If you're not familiar with Clash of Clans, it's a game where you build forts with gold and elixir resources. Buildings are dragged and dropped, however, players like, and resources are collected and stored periodically throughout the day as they check in. Over time, players build an army of various troop types. They can be taken on single player missions to raze the villages of nearby goblins, or on raiding parties of neighboring villages. Similarly, other players can raid your town. Don't worry, nothing is permanently destroyed, though adversaries can snatch some of your gold and elixir. Players earn and lose trophies through their multiplayer raids to determine rank, and band together in clans in order to earn even more loot in sprawling group battles.

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The biggest caveat with any casual free-to-play game is the premium currency system. Just about everything is on some kind of timer, and as you progress, those timers get longer. Don't cave and spend your precious gems on speeding up production. Save them for something important that you get to keep. Make a point to complete achievements and clear natural obstacles to build your gem count. Above all else, gems should be spent on builders huts. After that, there's a wide range of discretion on gem spending. Typically, buying resources outright with gems is a poor use of resources; you're better off boosting your own production buildings.

When you do have enough gems, think long and hard about what's important to you in the game, since if you want to get through this without paying a dime, it'll take awhile before you make another major purchase. On the flip side, you'll have a hard time getting through the competitive end-game content without spending some cash.

If timers have got you down, play a few other games and cycle through them. Candy Crush Saga and Simpson Tapped Out are both solid options. A top-ranked Clash player actually went out and made his own similar game, Samurai Siege, and Gameloft has a Rome-themed knock-off called Total Conquest. There's also Supercell's Clash Royale, which puts a card battler spin on the Clash of Clans universe.

Getting attacked can suck, but luckily if 30% of your town is destroyed or your Town Hall comes crumbling down, you'll have a 12-hour shield. If 90% of your base is wiped out, you'll get an extra four hours. How do you best make use of this time? Well, don't go out and start attacking right away, that's for sure. That will cancel out your shield immediately.

The safety time is valuable, so use it to your advantage - take some time to figure out how you can improve your economy, build up your army, upgrade towers (since they don't fire when upgrading) or simply stockpile and spend resources before the pain train comes rolling around again. Shields are useful enough that you may even want to voluntarily move your town hall out into the open. You'll lose trophies and some resources, but often the amount of safety time you get out of it is worth it. If you get really itchy for battle, remember that Clan Wars don't affect your shield timers at all.