War Games Gameplay
The Destiny League War Games are a massively-multiplayer map control game, with Pokémon battles serving as a key part of the attack and defense gameplay.
The Basics: Individuals, Actions, and the Map
Individuality
While most players of the game will be playing in teams ('Factions'),
ALL players act as individuals; while you may receive orders or strategic guidelines from your team, your actions are ultimately completely up to you, though your team leadership may not take kindly to betrayal or disobedience. This also ensures that a team can act even if its leadership is inactive or busy.
The Game Map
The Game Map can be seen here.
This season of the War Games will be fought in Kanto, the original Pokémon region from Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow/FireRed/LeafGreen.
As you can see, the map is split into
Areas, which are themselves made of
Locations, which are
themselves composed of
Slots. The way this works is quite simple;
each Slot can be filled by one individual player. If a single Faction's members occupy every Slot in a Location, they also control the Location itself, which provides Control Points (CP) for their Faction equal to the number of Slots the Location contains -- and sometimes a unique benefit, depending on the specific Location. Controlling an entire Area grants bonus Control Points equal to double the number of Locations it contains.
Attack Actions
Every individual player of the game can perform one
Attack Action per
24-hour period. Note that this isn't on a fixed schedule or clock; rather, you can make another action any time after 24 hours or more have elapsed since your last action. This means that every team's actual attack force is limited to only their active members, and individuals will never be signed up for conflicts they didn't know about.
The Attack Action can only be declared against a single Slot; this Slot must be within an Area that you or your team either owns a full Location in, or owns a full Location in a directly-adjacent Area. (For example, if your team has a location in Pallet Town, you can attack Slots in Pallet, Viridian, or Cinnabar.)
If the Slot you attack is currently occupied by a player, you must challenge the defender on the Battle Tracker
(coming soon); the defender has 24 hours to accept your challenge, also via the Battle Tracker. If they do not accept your challenge within this time window, you win by default. If they accept, you must battle one another at the earliest possible opportunity; neither player can declare another Attack Action until the battle occurs.
If a single Faction owns every Slot in a Location, they become that Location's 'owner', and begin receiving a Control Point bonus from it. If the Faction loses any of its Slots, it will stop receiving CP for it until it controls every Slot again; however, it remains the Location's 'owner' until
all of that Faction's members are removed from the Location. At this point, it becomes neutral again.
If the Slot you attacked was neutral or has no assigned defender, what happens next depends on whether the Location has an owner, as explained above. If so,
anyone from the owning Faction who is currently at another Slot in this Location can choose to defend that Slot from you. If not, you win that Slot instantly! Either way,
this still counts as your Attack Action; you can't just take every neutral Slot in an empty Location by yourself, but your team could help you!
Note: You can't attack a Slot that's already pending another Attack. Wait until the current battle ends. This is to prevent the defender from being unfairly overwhelmed.
Defense
When an Attack Action succeeds, you or your team gains control over the Slot that was being fought over. At this time, the individual that performed the Attack Action immediately moves into that Slot, abandoning any previous Slot they were stationed in.
Team members can choose to assign themselves to defend an empty Slot that their team already controls at any time. However, every individual can only be defending a single Slot at a time; attempting to assign them to a new Slot will make their previous Slot empty. Team members can move to defend any slot their team owns, even if their previously-assigned Slot is far away from the new one. If an Attack Action occurs against an unprotected Slot, however, it is immediately won by the attacker -- unless you're the owner of the Location, as explained above, in which case one of your other members at that Location can help defend it. This means that immediately filling Slots at vulnerable locations is necessary, and that an attack force constantly moving forward will have difficulty holding the Slots it takes.
Slots abandoned due to an Attack Action (only) have a
three-hour immunity period where they can't be attacked; use this time to move another member of your team into the Slot before someone steals it from you!
Victory
The War will have three winners, one from each category; Official, Independent Team, and Lone Wolf. Each will be determined by whoever has the largest number of CP at the end of a two-month period in their category. For more information on the Factions, see the "War Games Factions" link above.
The Official winner will be either the Big Bad (Team Rocket) or the Pokémon League (the combined forces of the Elite Four and Gym Leaders). This will be the largest-scale conflict.
The Independent Team winner will, obviously, be whichever of the many player-made/unofficial teams gets the most territory. This will likely have the most competitors, but each team will be smaller.
The Lone Wolf winner is a special case. This only applies to individuals who don't affiliate themselves with any team. Since a Lone Wolf can't really hold more than one Slot at a time,
Lone Wolves are awarded a permanent 1CP for each unique Slot they take. This means that retaking a Slot twice won't provide any benefit, encouraging Lone Wolves to roam and disrupt the whole map.
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