Top Lords: How to Declare War on Map Cities and Siege Them

To declare war on a city in Top Lords, an R4 officer or the alliance leader (R5) must select a target city that directly connects to current alliance territory, confirm that an alliance declaration slot is open, and initiate the declaration. This action consumes alliance influence and triggers a mandatory preparation countdown. When the timer expires, the alliance must wipe out the defending NPC garrison through coordinated rallies and strike the city repeatedly until its wall durability reaches zero.

Prerequisites for Declaring War

An alliance cannot attack arbitrary targets across the kingdom. Before declaring war, verify that your alliance meets four mandatory conditions:

Requirement	Condition	Operational Purpose
Rank Authority	R4 Officer or R5 Leader	Prevents unauthorized members from spending declaration tokens and triggering cooldowns.
Territory Border	Direct physical border adjacency	The map system blocks declarations against unlinked structures.
Declaration Slots	At least one available slot	Restricts simultaneous multi-front sieges across the kingdom.
City Tier	Progressive tier unlocking (starting at Level 1)	Forces linear map progression from border outposts to central hubs.

Alliances start by targeting Level 1 villages and border outposts. As your borders expand from these initial captures, you can link to higher-tier castles and central kingdom objectives. Officers should always confirm that sufficient active members are online before spending a declaration slot, avoiding wasted cooldowns during low-activity server hours.

Preparing During the Countdown Window

Declaring war does not launch combat immediately. It begins a visible preparation countdown that alerts both your alliance and rival groups across the server that the city is contested. Use this preparation window to position your forces:

Relocate member castles close to the target: Have participating members use targeted or random teleports to cluster just outside the city's red zone. Marches over ten minutes give city defenses time to recover; keeping march times under thirty seconds allows immediate reinforcement and rapid rally cycling.
Clear hospital space: Ensure all participants heal existing wounded units before battle. Siege warfare causes substantial hospital overflow, and an unmanaged hospital leads to permanent troop loss.
Organize rally leads: Designate high-power players with high-star combat tanks and developed frontline heroes to lead the offensive rallies. Lower-power members should fill these rallies rather than launching their own.

Siege Combat: Two-Phase Assault

Once the declaration timer reaches zero, the battle proceeds in two sequential phases:

Phase 1: Garrison Clearance

The target city spawns high-stat NPC garrison waves upon activation. Solo attacks against a fresh garrison result in severe casualties and fill hospital beds quickly. Designated rally leaders must launch mass rallies, with members supplying their highest-tier combat units that match the leader's commander aura. Rallies must continue cycling until the defending NPC garrison is completely wiped out.

Phase 2: Durability Depletion and Capture

After the garrison falls, the structure becomes vulnerable to structural siege damage. Members must send continuous waves of fast-marching squads and secondary units to hit the walls.

Maintain non-stop attacks: If assaults stall, the city initiates an automated durability recovery process that undoes siege progress. Keep a steady rotation of marches striking the gate until wall durability drops to zero.
Guard the perimeter: Assign fast cavalry squads to scout the surrounding area. Rival alliances can monitor ongoing declarations and attempt to snipe the final durability percentage or ambush returning wounded marches.

Once wall durability hits zero, the structure enters final occupation, securing control for the attacking alliance after the capture timer completes.

Rewards and Territory Expansion

Capturing a city grants both personal and alliance-wide benefits:

First-Capture Rewards: Participating members receive batches of free diamonds, universal speedups, and hero recruitment materials.
Alliance Buffs: The conquered city grants permanent passive bonuses, such as increased resource production rates, training speed increases, or kingdom march speed boosts.
Map Expansion: Ownership establishes a new territory radius, granting legal borders to declare war on deeper kingdom zones, higher-level resource nodes, and Level 2 or Level 3 fortresses. Strategic alliances should chain declarations along a direct path toward central high-yield chokepoints.