A war is a fight over one province on the world map. You pick the prize when you declare; battles fill an invasion control meter; fill it before the war expires and the province is yours. In order to declare war on another nation:
- Both nations must have War mode enabled
- The nation must be within your world's economic Age band: same Age on PvP, within one Age on PvE
- The nation must not be in the same Alliance as you
- You and the other nation must not already be in a war
- Both nations must be settled on the same world map with starting land claimed
On PvE worlds, fighting across one Age is allowed but balanced: a more advanced invader gains control more slowly, the earlier-Age defender holds harder, spoils for punching down are cut, and weapons of mass destruction cannot fire down the Age ladder.
You attack a province on the defender's outer frontier: any of their provinces that borders land they don't hold or touches the sea (coastlines are open to naval invasion). No shared border with your own nation is required: beachhead invasions are allowed. Their capital province can never be contested, so a one-province nation cannot be eliminated.
War mode turns on automatically when you reach the Industrial Age. You can opt out in Nation Settings, but re-enabling has a 12-hour cooldown so you cannot duck fights and then immediately declare war.
Your world's type also sets the rules. On ⚔️ PvP worlds war is always on (no War mode toggle or shields). Borders are meant to move: the same parcel can flip up to 3 times in a series, then settles for 24 hours while you fight elsewhere. The same pair has a 24-hour rematch gap unless that parcel series is still open. Nations cannot lose more than 2 parcels per rolling day (open-series rematches still allowed). PvP nations start with a default garrison (25% at the front, Guarded readiness). On 🛡 PvE worlds War mode, shields, and the 12-hour declare cooldowns apply, and a conquered province locks for 72 hours. On 🕊️ Peaceful worlds wars are disabled entirely. A world's type is shown next to its name in the world list and never changes.
🕗 PvE: 12 hour cooldown for declaring and being declared on
🔒 PvE: contested province safe for 72 hours · PvP: best-of-3 then 24h settle
🛡 PvE: losing a war grants a free 24-hour war shield
While at war, your economy runs on a war footing: turns keep applying, but tax revenue settles at 50% of the peacetime rate while military wages stay full price, and land growth pauses. A ⚔️ War icon leads the dashboard action bar while you are at war. Your producer buildings keep banking collections.
👀 Wars are public: a contested province pulses red on the world map, and its popup shows who is fighting whom, the invasion progress, and the rounds left.
Every war has a resistance threshold scaled by the size of the prize: a small county falls in a few good rounds, a huge province takes a sustained campaign. Each offensive battle converts your power advantage into control points; a defender's counterattack pushes the meter backward. The war ends when the first of these happens:
- Control fills the meter → the attacker conquers the province
- The round budget runs out (12 to 24 rounds, bigger provinces last longer) or the 48-hour deadline catches an idle attacker → the defender holds
- Peace terms are accepted or a side surrenders
- The defender misses 2 war turns in a row after the campaign has started → AFK auto-surrender (attacker takes the province)
- The war runs past 96 hours → stalemate, no spoils
⏱ A side that sits on its turn for 8 hours forfeits the turn. Defender idle does not burn the attacker's round budget; standing defenses still fight every push until the AFK limit. On PvE, an AFK defeat forces peace mode until you return. Map seats warn at 48 hours of inactivity, frontier parcels fade from 72 hours, and the remaining seat is removed at 30 days.
When the invasion fails (the round budget or deadline runs out), the defender does not just keep the province: the failed attacker pays reparations, about 5% of their materials and influence. Reparations are only paid when the defense actually cost the defender units, and never on a negotiated peace (those terms were already settled).
Every unit has a role: 🪖 infantry, 💥 armor, 🏹 ranged, ✈️ air, ⚓️ naval, or 🛰 support. Roles counter each other:
- 🪖 Infantry beats 💥 Armor
- 💥 Armor beats 🏹 Ranged
- 🏹 Ranged beats 🪖 Infantry and ✈️ Air (anti-air batteries)
- ✈️ Air beats 💥 Armor and ⚓️ Naval; ⚓️ Naval beats ✈️ Air
Fielding the counters to the enemy's composition multiplies your power; one-note armies get punished. Use 🛰 Reconnaissance to reveal what they have at the front, and check the combat preview before committing a round. It shows the expected control gain and casualties for each stance.
🏰 The defender's fortifications (the Fort and Castle wonders plus their cities) strengthen their army, and their 👥 population fights back as militia. An undefended nation is never free land. Your logistics network (🛤 railways, ⚓️ ports, ✈️ airports, 🚀 spaceports, funded by the Logistics budget) determines your supply cap: how many units you can keep at the front on offense.
Peacetime defense is a posture, set on the 🛡 Defense page: choose what share of your army stands at the front and a readiness level from 🕊️ Stand Down to 🚨 Maximum Alert. Each level above the first raises military wages by +10% and makes your line fight +5% harder when attacked. At war, Defense is disabled and readiness stays locked for that fight.
😤 Morale is one pool in peace and war. Peacetime: high alert drains it, standing down recovers it. Wartime: aggressive Orders cost morale, and heavy front losses shock it further. Operations shows your Invasion/Hold meter above your morale. A fatigued army fights below strength, down to 75% power at zero morale. Rest between campaigns if you push hard.
You command one army at the front. Each turn you reinforce it and pick a posture on the aggression dial: 🧱 Entrench (no push, your line fights much harder next round), 🛡 Hold the Line (no push, stay braced), 🗡️ Probe (a cautious push: less control, fewer casualties), ⚔️ Assault (the standard push), or 🔥 All-out (the most control, the most blood). The harder you push, the more exposed your line is on the enemy's next swing, and the more morale you spend. An all-out army defends far weaker until your next orders. The defender pushes the meter backward with the same dial. And war pays nothing when it costs nothing: a war won without meaningful resistance transfers no province, land, or loot.
Launch 🚀 Missiles at the front. Strikes convert damage into invasion control (capped per strike) and cause civilian casualties. Buildings are never destroyed in war.
Launch ☢️ Nukes or Atomic Bombs at the front for heavy control damage and mass civilian casualties. They also raise the defender's national radiation level, which increases sickness until it decays over time.
National radiation caps at 100 and decays slowly each economic turn. There is no global fallout.
Deploy 🦠 Bio Bombs or ☣️ Pandemic weapons against the front. Biological weapons kill units garrisoned at the front, inflict large civilian casualties, and spread ☣️ national sickness that raises illness until the outbreak subsides over time.
National sickness caps at 100. Outbreaks hit harder than radiation but clear faster with each economic turn.
Deploy a disposable 🛰️ Satellite over the front. The satellite is consumed on use and snapshots the enemy's deployment so you can field the counters to their composition. Revealed enemy units appear in blue on future battle planning screens.
From Manage War, propose peace terms using material resources only (stone, wood, food, steel, and so on). Money and influence cannot be offered. Both nations see each other's resource stocks on the offer, so terms stay realistic. Tribute is capped at 80% of each resource stockpile.
- You propose. Your opponent can Accept, Counter, or Reject.
- If they counter, you get a final offer: Accept or Reject only (no second counter).
- Accept exchanges the tribute and ends the war (the proposer surrenders under those terms).
- Reject ends that offer. Either side can propose a new deal later.
War continues until peace is accepted. Battles stay available while an offer is pending, and peace counters do not spend battle turns.
Alliance members can send military aid (units) to a member who is at war. After both sides agree, the alliance General approves. Successful aid shows the helper as a backer on the war page.
End the war immediately with no tribute. Available from Manage War at any time. If the attacker surrenders, the defender holds the province and keeps everything.
Battle Reports are generated after each battle once a turn is completed. Skirmishes show the control gained or lost and military units lost (KIA) on both sides. 🚀 Missile and ☢️ nuclear strikes show control damage and civilian casualties on the defender. ☣️ Biological strikes show unit and civilian losses plus the national sickness inflicted.
🇹🇭 Blombo ⚔️→ 🇹🇷 Glemen
Wednesday, 08:00
🎯 +12.4 invasion control
🪖 Infantry KIA: 1,036
💥 Tank KIA: 13
🪖 Infantry KIA: 936
💥 Tank KIA: 8