In the Clan Capital, your army is a clan asset. Troops are unlocked and upgraded with shared Capital Gold, and once a unit is available, every member can bring it to Raid Weekend. That turns troop unlocks into some of the highest-leverage spending decisions your clan makes: the right unlock improves every attack by every member, every weekend, forever.
It also means the wrong order hurts everyone. This guide explains how Capital troop unlocks work, which kinds of units deserve priority, and how to build practical armies around whatever your clan currently owns.
How Troop Unlocks Work in the Clan Capital
Capital troops are tied to the army buildings inside your districts. As your clan builds and upgrades those buildings, new units and higher unit levels become available, paid for with the same Capital Gold that funds everything else. There is no personal training or research: when the clan unlocks a troop, it is instantly in everyone's toolbox at the same level.
Because army camps in the Capital are generous and units have different housing costs, army building is about composition, not quantity. A good Capital army usually contains three roles:
- A damage sponge that walks in front, absorbing hits so the real damage dealers survive.
- Sustained damage behind the sponge, dismantling defenses while they are distracted.
- Cheap swarm or cleanup units that snipe exposed buildings, spring traps, and finish wounded districts efficiently.
Judge every potential unlock by how well it fills one of those roles for your clan's current level of play. A roster with all three roles covered can attack any district in the game with a credible plan; a roster missing one of them will keep meeting districts it simply cannot answer, no matter how high the unit levels climb.
The First Unlocks: Cheap, Flexible, Forgiving
Ranged Swarm Units
The humble ranged swarm, with Sneaky Archers as the classic example, is the best early investment in the Capital. Cheap swarm units do everything: they snipe outlying buildings for free destruction percentage, they pull traps before your main army arrives, and they are the undisputed kings of cleanup attacks on half-broken districts. Every clan, at every level, uses them all weekend long. Unlock them early and upgrade them without guilt.
A Durable Frontline
Your second priority is a proper damage sponge, with Super Giants as the archetype. A tough frontline unit turns fragile armies into reliable ones, because everything behind it lives longer. Newer attackers especially benefit: a sturdy front forgives imperfect funneling and buys time for mistakes. Armies without a sponge are coin flips; armies with one are plans.
An Air Option
Terrain-heavy districts like Balloon Lagoon and Builder's Workshop punish ground armies with maze-like paths, and an early air unit such as Rocket Balloons or a minion-style swarm lets your clan simply fly over the problem. Even a modest air corps gives your attackers a second dimension, and defenses that were built assuming ground attacks crumble against it.
Mid-Game Unlocks: Power Spikes
Once the fundamentals are covered, look for units that change what an attack can accomplish rather than just making it smoother.
- Heavy area damage, in the style of the Super Wizard, melts the packed compartments that mid-level districts rely on. One well-protected area-damage unit behind a sponge can carve through a base core.
- Big air power, in the style of the Super Dragon, gives your clan a true air army rather than an air garnish, which matters as districts start mixing serious anti-air into their layouts.
- Sustain spells, such as healing effects and the graveyard-style skeleton flood, stretch your army's lifespan across a long base. Spell unlocks are easy to overlook because they are not troops, but they often add more total destruction per attack than another unit would.
Mid-game is also when upgrading existing favorites competes with unlocking new options. A rough rule: unlock a unit when it opens a strategy your clan cannot currently execute; upgrade when your clan already relies on that unit every weekend.
Late-Game Specialists
The final tier of unlocks includes the Capital's celebrity units, like the Mountain Golem's slow, unstoppable advance or the tunneling pressure of Super Miners. These units are spectacular, and they are also exactly where impatient clans waste gold. A specialist unit in a clan that has not upgraded its swarm, sponge, and core damage dealers is a sports car without an engine. Finish your bread-and-butter units first; the specialists will still be there, and they hit far harder arriving into a mature army.
The honest test for a late-game unlock is simple: name the specific attack your clan keeps failing, and explain how this unit fixes it. If the answer is "it looks amazing," wait. If the answer is "our ground pushes stall against layered cores and this unit walks through them," spend with confidence. Specialists are answers to problems, and buying answers before you have the problem is how clans end up gold-poor with a shiny unit nobody builds an army around.
Building Armies Around What You Own
Whatever your unlock progress, the composition logic stays constant. Before each attack, look at the district and ask three questions: what will soak the damage, what will deal the damage, and what will clean the edges. Then check the district itself. Terrain mazes favor your air units, dense cores favor protected area damage, and half-destroyed districts want the cheapest units that can finish the job. Members who pick from the same small set of proven armies, matched to the district in front of them, will out-raid members who bring whatever looks fun.
For a full breakdown of matching armies to specific districts, see our guide to the best Clan Capital attack strategies for every district.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we unlock every troop before upgrading any of them?
No. Unlock the core roles first: ranged swarm, frontline sponge, an air option, and a main damage dealer. After that, upgrading the units your clan actually uses every weekend usually beats unlocking novelties, because levels on your workhorse units improve every raid.
Who decides which troops get unlocked?
Any member can contribute Capital Gold to an available unlock, but leadership shapes the order by choosing which upgrades are open and by announcing priorities. Only Leaders and Co-Leaders can adjust layouts and steer the build order, so troop priorities are worth a conversation, not a guess.
Do troop unlocks help defense too?
Indirectly, and powerfully. Better troops mean richer Raid Weekends, and the extra Capital Gold funds defensive upgrades sooner. Stronger attacks also finish enemy Capitals faster, protecting your trophy count. Offense is the engine of the whole Capital economy.
Where to Go From Here
The best unlock order is not a secret tier list; it is a set of roles. Give your clan a cheap swarm, a tough front line, an air option, and real damage behind it, then upgrade what you actually use before chasing specialists. Every unlock should make the average member's average attack better, because that is what compounds week after week.
And remember that your troops fight both sides of Raid Weekend: test your own districts against the armies you fear most, and browse our Clan Capital base layouts if any district keeps folding in one attack.
