Gloria Victis answers State of War questions and reworks siege costs

Gloria Victis devoted its latest weekly news post to something the community had been asking for: straight answers about State of War, the guild-versus-guild war mode that's on its way back. The studio gathered the questions going around and answered them one by one in the official Steam announcement. It also slipped in a change that hits the loot zone's daily routine: sieges no longer cost the same every time.

The first thing they cleared up was guild islands. You can visit them, sure, but if that island has its loot zone enabled you can loot and be looted — visiting is not a safe pass. As for how many people can be there at once, there's no cap for now: the team said it doesn't plan to set a threshold.

On who fights: when State of War returns, new guild members will be able to join battles with no restriction, though the studio noted it will watch how that plays out and might add a lockout later. If more players sign up than there are slots, the call belongs to the guild leader, who acts as party leader and can kick anyone they'd rather not bring. Guild member caps, meanwhile, stay as they are. And for everyone asking about mercenaries: not in this iteration, though it's on the table for the future.

Rewards got spelled out too. Defenders earn Technology Points based on their standing and results, and during the battle everyone accumulates National Points and Contribution Points; if the fight takes place on an island with a loot zone enabled, there's loot on the line and nation points pay out more than on a non-loot island. Declaring a battle, in this first version, costs nothing.

The logistics are probably the biggest planning factor. You can challenge guilds from other regions — you're not locked into EU vs EU or NA vs NA — and guilds from your own nation as well, though Alliance vs Alliance isn't part of this first iteration. The process runs once per day on a one-day queue: a token generated on Monday targets the Tuesday slot, one generated on Tuesday targets Wednesday, and so on. If a battle is scheduled for Tuesday at 8:00 PM, the token has to exist before 8:00 PM on Monday; generated after that cutoff, it rolls into the next available slot. Each guild can be attacked and declare war once per day: one attack and one defense, and opting out of the system entirely is always available. One fine-print detail: once a battle is scheduled on your island, any change to its settings only takes effect after the battle ends, so there are no last-minute tweaks once you see who's coming.

The change already live affects the Siege Tent, the structure attackers build to besiege a loot-zone location. Until now it always required 50 boxes of Siege Tools. As of this patch, before the foundations go down the system checks three conditions: Bastion Efficiency level, Bastion Upgrade level and Deep Underdog status.

The result is a range from a base of 10 boxes up to 60, that ceiling hitting when the location has both bastion levels maxed and the nation under attack carries deep underdog status. Flip it around, and if the attacker is a nation with deep underdog status the maximum drops to 40 boxes. The practical upshot cuts two ways: maintaining and upgrading your bastion becomes a real defense, and the strong side piling on the weak one pays for the privilege. Worth remembering: the tent keeps the requirement calculated at the moment it was placed — if defenders upgrade the location afterwards that one doesn't change, but the next tent will demand more boxes.

The rest of the patch is smaller but not trivial. Styrborg Heavy Spaulders now craft with Tanned Beast Leather instead of Beast Leather, and disassembling them returns Tanned Beast Leather Scraps. There were tweaks to events on the capital island. And an anti-abuse lock was added: you can't join guilds through open recruitment when there's an entry fee until your character reaches level 20, a measure that follows community reports — the player who flagged it took home 1,000 Ambers.

The weekly Community Spotlight winners were announced as well: eight in total, three for screenshots and five for gameplay clips, with 600 Ambers each. It's a small program, but it says a fair amount about how this medieval sandbox keeps its community close: questions answered head-on, an exploit patched thanks to a player report, and community screenshots in the official post. With State of War on the horizon, that back-and-forth is exactly what will decide whether the mode lands well.