War Modes and Goals
When you declare a war you pick two things: a war mode and a war goal. This page explains what each one means in-game. For the overall flow of a war, see Wars.
A war mode decides how the war is fought and scored - where points come from and how you win.
A war goal decides what happens to the loser when the war ends.
Which modes and goals you can choose depends on the server; some are turned off or only make sense in certain situations.
War Modes
Skirmish
The classic war. You earn points by killing enemy players and by capturing their land with capture flags (and by breaking the enemy's flags). First team to the required points wins; if time runs out, the team ahead on points wins.
This is the mode that uses craftable capture flags - see Wars, section 7.
King of the Hill (Server Arena)
Fought over a neutral arena the server admins have built somewhere. Kills score nothing here - instead, whichever team is holding the arena's control point earns points every few seconds. Hold it longer than the enemy and you win.
Both teams are teleported to their arena spawn when the war starts.
Capturing (filling) the control point resets it and sends everyone back to their spawns, so the fight restarts for the point.
This mode can only be chosen when the server has a free, fully built arena.
King of the Hill (Player Lands)
A two-front King of the Hill that needs no admin arena. During preparation, each team places one control point in its own land, and you score by holding the enemy's point - so both lands become battlegrounds at once.
To place your point, stand where you want it in your own main land during preparation and run:
(Use /nations war koth set if a nation is fighting - the point goes in its capital land.)
Your own point can't be broken by hand. To move it, just run the command again where you want it.
You only score by capturing the enemy's point, never by sitting on your own - standing on your own point only defends it. So to win, you have to go on the offensive.
Attackers are allowed to break and place some blocks in the contested lands to reach the enemy point.
If a team doesn't place its point in time, the war falls back to a server arena (if one is free), or the team that did place wins - a draw if neither placed.
War Goals
The goal is what the winner actually gets. A surrender applies the same goal but usually on gentler terms than a fought loss, and a draw applies nothing (there's no winner).
Skirmish (robbery)
A low-stakes war. The winner robs money from the loser's bank and no one loses any claims. The mildest goal - good for rivalries and friendly server events.
Annexation
The winner unclaims all of the loser's war lands. The loser is paid the normal unclaim cash-back for those chunks, but the land itself is gone. Ownership is not transferred - the chunks simply become wilderness again.
Vassalage
The winning nation absorbs the loser as a restricted vassal member of the nation. Only available when your side is a nation. On some servers the loser's bank balance is seized too. A vassalized land can later fight for freedom with an independence war.
Raid
After the war, the winner's members get a raid window on the loser's lands - a period during which they can loot containers, open doors, and break through walls to breach the base (limited to a set list of blocks, so they can't level everything). A time-limited "spoils of war" instead of a permanent loss.
Independence
A special goal used only when a vassal declares independence from its overlord (/lands war independence). Win and the vassal becomes free; lose or draw and it stays a vassal and can't try again for a while.
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