Alphabetical definitions of every term used across the War guide.

Call to arms

An invitation from the leader of a war to a nation that is already your ally, asking it to join that war on your side. Answer it with /war calltoarms accept.

Casus belli

A justified reason your nation holds to declare a war on a named nation, aimed at one named town. Earned by justifying, spent when you declare, and never granted for free.

Co-belligerent

A nation drawn into a war against its own will, by being picked at declaration because it is an ally of the defender. Pays the same peace terms as the war leader.

Colonial War

A war whose target town lies inside your reach but outside the defender’s own protection. The furthest-reaching of the three reasons to fight.

Conquest

The most common reason to fight: a war aimed at any enemy town.

Exhaustion

A 0–100 measure of how worn down a nation is by its wars. High exhaustion makes everything more expensive and eventually stops you justifying new wars.

FOB

A short-lived forward operating base — a small town your nation can claim far from home to fight from.

Fort

A town that is not peaceful. Fights over forts are called sieges.

Fort exclusion zone

The buffer around a fort in which you may not hold claims of your own, so no one can wall a fort in before it is attacked.

Justification

The three-day, paid process of turning a reason to fight into a casus belli.

Occupation

Holding an enemy town after winning a battle over it. You pay to keep it, and you hand it back or lose it at peace.

Occupation tax

A daily percentage your nation takes from the bank of each peaceful town it occupies.

Outskirt

The ring of land around every claim that belongs to nobody but can be built on. Battles start here.

Pending war

A war that has been declared but whose first battle has not yet been fought. The attacker can only attack at the war’s target town during this time.

Reconquest

A war aimed at a town the defender took from you or from one of your allies.

Reparations

A peace term where the losing side pays the winning side a percentage of its members’ town banks every day for a set number of days. Miss a payment and your claim costs climb.

Siege

A battle fought over a fort rather than a peaceful town.

Siege camp

A permanent forward town your nation can claim near a fort to stage a siege from.

Truce

A period after the war in which two nations cannot mark each other as enemies or fight.

War chest

A pot of money attached to a battle, seeded by the cost of starting it and grown by kills and sunk ships. The winner takes the lot.

War goal

The one town named in your casus belli. It is what the war is about, and holding it is what drives your war score.

War sickness

The nausea, weakness and blindness that settles over anyone standing in a live battlefield who is not fighting in it.

War score

The single running number that says who is winning a war, from -100 in the defender’s favour to +100 in the attacker’s.

See also: Overview · Commands