Gloria Victis switches on State of War, its 30-minute guild-vs-guild siege

Gloria Victis has switched on State of War, the biggest PvP update the game has received. Guilds can challenge each other and schedule their battles starting today, and the first ones are fought tomorrow. The team had already spelled out the rules in a Q&A earlier this month, alongside the change to the Siege Tent's cost.

Everything happens on Guild Islands: each guild buys its own through the guild panel, attacks on the rival's island and defends on its own. You can inspect a target's information and scout its island before declaring, but once the challenge is out there is no changing opponents and no turning it down.

The battle is fought the next day, at the hour the defender picked, and each guild is capped at one attack and one defense per day. Registration opens 5 minutes before the fight and is limited to members of the two guilds and their alliances; allied reinforcements cannot exceed 20% of the total slots.

Each siege runs up to 30 minutes and ends when the attackers capture the flag, the timer expires or the activity meter hits zero. Siege engines and fire deal increased damage to defensive structures, a deliberate call to keep assaults fast and destructive.

The payout is Technology Points, the currency that funds and maintains Guild Technologies. They come from battle performance, from plundering the Technology Lab and from capturing Technology Scrolls. Rewards scale with the defending guild's level and drop by half in non-loot environments.

Losing a defense does not cost you the castle: the defender keeps ownership and destroyed structures rebuild themselves, though every downed fortification drops one upgrade level, all the way to palisade, and economic buildings come back with reduced HP. Opting out is only allowed while a guild has no battles scheduled.