Book of war: Basics and not only basics. Second edition(12.2016).

The first goal for any Player to Player(PVP) is to grab resources. If you don't want to be attacked - don't keep huge piles of resources. You can read about managing resources in "book of peace" post. 

Make your decision of attacking someone on the ballance for the possible profit and threat. 
You can gain resources by attacking enemy castle. 
You can gain little Draco experience along with every battle. 
You can loose all your troops in attack. Don't do any attacks unless you sure. I have seen a lot of people and full alliances "deleting the game" after they slay their whole army with only one foolish attack.

Damaged troops are going either to "dead" or "wounded". Dead - you lost them forever, wounded- you can heal them in your own hospital, or in alliance hospital.
Dead is 5 or even more times worse then wounded. If you have 15k woinded in defend and your enemy lost 5k dead in attacking you - this means you got victory in fact, not defeat.
When your army are getting wounded - troops goes to your own hospitals first, check your hospital capasity and keep it modest. After limit reached they go to alliance hospital, if your alliance have one. After that second limit reached - they go to dead.
Bait type troops are always die(destroyed). If you see killed troops in your castle defend report - that could be traps only, in case your hospitals not overloaded.
Best troops (higher level infantry) die first. This gives one more important difference between defence and attack. In attack you loosing your best troops. In defence you saving them.

Dead or wounded in different situations:

Attack on castle. Rally on castle. Reinforce defence.

Attacker - dead
Defender - wounded
Reinforcer(defender) wounded.

Attack on tile, camping troops, farm, sawmill.
Attacker - wounded
Defender - wounded

Attack on alliance stronghold, tower, demolishing enemy alliance building.
Owner of the building - wounded.
Enemy of the building - dead.
Notice once again - does not care if you attack or defend. Key here will be: is it yours building or not.

War items.

Shield your castle against any enemy activity(also called "condom protection" :D ). It protects against recoissance too, Don't forget to take away your "on tile" troops. They not defended by the castle shield. Any your aggression will uncover defence shield. Shield timers don't plussing. If you double use 8 hours it will still be 8 hours. You can send troops to defend your alliance teamates from the shielded castle(reinforce). You can makes fights to defend your alliance buildings. When you making a rally on your own tower, to kick demolishing enemy troops out of there - this is defence!
You can not use shield just after you broke your previous shield to do some aggressive action. 30 minutes delay.
Canceling single attack or war rally. Rally cancel is much more expensive.
Items to rise up your attack, defence and max march capacity. Use them in any hard PVP battles.
Items to speed up current march. There is no speedups for rally. Very important item for big pvp battles. Don't spoil them just because you don't want to wait...
Lord talent "Emergency recall." With this troops can be recalled home in 3 sec once in every 8 hours. 
Teleports. Is also a war items. Use them to come closer to the enemy or to completely hide away from them(random teleport).

Some war actions.

Simple attack. is not so simple in fact :)

Ok you have power and want to use it somehow.

Spy enemy castles around you. Find some lower lvl castl with alot of resources.
If Draco in town and no much troops - this could mean that there is not much troops at all. If no Draco in town - be carefull.
You send your troops in attack. Check the time in wich your spy is getting to the enemy. let say it is 30 sec.  Before 50 seconds to attack send the spy again! Spy report will come in about 20 second before your main force hits the enemy, so you have time to see report. If you see heavy reinforcement troops in report - cansel the attack. This is the safiest way to do attack, but it still very dangerous, that is why:
Using Lord talent "Emergency recall." If you under attack and have your troops away then use emergency recall in 10-5 seconds before you will be hit. Officially they should come back in 3 seconds + ping delay. This will be good surprise for incoming enemy. You can do it when your troop marching to attack enemy, or coming back from anywhere.
Anti "Emergency recall." Enemy seems to be smart enough and online? You think he will use emergency?  Then use cansel attack item in 3 seconds before your attack will come. If you see him using ER - he cant do it in next 12 hours. 

False Rally - very dangerous bait maneuver, much better then emergency recall, see special post about it.
Reinforcing could be very effective. Assume you just log in to game and see your teamate resources being plungered by multiple single attacks from one or few enemies. Try to reinforce him in the last moment so that enemy could not react and get his force back. That is the great moment for you to use march speedup items.
Tile attack. (farm, sawmill, or field camping troops attack).
You can't make rally. You can't make reinforcement. No any cheats and bugs i know here. No profit except dragoon experience and kill rating goes up. But this attack still very good if you want just damage your enemy in resources, or plan to attack his castle next. If you are careful novice player - farm attack is best way for you to try your swords and do some help in mass pvp war.
Defence by moving out. You see really heavy enemy force(rally) incoming and you don't have much resources to take from you. Just move your force out from the castl for the battle time. You can go to hit monster, or just camp outside. Sorry, nobody home.

The rest of the tips.

There gonna be big alliance war, but I can't play at the moment. What should I do?
1). Most expensive and effective.
Put on castle shield and don't send troops to a farms\sawmills.
2). Ask your teammates if someone planning to shield his castle. You can put your troops in that castle to protect them. Don't keep piles of resources. You need surely ask your teammate about what time he will have his shield on. And is he sure don't want to take it down, and took his part in the war little later.
3)Bare-ass beggar variant :)
Move your troops to some pretty far away farm or just in the field camp. Possibly - if they don't been spotted, or enemies don't have time for that - troops will be full ok, when you need them back.
4) Coward variant - use random teleport. This way you will not be able to do any help to your team until you teleport back.
5) Special false rally cheeki-breeki 1 hour variant... read on special post.

There gonna be big alliance war. I am novice, but I want to help. What should I do?
Do not spam in alliance chats. In my practise there was a moment when we had to kick 2 players even before big war comes true. They were hyper aroused and start to send some psycho messages...
Click "help hands".
Do spying and false attacks with bunches of 5 troops to entangle the enemies. False attack done with: 5 inf, 5 horses 5 archers 5 carts and draco. This heroes will die... but this will look as a real attack :)
You can put spy report in alliance chat if you found something interesting like millions of resources...
Keep in mind that if your watchtower low - you can't see reinforcements and full rally power, some other things.
Keep an eye on the map. Inform about enemies teleporting in and out. Put coordinates to the chat in format like xxx:yyy.
Put little of your troops in open spaces of your hive(outside camping) - to make it protected from enemy teleportations. Close standing enemy is very dangerous.
You can try to reinforce your mates.
Reinforce with no carts, or with the cavalry only, if you feel that you can't get in time other way.
Reinforcing is good most of the time... but there is exceptions. So read the alliance chat carefully.
Sometimes you should not reinforce your teammate.
It could be special bait maneuver. It could be no need, if there is no defence troops and no resources. Sometimes it is no need, because enemy is too heavy.
If there is a little capacity of defender castle(that depends on embassy lvl) send your only best lvl troops.

While PVP war going it is very useful for your mates, if you press "help hands" time and again. Troops could be healed in short bursts, this can be very quick with help of your alliance.

For pvp you need high lvl: troops, watching tower, embassy, hall of war(needs gold), hospitals, red or black Draco, wartype lord talents.


My new blog on Dino War (a new game by KingGroup).