empty storages, and high-level collectors that are full. Using the barbarians as meat shields, you would throw down a line of barbarians to attack the collectors, and follow up with a line of goblins, then archers to snipe them from safety. If you decide the barbarians aren't enough, you can throw in a giant or two as extra meat shields.

With this strategy, I can easily nab over a million of both gold and elixer in just a couple of hours playing. If I really sat down and focused on farming, I would say this strategy would easily bring in 1 million gold/elixer per hour.

Here is a popular YouTube video demonstrating a variant of this strategy with just archers and goblins:

Now one thing you'll want to learn is how to lure a clan castle. Many players with a higher trophy count will have troops waiting for you. It only takes a handful of wizards or archers to completely annihilate your giants regardless of what healing you do.

To lure out a clan castle, place a single archer within range of the castle. If troops come out, then place another archer also within range. Keep placing archers until ALL the clan castle troops have come out. Then, place an archer further away from the base or at a corner building, you might need more archers if the first dies. The idea here is to get the clan castle troops out of the way from those pesky mortars and anything else that might stomp down your fragile archers. Once you've gotten the troops out of the range of cannons, archer towers, or wizard towers, place a giant and a semi-circle of archers to mow down the troops. This should clear up any unwanted visitors.

Defending

At TH8, you're now more susceptible to those dangerous TH9 troops more than ever. Players at TH9 get level 6 troops, and are more likely to employ heavy use of Hog Ridgers, Dragons, and the occasional balloon run.

• At Silver 3 to Gold 2, you're going to be attacked more by heavy combinations of barbarians, archers, goblins, and minions.
• At Gold 3 to Crystal 1 you'll start seeing heavier use of hog riders and dragons.

Currently I sit at Gold 1. Out of my last 10 attacks, 3 utilized Hog Riders, 1 utilized Dragons and Goblins, and the rest were a combination of barbarians, archers, goblins, and minions. What this means for you is that your base layout is going to need to be able to protect against a wide array of possible attacks. Luckily you'll continue to see more updated base layouts directly at the Supercell forums, there's plenty of people there that are constantly coming up with new base layouts for various purposes. At this point, you'll want a Farming base to minimize loss of resources while trading off trophies instead.

In no particular order of preference, here's a few good farming layouts to help you get started:

The Tempest by Orz:

Dominion by Orz:

Trapception by IANNATION:

The Oski by Yango:

Of course I would suggest always looking around on the forums if you're looking for something different to work with. These bases typically get updated every once in a while as things get improved. Some bases may work better at early TH8 than others, so try out a couple and see what works best for you.

Walls are certainly a way to burn excess gold - as you get to 3 and 4 builders, it can be a good idea to leave one builder idle all the time to upgrade walls whenever you have spare resources from raiding sessions. Later, walls will also be upgradeable using elixir, but for your early-game question it's specifically gold.

It's also a good idea to use excess elixir to clear objects from your land - clearing logs, bushes, etc, has a chance to give you gems, and it's one of the rare ways you get free gems in the game. If too many objects accumulate, they'll stop spawning which means you're missing chances at gems.

Also, you can use excess elixir to raid in the single player campaign. Getting certain tiers of stars in the campaign grants you additional gems from achievements.

Finally, in the early game, don't worry too much about wasting a bit of gold or elixir. As you progress a couple of thousand gold will be completely meaningless. If you have enough resources to keep your builders busy, that's 90% of what progression in the game is about.