The Rise and Fall of The Inquisition

If you subbed to me for damage guides and game tools, this article isn't really for you. But you can go check out the latest updates to the Build Tool in https://intel.warera.wiki/builder. There's a bunch of new features and I'm working on it every day. Feel free to reach out with your feedback and ideas for improvements.

Our story did not begin in the Vatican. My friends and I began playing in https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d546e731854c7ac832, our own country. https://app.warera.io/user/681e8d94f6f19b81b6bc45da and I were lucky enough to discover War Era back in May 2025, shortly after the game's last reset and transition from Alpha to Open Beta. We got fairly involved in our country's politics and found a great community in the early days, and one by one, others in our IRL friend group joined the game. But as Argentina grew and the geopolitical landscape shifted we felt out of touch with our community and the game, so late September we decided to move to https://app.warera.io/country/683ddd2c24b5a2e114af1609, start our own small MU, and take the opportunity to invite several more friends to join us. Thus the Ladyboy Legion was born.

Bangkok Spring

We picked Thailand for the memes and for the ladyboy roleplay potential, that is all. It was available for PTO since only two players were keeping it as a proxy for https://app.warera.io/country/683ddd2c24b5a2e114af15d9 even though it had been occupied by https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d446e731854c7ac7ae for many many months. We were so focused on negotiating our liberation that we failed to engage in proper diplomacy with our new neighbors. This of course resulted in us getting instantly invaded by Malaysia (a community four times bigger than ours) shortly after being released. I was already Top 1 total damage back then, and naively expected this reputation to afford us some credibility. But Malaysia did not care. After a very short war in which we almost held our own but ended up depending on some old friends from our previous MU https://app.warera.io/mu/6873ebf206cf11a5f9dbf7eb, we established a diplomatic relationship with Malaysia and signed an NAP.

During our few months in Thailand we saw the region grow, we got to witness the rebirth of the Asian Federation and failed to negotiate joining them several times due to the conditions of our NAP at first, and the growing demands of the federation towards the end. We were one of a few nations that tried to pull the region out of the world encompassing war between CULO and PABLO, and in the end it was https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d546e731854c7ac862's baby-boom and subsequent alliance to https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d446e731854c7ac7eb that managed to do so. As the region kept growing, we found ourselves with no significant diplomatic ties, no objectives and no real potential to expand anywhere but towards Malaysia (which was already being ganged up on by all of the AF). So we decided we would become mercenaries. Right about that time, the https://app.warera.io/country/69614d0e5d798a861630c58e was about to be added to the game.

Popeless Drama

Contrary to popular belief, I did not use privileged information or illegal scripts to get into the Vatican. I had not even gotten the idea of taking control of the Vatican until my friends talked about it, and that conversation started when the Vatican was added to the dev server on January 8th. That night, I updated my warera-intel site (now intel.warera.wiki) to look for the Vatican in the public api and notify me when it was added to the game. As soon as it did (around 14 hours later) I typed "vatican" into the game's search bar, and beat three other players by mere seconds.

In case you don't know exactly what that is: an API is basically a set of windows into the game's records that anyone can use to ask questions and get answers. These are public and legal. I realize using tools like this might sound unfair if you aren't familiar with them, but they are a part of the game's competitive landscape and many users take advantage of them to create wonderful tools for their communities.

Again, I had no privileged information. I did not know when https://app.warera.io/user/6813b758efecdf9bab195068would push the update. In fact, I told him exactly what I was doing and I believe he took special care in not letting anyone know when the update was coming. There was no announcement, no downtime, nothing. It just dropped, and I happened to be sitting on my computer and saw the notification, took control and that was it.

Legally Distinct Grimdark Inquisitors

Thus the Inquisition was born. We moved from Thailand to the https://app.warera.io/country/69614d0e5d798a861630c58e, renamed the MU, updated our profiles to 40k inspired characters and began our work as mercenaries. Some of us had been farming damage as sustainably as possible for almost six months by that point, so a big part of that skillset was transferable. Before, we had always prioritized meaningful relations. Even if we didn't like to make formal diplomatic agreements whenever we could avoid them, we really cared about establishing communication with important and trustworthy members of other communities. Now, we had to come to terms with the fact that money was king, so we embraced the philosophy of The Tithe. We made it part of our roleplay as Inquisitors.
https://app.warera.io/article/69626f5ee705ef34433d98e3

The one rule was not to turn the Vatican into actual Catholic roleplay, we could walk the line but never cross it. One of the main reasons we had taken this path was to prevent people who would take things way too seriously and spread xenophobic and religiously intolerant messages through the game, least of all while claiming to be Pope. Thus, we said the Pope was missing, and that we stood watch. We leaned into the "authoritarian tyrants of the Vatican" side of our growing infamy and kept playing.

A Real Pope

There were many haters. We expected so. But there was one opposition agent who did not spew hate but facts. He only criticized with truth (even if he did sort of spread the rumor of me using privileged information and/or cheats to take over at first). https://app.warera.io/user/697b1c3375e83770b288d1db was upset at our choice of nation and occupation, and he had every right to be. Yet he did not insult and bicker. He debated, he denounced but most of all he roleplayed. We communicated much and often, and in time I agreed to let him become internal opposition. He came to understand our point of view, and started to collaborate.

https://app.warera.io/article/69a70d0e8d90ba4dbb9f0535

In all honesty, I had already decided to leave the Vatican then. People wanted to play in the Vatican and we were in the way. So I talked to Crowley and told him I would accept all new citizens during March. What I did not expect was for my friend https://app.warera.io/user/682fdd003fe328ddb36effacto rise to the challenge and work as hard as he did to try and win the election. To the world, we had been the evil oppressor, the heel to Crowley's valiant resistance of holy heroes. It still shocks me that he was a mere three votes from victory, after we had let more than 20 players join the Vatican throughout last month.

He actually proselytized, he campaigned, he made many see that we were role-players too. Even if our identity as mercenaries made us utilitarian "villains", there was role-play in that too. He also thought of a way forward, he envisioned a fusion of ideas with Crowley. Allowing the Vatican to become multicultural and open to anyone while still employing the Inquisition. But in the end, the people chose Crowley.

Chad is Born

Without control of government in the Vatican, we wouldn't be able to control the ethics, alliances and orders. We would lose lots and lots of money fighting with suboptimal battle bonuses, which is an even harder blow now that contracts are suspended and we all have to compete for bounties again. We turned to our number one option for a new home: https://app.warera.io/country/6873d0ea1758b40e712b5f7c. As twice before, we picked the country for the memes and roleplay potential. https://app.warera.io/mu/68e6858b97ef61438565d180 from https://app.warera.io/country/6873d0ea1758b40e712b5f7c. But it was also a proxy of https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d446e731854c7ac7b6, and had been for many many months now. So I got in touch with the Romanians and came to an agreement, we won't take contracts against their country, and we can have Chad. I really underestimated the impact the Inquisition had in the last few months of war, it appears our work has earned us at least that much reputation with the Romanians, who never once took out a contract with us but still decided to trust us. Thank you Romania, very cool. Chad will always keep his word.

https://app.warera.io/mu/68e6858b97ef61438565d180 is https://app.warera.io/country/6873d0ea1758b40e712b5f7c.

P.S: Don't unsub, I'll continue to bring soldier guides and optimization content in the future. Or unsub if you're a hater, you do you. Like if you want more people to hear about Chad. And tip if you love vatou.

P.S.S: For all AI haters I wrote all of this by hand and spent like an hour editing it, so eat a snickers before you AI;DR me in the comments.