Know your enemy. Let yourself get raided so u know how strong he is:

if u know the power, u can use full defense, if your not sure u can leave a portion out for pvp points which will die

u can"t defend against everyone so pick fights u can win and want to win, if not just use all resources so raiding doesnt gain them anything

Either way i only defend during pvp and if i want points and if i know the power of the enemy

If enemy is not so strong.. prepare him def wall.. activated dominium (+5% def), +20% on all def units; + 10% on town defense and put +exp on that..thats the best way..

If you dont have much res. in your castel, dont havetemple on lvl6.. then no need to defend, just do turtle (hide all in acropolis)