Siege guide: your base, your three attacks, your trophies

Siege replaces the old cells, generators, crude ore, forges and gang raids. You own one base, build it with two currencies you earn by playing, and raid other bases alone. This guide says what to do first. The full rules are on Siege Bases, Siege Posts, Guards & Traps, Siege Raids and Drachma & Tribute.

What Siege is

• Every pad in your base holds a post, and every post is held by guards. The Vault is held by the Vault Keeper.
• A raid is one player against one base, on a clock. Kill what holds a building and it falls. You never hit a building.
• A raider can take money from your treasury, Drachma and Tribute. Your storehouse chests are never touched.

Buy a base and use the grace

Buy a Low Security plot in /cell as soon as you reach level 30. It costs $100,000 and the first post is free. /base opens your base menu, where all building is done, and /cell tp <name> takes you to the base.

Do this even if you never plan to raid. You earn no Drachma and no Tribute without a base, and the storehouse is extra storage that raiders never touch.

A new base can't be attacked for 24 hours, and your first attack ends that grace. Attacks don't carry over to the next day, so don't save the grace by skipping them. On day 1, place your free post, spend the Drachma and Tribute you have, then use your three attacks. What you have spent can't be raided. The "Your Own Base" step in the quest lines walks you through it, and the Stonehold line carries on from there.

Drachma, Tribute and money

• /drachma exchange and /tribute exchange trade 3 of one for 1 of the other. Use it only when you are stuck: each trade loses two thirds. It does mean a pure miner can still train guards and a pure fighter can still build.
• Drachma can't be paid to other players.
• Higher base tiers, a higher Vault level and higher level monsters all pay more. /base shows your current rates.

If money is the thing you are short of, see the making money guide. For Tribute, the Expeditions guide is the fastest kills.

What to build first

1. Open /base, click an empty pad and place the free first post. A Low base can build Guard Post, Frost Mage, Lightning Mage and Archer's Tower. What each one does is on Siege Posts, Guards & Traps.
2. Upgrade the Vault with Drachma. A higher Vault level raises all the Drachma and Tribute you earn afterwards and keeps more safe from raiders, and its levels stay cheap next to the last level of a post. It has 3 levels and carries over when you move up a tier.
3. Fill every pad with a post. A Low base has 5 pads.
4. Level the posts, but leave the last level of each for late in the map. The last level of every post costs many times the level before it. The build menu shows the price before you pay.
5. Open Garrison from /base and train your guards with Tribute. Each post trains its own guards, and the Train button shows the next price. Guards start at a low level for your tier and train up to the tier's cap.

Garrison also sells two upgrades per post:

• Magic chance is the chance that each guard on the post arrives as a Magic guard in a raid. It has five steps of 10%, and the first costs 2,500 Tribute.
• A second move gives the post's guards a second attack that you choose. It costs 45,000 Tribute.

Once the guards are trained, buy Magic chance on your strongest posts before second moves, because its first steps cost far less. Treat this as a starting point: there is no defence data yet for Map 5.

Removing a post refunds half the Drachma you paid for it.

Attacking

Run /siege. Find a Raid gives you one base near your trophies. You can't pick, and cancelling is free.

• You get 3 attacks a day. They reset at 11 AM Pacific and do not carry over, so use all three.
• Dying in a raid keeps your inventory and levels. The raid ends there and is scored on the stars you had, so dying with no star still loses trophies.
• A raid is a solo PvE fight. Bring the gear and Hunter tree build you use for Expeditions. Base guards hit your Armour.
• The clock depends on the base you attack: 95 seconds at Low, 170 at Medium, 240 at High and Maximum Security, 300 at VIP.
• Flying, elytra, ender pearls, chorus fruit, wind charges and Riptide don't work during an attack.

Stars, one each, in any order:

1. Kill the Vault Keeper.
2. Fell half the buildings.
3. Fell every building.

One star is a win. Killing the Vault Keeper is also what takes the loot: 20% of the defender's treasury money, Drachma and Tribute above what their Vault keeps safe. When the clock is short, go for the Keeper first.

Every raid also pays you new Drachma and Tribute by your league, your stars and how much you destroyed. A full 3-star raid pays about an hour of mining or hunting, and a raid with no star still pays for what you knocked down.

Read the scouting report in Find a Raid before you click Attack. It lists every building on the pads with its level, the level the guards fight at, the Vault Keeper's level and about what the Vault pays. Traps are not on it. If you cancel, you get the same base again until you attack it or the day resets.

Defending

/base shows the line "Vault keeps ... safe" with your numbers. Only what sits above that can be taken, and only if your Vault Keeper dies. Built posts and trained guards can't be taken.

• Spend Drachma and Tribute before you log off. What is spent is safe.
• Keep the treasury paid, not full. Guards are paid from it every hour, online or offline. Deposit enough to cover the hours until you next log in: /base shows the hourly wage and how long the treasury lasts, and you are warned when it has less than 2 hours left. Top it up with /base deposit <amount>.
• If the treasury can't pay, your guards leave their posts and those posts start the next raid fallen. The Vault Keeper and your traps still fight, and a deposit brings the guards back.
• Don't overfill it. Deposits can never be withdrawn, and treasury money above the safe amount is raidable.
• A base takes at most 3 attacks a day, and one attacker can hit it once a day.
• A raider who takes no star loses trophies to you.

When you log in after a raid you are told who attacked, their stars and what was taken.

Moving up a tier

The last column is the day of the server level cap on which the tier's level can first be reached. There are 10 Maximum Security bases and 1 VIP base, so for most players High is the last move.

Move up the day you meet the gate and can afford the plot. Buy the new plot in /cells, then click Rebuild from blueprint in /base. Your buildings come back free at the levels you already paid for, the treasury comes with you, and the higher tier's Drachma and Tribute rates start at once. It also has more pads: 10 at Medium, 15 at High, 20 at Maximum Security, 25 at VIP. Guard wages are higher at each tier, so check the wage in /base after you move.

Empty your chests and pick up your mannequins before you move.

Don't abandon a base to start over. Abandoning removes the buildings with no refund and the treasury is lost.

Trophies, leagues and your gang

Everyone starts at 400 trophies. Wins add trophies and the defender loses them. Leagues are Bronze, Silver at 800, Gold at 1,400 and Ancient at 2,400.

• Attack at least once every week. Weekly league rewards pay Obols and Drachma on Fridays, and you need one attack that week to be paid. Bronze pays 25 Obols and 100 Drachma.
• Your league also sets your raid pay.
• Gang top (/gtop) is the sum of your gang's best 5 members' trophies above 400. See the gangs and outposts guide.
• Your gang can raise your income: the Drachma Gained and Tribute Gained gang upgrades, and the Drachma and Tribute outpost buffs.
• Siege Trophies Won is one of the weekly boards.

/siegetop shows the boards and the rewards. Details are on Siege Trophies & Leagues and Gang Leaderboard & Reputation.