Clan Activities: Raids, Wars and Castle Sieges

Raids, clan wars and a castle siege step by step

A clan needs shared activities to stay alive: raids, wars and sieges. This article collects advice on organizing clan raids along with the rules of clan wars and castle sieges. The data reflects the clan system before Chronicle 5 (clan levels 0-5); alliances and alliance wars are covered in Alliances.

Clan raids

To keep morale up you need all sorts of events - from friendly get-togethers to boss raids.

No spontaneous decisions. Plan everything in advance: meeting time and place, roles and duties during the raid. Failed raids are worse than no raids at all.
Assess the clan's strength realistically. Do not take characters below level 40 to Orfen, or level 60 characters to Ishka: nobody will get satisfaction or teamwork experience out of it.
Clear leadership. Competent command from the leader and unquestioning execution of orders are the foundation of a successful raid.
Do not let members level alone. Split players into parties according to their levels and class abilities - this teaches them to work as a team and use the strengths of their classes. Experiment with different party setups.
Help support classes. Be sure to help level dwarves, buffers and healers. This keeps them in the clan and strengthens its spirit: if a clan takes care of its members, loyalty is high and the risk of a split is minimal.

Clan wars

Sooner or later conflicts arise between clans - over good leveling spots or a struggle for power. Remember that the whole clan answers for the actions of one member: talk to troublemakers in time and take measures, up to expulsion, to avoid needless wars. But do not let other clans walk all over you either - honor preserved is worth more than a lost battle.

Declaring war

Only clans of level 3 and higher can declare war.
A clan of any level can accept a challenge.
A clan cannot declare war on more than one clan at a time, but can accept challenges from several clans.
You cannot declare war on a clan that is in an alliance.
The enemy clan leader must be online and accept the challenge.
The challenge is sent from the ACTIONS window, CLAN tab.

Once a war starts, members of the warring clans get a symbol - white crossed swords. Swords on a blue background mark your clan and the allies fighting on your side; on a red background, your enemies and their allies.

War rules

Members of warring clans can fight anywhere except towns - towns remain the only safe zone.
PK rules do not apply between warring sides, and there is no need to turn on PvP mode.
Town guards do not interfere in clan fights.
If a player is killed by a member of the enemy clan, they lose 25% of the experience normally lost.
If a player is killed by a pet or summon, they lose 100% of the experience normally lost.
A clan cannot be disbanded during a war.

Ending a war

If your clan is losing, it is better to end the war before morale collapses after endless defeats. A war ends in three cases:

the leaders of both clans agree to a truce;
the leader of one clan surrenders - the leader loses 100% of the experience normally lost;
all members of a clan surrender - each loses 100% of the experience normally lost.

Defeat can cost a clan not only its reputation but its existence: many clans have fallen apart after a few failed wars.

Castle sieges

Only clans of level 4 and higher can take part in sieges, either to win a castle or to stop others from taking it.

Registration

The clan leader can register the clan as an attacker or a defender. You can register to defend only if the castle is not owned by NPCs, i.e. is not neutral. A clan cannot be registered for sieges of several castles at once. The siege start time can be checked with the Herold NPC.

No later than 24 hours before the siege, the clan leader visits the Herold NPC standing on the road leading to the castle.
The leader chooses DEFEND to defend the castle or ATTACK to try to capture it.

The attackers' flag

During a siege, the leader of an attacking clan can set up a clan flag, where fallen clan members will respawn (and they will fall more than once). Without a flag, attackers respawn in the town belonging to the besieged castle. Setting up the flag costs 300 Gemstone C Grade. The defenders can destroy the flag, and since it cannot be set up again, this effectively means defeat for the attacking clan.

Siege rules

When the siege starts, teleports to towns belonging to besieged castles stop working.
A scroll of escape takes you to the nearest town whose castle is not under siege at that time, so gather your clan in advance in the town closest to the besieged castle.
When the siege starts, all players near the castle who are not registered for it are moved to the castle's town.
A siege lasts 2 hours. If the castle is not captured, it stays with its previous owner until the next siege.
Dying during a siege costs 25% of the experience normally lost.

The attackers' goals

The attackers must break into the castle by destroying the outer and inner gates; then the clan leader must find the "Heart of the Castle" - a magic crystal - and cast the "Seal of Ruler" on it.

The outer gates can be broken by the whole clan or with siege engines summoned by a dwarf crafter:

Siege engine	Summon cost	Upkeep	Purpose
Siege golem	300 Crystal: C Grade	70 Gemstone: C Grade per minute	Its powerful blows easily break gates and pierce stone walls
Large cannon	120 Crystal: B Grade	30 Gemstone: B Grade per minute	Bombards the courtyard and walls, can break gates and walls (less effectively). Indispensable against archers and mages on the walls
Kamikaze golem	1 Crystal: D Grade	-	Deals huge area damage when it dies. Useful against crowds of enemies and for destroying protection crystals and attackers' flags

A dwarf crafter can control only one golem at a time, so decide in advance what to summon. The golem disappears if its owner runs out of crystals to sustain it, if the golem is killed, or if its owner is killed.

Once in the courtyard, the attackers break the inner gates. They are much weaker than the outer gates, but guarded far more heavily. A golem can pass through the broken outer gates only in the largest castles, while the small mobile cannon easily rolls into the courtyard - though you will have to protect both it and its owner: mobility comes at the price of vulnerability.

The next target is the room with the Heart of the Castle. Each castle has its own layout, and you will have to find the Heart of the Castle and the protection crystals by trial and error.

Seal of Ruler

Casting the Seal of Ruler takes about 10-20 minutes, and all that time the castle guards attack only the clan leader, ignoring everyone else. If the cast is interrupted, it has to start over, and there may simply not be enough time. Clan members must prevent the leader's death at any cost.

To do this, you can kill all the guards that do not respawn and then deal with the protection crystals - four statues in the center of the hall. Destroying each crystal increases the guards' respawn time, and if all 4 are destroyed the castle can be taken almost with impunity. In practice this is very hard - the defenders are on the alert.

The defenders' goals

The defenders' main task is to stop the attacking leader from casting the Seal of Ruler at any cost.

Fallen defenders respawn in the rooms adjacent to the Heart of the Castle.
If the attackers destroy all 4 protection crystals, fallen defenders respawn in the castle's town.

Both sides must stay alert: by concentrating all forces in one place, you can miss an enemy sortie and lose the battle before it really starts.

Intermediate victory

If the attacking leader casts the Seal of Ruler, the siege does not end: this is an intermediate victory, and the castle still has to be held until the siege time runs out.

All players near the castle who do not belong to the winning clan are moved to the castle's town.
The winning clan and the clans in its alliance become the defending side.
All clans registered to defend before the siege become attackers.
Clans registered as attackers remain attackers.
Clans that have not yet set up a siege camp may do so; clans whose camps were destroyed cannot set up new ones.

When the siege time expires, a warning is shown and all participants except members of the castle-owning clan are moved to the castle's town.

Additional notes

Clan wars

According to l2db.ru, only a clan with more than 5 members can accept a challenge. A clan already at war cannot declare war on another clan until its current war ends.
During a war, the clan crest is shown above characters' heads by default, and you do not need to hold Ctrl to attack an enemy.
A player can surrender even if the war is not over: he gets an experience penalty equal to one death and cannot rejoin that war. You surrender on the clan tab of the Actions window.
For a clan to surrender, at least one of its members must be online. If a clan surrenders, its leader gets an experience penalty equal to one death. An offer of peace accepted by the other side counts as a draw.
Whatever the outcome, neither clan can declare new wars for 5 days.

Castle siege basics (from l2db.ru)

The data refers to the early chronicles (C1-C2), when 5 castles could be captured: Gludio, Dion, Giran, Oren and Aden.

Initially all castles belong to NPCs. If the owning clan is disbanded, the castle returns to its original state.
Only the castle owner chooses the time of the next siege, through the Chamberlain, and it cannot be changed afterwards. This must be done within 24 hours of the capture; otherwise the game schedules the siege 2 weeks after the castle was taken. All sieges take place on weekends (Saturday or Sunday).
Until the next siege the castle takes no damage from any attack, so the capturing clan is safe for 15 days.
Clans of level 4 and above can officially take part in a siege (with the right to win the castle). Lower-level clans and clanless players can also fight, but have no rights to the castle.
Defenders register with the Guard Master or Chamberlain ("Request Participation for Siege Defender"); the castle owner must accept the requests and close the list 24 hours before the start. The owning clan is listed automatically and cannot be removed.
When the siege starts, some NPCs around the castle stop working, all gates close, and all characters inside the fortress who are not registered as defenders are moved to the second-nearest town from the castle. Fallen attackers also respawn there.
Attacking clans from different alliances have no relation to each other. An unregistered character belongs to neither side.
You do not need Ctrl to attack an enemy, and ranged attacks damage only enemies. The PK counter does not work on the battlefield; combat mode lasts for a while after leaving the battlefield, but the player does not become a PK. Dying costs some experience, but no items drop.
Gates can be attacked only during a siege. They can be reinforced only before the siege, through the Chamberlain; destroyed gates are not restored until the siege ends and are restored right after it.
A camp (flag) can be set only by the leader of a clan registered as an attacker, only on the battlefield and only during the siege. According to l2db, the leader must have 10,000 adena in the inventory, which is spent on the camp. The camp is a respawn point, and HP and MP regenerate faster near it. The flag has HP; if it is destroyed, clan members respawn in the second-nearest town. The camp disappears when the siege ends.
The castle passes to the clan whose leader engraves his name on the holy artifact; this takes time and cannot be interrupted. Leaders of defending clans cannot interact with the artifact. Changing the artifact's owner before the siege ends is a "half victory": the sides swap roles, all castle features including the respawn point pass to the captors, and the capturing clan's flag disappears.
The castle owner can temporarily hand over control of castle functions to clan or alliance members (the rights delegation system appeared in Chronicle 2). Taxes are collected from the head Chamberlain. Aden Castle, as the capital, also collects taxes from Gludio, Oren, Giran and Dion.
Castle owners can use the castle warehouse and three kinds of gatekeepers: inner castle - outer castle, outer castle - castle item, inner castle - castle item. Defenders respawn in the inner living quarters, and the holy artifact stands in the chamber behind the throne room. There is no passage into the castle from outside the outer wall, but there is an exit useful for the defenders.
Aden Castle is surrounded by two rings of walls; both walls have gates, and certain wall sections can be destroyed by a siege golem. Traps controlled from the Flame Watchtower can be placed between the first and second outer walls. The central part of the castle is essentially another castle.
The Flame Watchtower activates the castle's defensive devices; the side that captures the tower can turn its functions on for adena. The devices create zones that constantly drain HP and zones that slow movement; the zones have 4 strength levels depending on the amount spent. If the tower is destroyed, all zones stop working.

Tips for besiegers (C1, from l2db.ru)

The tips apply to taking a standard castle (any except Aden) from NPCs.

Prepare 1-2 weeks before registration. Each clan needs about 1,000 Gemstone C (some for the leader's flag, the rest for the dwarf), 2,000-3,000 Crystal D (to summon the golem and servitors) and soulshots for every clan member. Hand out the shots right before the siege, or they will be spent or lost. Make sure everyone has a weapon and armor.
Agree on the siege time in advance so that everyone is online on the day. It helps to gather the whole clan in one gaming club (the connection there is usually more stable) or to use voice chat such as Skype or TeamSpeak.
Draw up a clear plan, choose a general to give orders, split into parties in advance and appoint a leader for each. Chat discipline is a must.
Before the siege everyone should set graphics to the minimum (there is a special checkbox for that).
Post a few people to guard the bridge and drive off everyone not taking part in the siege: a crowd of onlookers causes lag, and some of them even shoot at the besiegers.
The guard squad on the bridge can be wiped out like this: a shaman runs under the bridge and poisons the guards with Frost Flame - they cannot reach him there.
If a shaman casts a clan buff, many guards aggro on him, and he can lead them away from the siege (for example, lock them in the castle basement, where they cannot get out); this needs Wind Walk.
Might and Shield buffs work well on the siege golem.
While the leader is engraving the seal, all besiegers must gather in the artifact room; at least one healer or buffer should keep buffing the leader nonstop to draw the spawning guards.

Original "Tips for besiegers" author: ZeroGM