Selamat Sejahtera,
I'm Rin. I've been grinding this geopolitical MMO genre for almost 20 years now. Built alliances, led alliances, joined alliances... ran the whole spectrum from anarchist pirate crew to full-blown hegemonic dictatorship. I've led wars with thousands of players on each side. So yeah, I've pretty much seen every flavor of drama this game has to offer.
Most of my guides stay in Discord. But this one I'm putting out in public. Here's why:
FA involves others. If others play badly, it affects us.
People are afraid to do FA. So it gets monopolized by a few people who may hold too much power.
Many are interested, but don't know where to go. FA doesn't need extroverts, and even if you're an extrovert, it's simple.
Alright. Class is in session.
FA's job, in one word: WIN.
Before the war even starts, you should already know you've won.
Is the enemy strong?
How many of them are there?
Are we strong enough?
Who's got our back?
Who's got theirs?
Who will betray us?
If we win this war, will we still be here next week?
If we back this side, who ends up hating us? Loving us? Blaming us?
Do we come out of this stronger or weaker?
Is the land even worth holding?
Will this cause power vacuums?
If we genuinely can't win, what are our choices? Friendship? Groveling? Blackmail?
Work backwards and do the math.
Why do I care? Aren't they the enemy?
First arithmetic lesson: Our foreign affairs are their internal affairs.
I call this the Moral High Ground.
It's the concept as actual combat — if both sides are evenly matched, whoever's shooting uphill loses. Whoever's shooting downhill wins. Whoever's stuck on the low ground feels cornered, suffocated, surrounded.
Why does morale even matter here? Nations with a strong native/newbie base are patriotic.
That sacrifice is the whole point of playing. People go into debt, liquidate companies, whatever it takes. It doesn't matter that it's a game — nobody wants to just take, take, take forever. Sacrifice is part of the fantasy everyone signed up for.
Now imagine finding out you'd been fighting for the bad guys the whole time. Turns out we're the backstabbers. The liars. The hypocrites. We're the ones bullying and shaking people down. We're the ones who broke the promises. It doesn't feel good.
I genuinely don't think any community starts out rotten. Most people want to be the good guys. A community sitting on the moral low ground eventually splits between the ones who still want to do right, and the ones who've convinced themselves they "have to play dirty to survive."
Don't be a jerk
Don't say dumb things in public
Don't insult people for no reason — that reads as bully, not strategist
If someone in your alliance says something unhinged, reel them in fast before it goes viral
Got a good shitposter on your team? Let them cook. Free PR, don't kill the vibe
If someone starts spreading lies about you, kill it immediately. Rumors spread like a fire. Don't wait around hoping it burns out on its own. Keep a fire brigade on standby.
Guard your own credibility too. If you messed up, own it. Yeah, you lose a bit of swagger, but that beats being remembered as a liar forever.
Sometimes you gotta be the bad guy. It's called WarEra, not Peace Simulator. Everyone needs a villain. But don't be boring evil to kill the guilt, and don't dehumanize. Get creative.
And do give a damn about what your enemy thinks. Today's enemy is tomorrow's ally more often than you'd expect.
Finally, learn the difference between public and private. Everything said in public is a performance. Even a casual "how's it going" in the comments is a performance. If you want a real conversation, take it private.
There's over 100 nations in this game. Every single one plays favorites. That's just how it works.
There's no such thing as monogamy in WarEra diplomacy. No point getting jealous or possessive. Your friend has other friends. Your allies will pick which one to help. Even "neutral" parties are quietly picking sides. Everything is negotiable.
Here's the catch — if you neglect your ally's feelings, they'll drift off or prioritize someone else. And if you neglect a third party's feelings, don't be shocked when they show up as your enemy one day.
That said, don't go spamming memes every morning on every server.
Build relationships with actual depth. Love, hate, all of it. People play this genre specifically to have something worth sacrificing for. Be the friend someone's willing to lose for, and be willing to lose for someone else too.
Don't know where to start? Get into as many private chats as you can. It doesn't have to be one-on-one. MU chat, battle chat, embassy, meme channels, other games, mutual games, bug reports, SFW and not-so-SFW, bot chats. Cast a wide net.
Just be careful of voice chat. Because eventually someone'll say "I never said that" or "you heard wrong," and then some random will go, "wait, I heard Rin was in VC with the president of Russia... what's THAT about?"
Don't stonewall people.
Don't ghost them.
If someone asks a rude question, better to just answer it bluntly than to go silent. If you genuinely don't know how to respond, go check with your team first.
I'm not saying leak confidential stuff, but just at least point them to whoever can answer. Give them something. Treat it like a customer demanding the impossible — you don't have to deliver, but at least look like you tried.
Golden rule: Go looking for excuses to help people.
Stop being calculative about it. Someone wants to borrow 100? Give them 100, then forgive the debt. It stresses me out watching people calculate interest on this stuff. You're not getting rich off that 5 gold in interest.
Help the weak ones. Some of today's underdogs are tomorrow's monsters and you want them remembering you kindly.
Some people pay it forward when they can. These are friends.
Some people take advantage and ask for more. These can die in a hole.
It's the easiest filter in the game — who's worth keeping, and who's worth ganging up against.
War is the pillar that holds up WarEra.
Like I said in the intro — make sure you've already won before it starts. 75% of the outcome is decided before the war. That's FA's job. Can we win? Do we even want to? Are our allies actually behind us? Are we war-weary? What's the enemy's state?
25% is decided after the declaration of war. Also FA's job.
Who's joining in?
Who's about to flip?
Who surrenders early?
Who burns out fast?
Who just quietly deletes the game?
What's the simplest way to cut down on all these risks?
First — Casus Belli (CB), your reason for war. Doesn't matter what it is. Self-defense? Fine, say self-defense. Bored? Say you're bored. What actually matters is that you're willing to stand behind it when questioned. Without a proper CB, people assume the worst. Your own citizens and allies start feeling used.
Second — Declaration of War (DOW). This locks everyone in. Switching out of eco mode mid-surprise-attack is genuinely painful, nobody wants that.
Some people love the "meme war declaration".
Why? Funny.
Except now nobody knows if it's a real war or not, or when it's supposed to end.
Is this enough damage yet?
It was just a joke, right? Right?
Then why are we sending jets?
Is the loss funny or just a loss?
Let the others play the prank, I'll eco.
If you can, foreshadow the war ahead of time. Build your case like you're going to court. Stack up evidence for your CB. The more receipts, the less blowback. Be patient — you gotta let the oil heat up before you throw anything in the pan.
That said, you don't need to formally DOW every single time. It's a good habit, not a hard rule.
One excuse I hear constantly: "Their leader already knows what they did. Why bother with a DOW?"
The DOW was never for their leader. It's for your citizens, their citizens, and every third party watching. It's the paper trail. Five years from now, someone's going to rewrite this story to make themselves the hero.
And once the war's over, that CB/DOW is exactly what gets used to draw the line at the end. Usually whoever started the meme war or the war-for-no-reason gets hit hardest when the bill comes due.
Wars are like a plane. Taking off is the easy part. Landing it is another story. And as a leader, landing the plane is literally your responsibility.
Most wars run hot-cold-hot-cold. 2-3 days of fighting, 2 weeks of eco, then back at it.
End the war the moment someone's clearly won. Winning means one side keeps getting stronger while the other keeps getting weaker. Winners snowball. Losers spiral — morale drops, players start disappearing.
End it while you're still ahead. That's your leverage window. Even if you're losing, scrape together whatever leverage you can find.
Ideally, 2-3 representatives per side. Why not just one person? It's hard for the same person to navigate negotiations while listening to the other side. But when you have too many representatives, it becomes a performance
I'm not a huge fan of reps.
They tend to drag wars out way past their expiration date. The losing side just keeps bleeding, and the winning side — do the math on what every extra battle actually costs you. It never adds up, it ends up being just a humiliation term.
Some people think the losing side needs to be made an example of. But the more this game matures, the more people avoid taking risks at all if punishment feels too brutal. And WarEra genuinely needs wars to keep happening.
White peace is totally fine too. Everyone gets to keep playing. Everyone gets their land back. GG, move on with your life.
But sometimes, yeah, one side actually needs to lose properly. And I don't think reps are the tool for that. Remember — whatever gets agreed to here is basically written in stone for the next 5 years.
For this, you can keep terms simple and airtight: "Antarctica admits defeat to the forces of North America."
Hard to spin that into a "strategic victory" or whatever revisionist nonsense later.
If you really need humiliation terms, consider meme terms instead. Make the losing leader post a selfie with shoes on their head. Make them write a poem about it. The winning side doesn't need to do much beyond that.
Every treaty changes things. Friend of my friend, enemy of my friend — you know the drill.
Having a treaty doesn't mean you're safe. Don't be scared of treaties, but understand others deeply, and find allies worth signing with.
Mutual/mandatory defense, mutual/mandatory offense, optional defense, optional offense — mix and match however you want. "Optional" is kind of a contradiction in terms, but fine. Just make sure your ally actually agrees on what it means. If you think it's mandatory while your ally thinks it's a formality, that's not good.
Here's a secret: Every treaty is optional.
Even the most lawful-good player alive will break a promise eventually. There's no police force arresting people for breaking treaties. It's all subjective. If that person's being crushed and they break the treaty to survive — are you really mad at them?
Personally, the treaty that makes the least sense to me is the NAP. You promise not to attack me. Then you attack me anyway. What actually happens? I attack back? Does some neutral third party police state swoop in and rescue me? Who knows.
NAPs are just vague. Some say NAP is a friendship gesture. But why is it being signed between enemies? Some FA officers just want to look productive, so they go and sign NAPs with everyone. Then after the next election, the next administration has to deal with these. People forget they have one all the time. Some people forget on purpose.
But sometimes NAPs are useful. Add an exit clause. Add an expiry too if you can, because canceling manually is a hassle. If you dig up a treaty from 5 months ago, is it even still valid at that point? Who's to say?
This whole treaty section loops back to the same core idea as everything else: These are just tools. Tools to avoid wars, delay wars, or win wars.
There's plenty more I could get into, but that's enough for today's lesson. Maybe next time — negotiation, intel, propaganda, small talk, and where to even begin.
This is an English translation/repost of https://app.warera.io/article/6a59bd931f42964f1d1452b2 for all the new MOFAs out there. Apologies if it sounds like a bad anime dub.