Originally posted by Rodos:

The actual troll raid event won't start happening until after you've defeated the Elder though, so for now you can use the local ones to get used to how to how to handle them.

Make sure to leave enough space between your palisades and structure walls (roughly 6-8m) so that the few attacks that do manage to clip through them (the log swinging troll in particular) do minimal damage to the inside structures until they can actually break through the outer defence.

This is not true. The actual trigger for the Troll raid event is "a troll has been killed in your game world". I've had many ground-shaking events before killing the Elder in my playthroughs. The only decent defense against trolls is an earth wall or being on an island that is covered with "player base" items (like workbenches) that prevent monster spawning. As most people don't have these early on, I suggest a Palisade wall to keep most things out and then just eat up and go outside when a troll raid happens. Run the trolls around (away from your base) and shoot them with arrows (but don't kill them) until the raid timer is done, then finish them off after the timer is over.

If trolls are hard for you to kill, practice with the regular single trolls. Let them get close enough to start their attack, then sprint away and get a couple of shots off while backing up. Rinse. Repeat. This was my wife's first real PC game. Even she learned how to do it after a while. (She's awesome now, btw.)