War

Optional. Every town is peaceful until its mayor decides otherwise.

Last updated: 2026-09-04 1:47 PM EST.

War is optional

War is optional. Every town is Peaceful by default, and a peaceful town cannot be sieged at all. Nobody is enrolled by accident: only your own mayor can end that protection, and until they do, no nation can attack you.

If your town does choose to take part, a war here is a siege. One nation attacks a single town, and the two sides fight for a banner planted at that town's border. The battle runs during set hours across one weekend, and then the siege ends. The rest of this page follows a war in order, from the first decision to the final consequence.

Step 1 · Deciding to take part

Only the mayor can make this choice, and it is a single command:

/sw town togglepeaceful

The change takes seven days to confirm, in both directions. No town can join a war in the morning and hide behind peace in the evening. A town founded less than a week ago is the exception: it can change its mind at once, while it is still new.

Staying peaceful costs your town two small things. Your residents cannot hold military ranks, and you cannot move your homeblock. Your claims, shops, money and brewing all continue exactly as before.

A nation capital may be peaceful too, so a king can keep an entire nation out of every war and still lead it normally.

Step 2 · Giving your people ranks

Arrange this in advance. A player without a military rank cannot participate in a siege at all. They generate no points whatever, and the battle simply continues around them.

A king distributes nation ranks, from private up to general:

/n rank add <player> private

A mayor can give town members the guard rank instead:

/t rank add <player> guard

Only a king or a general may start a siege, surrender one, or take a defeated town. Everyone else fights, and cannot make those decisions.

Step 3 · Declaring the war

Wars may only be declared on a Thursday. The king or general places a coloured banner in the wilderness at the border of the town they mean to attack. That banner is the siege.

A siege costs nothing at all. There is no war chest, no entry fee and no prize money. A nation may conduct only one attack at a time.

Step 4 · The battle sessions

The fighting follows a published timetable. A siege contains seven battle sessions of one hour each, distributed across the weekend, so players in different time zones each receive a fair opportunity. Between sessions the siege pauses completely.

/sw nextsession tells you when the next one begins, and /sw spawn <town> sends you to your side's commander once a session is running.

Follow the war from Discord as well. Every siege update is announced in the combat channel: the moment a siege begins, how each battle session ends, and who wins. Player kills appear there too, so the channel is the fastest way to see what is happening while you are away from the game.

There are two ways to score during a session:

• Hold the banner. Stand close to it for seven minutes and you take control of it for your side. Your team then earns points every minute that you keep it.
• Defeat the enemy soldiers. Defeating a ranked player of the opposing side is similarly worth points.

Communication changes deliberately while a session runs. Ordinary chat, local chat and private messages are disabled until ten minutes after the session finishes. Town, nation and ally channels continue as normal throughout.

Step 5 · How a siege ends

After the seventh session, whichever side holds more points has won. Either side may finish earlier by placing a plain white banner outside the town: the attacker abandons the attack, or the defender surrenders. Surrender is frequently the wiser decision, and it is designed to be.

If the defenders win, nothing changes for them, and the town cannot be attacked again for a week. If the attackers win, they may incorporate the town into their nation.

Step 6 · Life after a defeat

A captured town is occupied, never demolished and never sold. It retains every block, every chest and every territorial claim. It remains in its original nation's chat channels, and it pays its occupier nothing whatever.

Occupation is not permanent either. The mayor may place a banner outside their own town to begin a revolt, which is the same siege conducted in reverse. Win it, and the town is independent again.

What a war can never do

• Nobody can break your town's blocks. A siege cannot burn, break or blow up anything you have built.
• Nobody can open your chests. There is no looting of buildings and no stealing of items.
• You keep your inventory when you die. Your equipment loses a little durability, and that is all.
• No money is involved anywhere. Attacking is free, losing costs nothing, and there is no plunder, no ransom, no soldier's pay and no tax on a captured town.
• A nation capital can never be captured, and after a siege it is safe for twice as long as an ordinary town.

The only real damage is the ground players dig up outside the walls. Obsidian, ice, lava, water, TNT and every other explosive are refused inside a war zone, and so are the blocks used to build traps.

Quick answers

Commands