¶ What is a Siege?
Sieges are the main form of warfare on Nations. They are fought between nations and their allies over money (the war chest) and the occupation of towns: occupied towns suffer from various restrictions, while their occupiers receive their resources and the money they pay in upkeep.
A siege begins when a siege banner is placed in the Wilderness outside a non-peaceful town. An area with a radius of 400 blocks - the siege zone - is then created, centered at the banner. The objective of both sides is to capture ('cap') the siege banner or kill enemies and enemy vehicles inside the siege zone in order to earn points. The side which earns the most points wins the siege.
Sieges last a maximum of 48 hours. Points can only be earned during 90 minute battle sessions which are separated by 90 minute breaks. After a siege ends, the side which earned the most points will win the siege.
A typical siege may involve melee combat, cannons, guns, Movecraft vehicles, horses and more. Effective usage of these features is key to winning sieges. Note that while sieges can involve a lot of deaths, there is limited keep inventory inside siege zones. Sieges can also involve explosions, although most (but not all!) explosion damage is automatically fixed after they end.
¶ Statistics
Main article: Siege Statistics
Detailed siege statistics are collected by our custom Siege Statistics plugin. These include kills, deaths, assists and more. They can be viewed in-game (/siegestats) and on the dedicated sieges website.
¶ Siege Types
There are four different types of sieges, each of which has different consequences. These consequences are:
- Occupation: The town under siege can be occupied or freed from occupation.
- Plunder: If the town loses its siege, its enemies can steal money from the town bank.
¶ Conquest
A conquest siege occurs when a nation attacks an unoccupied town in an attempt to occupy it. If the attacking nation wins, they can choose to occupy and plunder the town.
Nations cannot begin conquest sieges if all their towns are occupied.
¶ Revolt
A revolt siege occurs when an occupied town rebels against its occupying nation. The rebelling town (along with its nation and their allies) is considered the attacker. If they win, the town is freed from occupation. If they lose, the occupying nation can plunder the town again.
¶ Suppression
A suppression siege occurs when a nation attacks a town it is already occupying. This is usually done to preempt a revolt. If the occupying nation wins, they can plunder the town. If they lose, the town is freed from occupation.
¶ Liberation
A liberation siege occurs when a nation attempts to free an occupied town belonging to their own or allied nation. If they win, the town is freed from occupation.
¶ Starting Sieges
- Sieges can only be started by nations on non-peaceful towns that are less than 10,000 blocks away from their capital.
- The non-peaceful town must be nationless or belong to an enemy nation.
- Non-peaceful towns are marked with a castle symbol on the map.
¶ Time Window
- Sieges can only begin on
Fridays between 00:00–23:59 Server Time. The current server time is displayed on the tab list. - Sieges are not allowed during the first week of each month. This is the designated “rest” week.
¶ Cost
Starting a siege on a town costs $20 for each claim that the town owns. This money is taken from the nation bank if a nation is starting the siege (i.e. Conquest, Suppression or Liberation), and from the town bank if a town is starting the siege (i.e. Revolt).
The money paid to begin the siege is transferred to the “war chest”. The war chest is distributed to the winner and loser at the end of the siege, with the split depending on how much the winner won the siege by.
¶ Siege Immunity
Siege immunity is given to new towns and towns that have recently been under siege. Towns with siege immunity cannot be attacked. When siege immunity runs out, the town can be attacked again.
Both timers can be viewed in the town information screen (/t <town name>).
¶ Placing the Siege Banner
A siege is initiated by placing a coloured banner positioned two chunks distant from a non-peaceful town. This means there must be one chunk of Wilderness between the town's claims and the chunk where the banner stands.
Only players with the appropriate town or nation rank can begin a siege:
- If a nation wants to begin a siege (Conquest, Suppression or Liberation), the siege starter must have Leader, Coleader, Chancellor or General.
- If a town wants to begin a siege (Revolt), the siege starter must be town's Mayor.
If the siege begins successfully, the coloured banner will become the siege banner, and its position will be marked by a Beacon beam. Everywhere within a 400-block radius of the siege banner becomes the siege zone, where PvP is enabled and points can be earned.
¶ Fighting Sieges
- As mentioned at the beginning, sieges last for a maximum of 48 hours.
- They are divided into 90-minute battle sessions during which battle points can be earned.
- Battle sessions are separated by 90-minute breaks during which battle points cannot be earned.
- You can see the time until the next battle session using
/sw nextsession.
¶ Points
There are three ways of earning battle points:
- Capturing ('capping') and controlling the siege banner
- Killing enemies inside the siege zone
- Destroying enemy vehicles inside the siege zone
Attackers earn a positive amount of battle points, while defenders earn a negative amount of battle points. At the end of a battle session, the battle points are added together and added to the siege balance. The siege balance will be negative if the defenders have won more points than the attackers, and positive if the attackers if the attackers have won more points than the defenders. At the end of a siege, the winner of the siege is determined by the siege balance. The maximum siege balance is ±40,000.
To see the points balance of a siege, type /sw hud <name of town under siege>.
¶ Ranks
To participate in a siege, a player needs to have ranked up to at least Voyager (/ranks) and have 8 hours of playtime (/playtime).
They also require an appropriate town military rank in the besieged town, or nation military rank in one of the nations involved:
- Leader, Coleader, Chancellor, General, and Soldier for a nation.
/n rank add (name of player) (rank) - Mayor, Comayor or Militia for the besieged town.
/t rank add (name of player) (rank)
If a player does not have a military rank, they cannot earn or lose points, and will receive severe debuffs in the siege zone (war sickness).
¶ Loyalty
To participate in a siege, you require 9 or more loyalty towards your current nation.
You can check your nation loyalties with /res loyalties.
- For each day you play for at least 10 minutes, your loyalty towards your current nation increases by 1, and your loyalty towards other nations decreases by 1.
- You don't need loyalty if you're the mayor of the besieged town, or if you're defending a nationless town.
¶ Banner Control
To capture ('cap') the siege banner, stand within 16 blocks of it for 7 minutes. Standing next to the banner will display a boss bar showing how much time remains until the banner is captured.
Once you finish capping, you'll be added to a list called the 'banner control list'. You don't have to stay next to the banner after being added to the list. Every 20 seconds, if your side has control of the banner, it will earn 5 points for each person on the banner control list.
¶ Capper Limit
Your side can only have a certain number of people on the banner control list at a time (the “capper limit”). The limit starts at 7 if no enemies have entered the siege zone. But for every enemy that enters the siege zone, the limit increases by 0.667 (2 extra per 3 enemies). So, if 3 enemies have entered the siege zone, you can have up to 9 people capping (7 base + 2 extra).
- Once an enemy enters the siege zone, they're counted as being there for the entire battle session, even if they leave or log out.
- If they enter during a break, they're counted as being there for the next session unless they log out during the first 2 minutes of the break.
- This means your capper limit won't change if enemies leave in the middle of a session.
The capper limit resets after each battle session.
¶ Reversals
A reversal occurs when a side seizes banner control from the enemy. Each reversal increases the points earned from capping: the points multiplier begins at 1.5 and increases by another 1.5 for each subsequent reversal.
This means a reversal is both rewarding and risky: you will earn more points than before, but the enemy will earn even more points if they take back the banner! Enemies will often try to carry out reversals, so you should be prepared to kill enemies trying to cap. These enemies will have the glowing effect and will try to stay next to the banner.
¶ Killing Enemies
Killing an enemy in the siege zone will award your side with 200 points. If the enemy side controls the banner, this is increased by the counter-attack bonus (+20% for each enemy on the banner control list). The money in the war chest will also increase by the number of points earned.
Killing enemy vehicles inside the siege zone will also earn points:
| Craft Type | Points Earned for Destroying |
| Aircraft Carrier | 5000 |
| Dreadnought | 4000 |
| Cruiser | 3000 |
| Destroyer | 2000 |
| Corvette | 1000 |
| Zeppelin | 1000 |
| Submarine | 750 |
| Heavy Tank | 400 |
| Turret | 300 |
| Tank | 200 |
| Infantry Fighting Vehicle |
200 |
| Bomber | 200 |
| Fighter | 200 |
¶ Explosions
During battle sessions, explosions are enabled inside the besieged town if at least one military-ranked player on the town's side is inside the siege zone. Attackers may use cannons and vehicles to shell the town. In turn, defenders can fortify their town by building defenses from blocks with HP, which can absorb multiple explosions before breaking. Explosions are disabled outside of battle sessions.
Most explosion damage - although not all - will be automatically fixed at the end of the siege. See Automatic Rollbacks for more information.
¶ Miscellaneous Mechanics
¶ New Player Point Loss Immunity
When a town collects the /recruitbonus for a new player, the new player can die up to 5 times without losing points ("pointless deaths"). This is an excellent way to introduce newer players to sieges.
Pointless deaths are lost by:
- Dying in the siege zone during a battle session
- Killing an enemy in the siege zone during a battle session
You can see a player's remaining pointless deaths using /res <player name>.
¶ Keep Inventory
Limited keep inventory is enabled inside siege zones during battle sessions only.
Limited keep inventory means:
- Items without durability (blocks, potions, etc) will always drop.
- Items with durability (tools, armour, etc) will lose 25% of their maximum durability.
- If an item would lose enough durability to break, it will instead drop unless it has the Binding rune. In that case, the Binding rune will be consumed.
- Netherite swords will drop regardless of durability unless they have Binding.
¶ Team Armour Colours
By default, the helmets and boots of players in siege zones will be replaced with client-sided leather armour that is coloured depending on whether they are friendlies, enemies or neutral.
This behaviour can be toggled using the command /res toggle siegeteamcolors.
¶ End of a Siege
Sieges can end in three ways:
- Maximum time reached: if 48 hours have passed since the start of the siege, the side that won the most points will win the siege.
- Town surrenders: The mayor of the besieged town places a white banner in the Wilderness outside the town. This ends the siege early.
- Attackers abandon: A leader, co-leader or general of the attacking nation places a white banner in the Wilderness outside the town. This also ends the siege early.
¶ War Chest
The war chest in sieges is split between the winner and loser based on the final siege balance. The more points the winner wins by, the larger their share of the war chest and the smaller the loser's share of the war chest. For example:
- If your side wins with the maximum points possible (± 40,000), you get all (100%) of the war chest.
- If your side wins with half of the maximum points possible (± 20,000), you get 75% of the war chest and the losers receive 25%.
- If the siege ends in a draw (0 points), the war chest is evenly split between the attacker and defender.
¶ Plunder and Occupation
If the town loses the siege, the following actions can be taken by the enemy nation:
- Occupy: A leader, co-leader or general belonging to the enemy nation places a coloured banner in the Wilderness outside the defeated town.
- Plunder: A leader, co-leader or general belonging to the enemy nation places a chest in the Wilderness outside the defeated town.
- For each claim the town has, $40 will be taken from the town bank and transferred to the enemy nation's bank.
¶ Immunity
No matter what the result of the siege, the town will receive siege immunity, protecting it from being attacked again. Siege immunity will last 6x longer than the siege did.