Faction Guide

I. Power and Claiming

Typing /f claim will claim the chunk you are standing in for your faction. As you should know, neutrals and faction-less people are unable to hurt you while you are standing in your territory. Anyone that is not in your faction cannot build, or use and open things in your claimed land. Each claimed land is a 16x16 chunk extending from the bedrock to the sky.

Land requires power. Every piece of land, or every chunk, takes up one power. Every person has a maximum of 10 power, so a single person can have 10 chunks/piece of land. For every new player in a faction, the faction will increase its maximum power by 10. A 4-people faction has 40 maximum power, and 40 maximum chunks of land.

Power is lost on death, usually 3. Losing power can enable your faction to lose land. It is possible to lose enough power to have negative power, which can really hinder your faction. For example, if player Runic has 10 power, and his ally Alch has 10 power, their faction will have 20 maximum power and a maximum of 20 plots of land. However, if Runic is slain, he will have now 7 power. This drops the faction's power to 17/20, since Runic now lost 3 power from his death, and now can only claim 17 plots of land. Power can regenerate over time, at a constant but slow rate.

Losing power means losing land, but not immediately. If a faction loses enough current power so that their current power is lower than their plots claimed, they are susceptible to having their land claimed away by other factions.
Let's say Mythos has two members, Runic and Alch. They have claimed 15 pieces of land, and their /f list should say 15/20/20 ( in the format Lands claimed / current power / Maximum power). If Runic gets killed, the faction's power drops to 17. Because the current power is still greater than the lands claimed, Mythos's lands are safe. Now if Alch also is killed, the faction's power drops to 14, which is below the amount of lands claimed. Mythos can now lose one of its chunks to a neutral or enemy that /f claims it.

This is why deaths are so important, and why you have to kill a faction's member in order to raid or attack them. Watch your power at all times and avoid death.

II. Relationships

You should know that /f ally, /f neutral, and /f enemy exists and sets relationships between two factions. When two factions are allied, they cannot harm one another and claim land from each other. However, allies cannot use doors and chests, and build or break blocks on another's land. Alliances require a mutual /f ally.

When a faction declares another as an enemy, both becomes enemies to each other. Once enemies, both factions can harm each other on even the enemy's territory. You still, however, cannot build or destroy or use doors and chests in the enemy lands. Declaring someone as enemy is crucial to raiding and stealing. Do not forget to do it or you will look foolish trying to ambush someone and end up wacking their face harmlessly.

III. Closing a Faction

One can open or close their faction with /f open, which toggles between opening and closing the faction. An open faction allows anyone to join it if they wish to. A closed faction requires an invitation with /f invite <player name>. It is recommended to check if your faction is closed immediately.

IV. The Base

Having a good base in a good location is very important. While building a base further away from the server's spawn can protect you from attacks, it may also hinder you from returning to it should your home chunk is every claimed away. It may also be harder to attack and raid other factions, whom are usually found near spawn.

Always claim, then build. One can save a lot of power, for you are defining your base to the lands you claim, not vice versa. In a PVP server, consider function over beauty. Think about how an enemy can enter your base. For starters, while people cannot destroy your base with their hands, they can use many other tools. Fire can burn down wooden walls, TNT cannons can tear large holes, and even Endermen can destroy your base, if enabled. Also prepare for the use of enderpearls, which can be used to travel over large walls or over dangerous traps. Finally, a Nether portal can be used to get inside your base, whether through one you built, or one created from traveling through the Nether. A roof can counter enderpearls and pillaring, and building a door for your portal can block it.

Finding a good location is crucial. The middle of an ocean is a great spot, as enemies will have a hard time to swim to your base, and nobody would actually go search for a base in the middle of a wide, blank ocean. The Nether is also a great spot, as like the ocean, not many would search for a base in it, but beware of people using ghasts to blow up your base.
If building in the overworld, an underground base with no distinct surface buildings is very good. Avoid big caverns, and try to build as deep as possible to avoid having your name tags seen by hunters. Always think about how an enemy would infiltrate your base.

Watch your power and try to use as little as possible. Remember, while every person in the faction adds 10 maximum power, a person with -10 power will take away 20 (10 from the power they contributed, and 10 from the negative power). Ask yourself if your faction can sustain your members, and if you are sure they will not leave, die, or betray your faction. To me, members are not to have extra lands for the base. Extra members are to make it harder for enemies to raid my base, as the enemy has to kill much more times before they can lower the faction's power to be able to claim away land. The less lands claimed, the better.

As I said, claim first, then build. This allows your base to be "chunk-aligned", fully utilizing your land as efficient as possible. If one builds a base, then claims it, they can find that they are using more power to claim something that only may have required 1 power. Claiming first allows you to know your territory's boundaries, where you can build, and how big your base can be. Use /f map on to see your lands. Remember, every plot is a 16x16 square.

Finally, a key rule to remember is that enemies must start from an edge plot to claim your land, and cannot claim a plot that is surrounded on all 4 sides by other claimed chunks. Thus, it is better to claim in a diamond/cross shape, with the most important chunk (storage/home) in the middle, with no sides touching wilderness or another faction's lands.

Now that you have your boundaries, build a wall. A very common mistake to avoid is to build on claimed land. Many careless factions have built their walls on the wilderness, where it can be destroyed by anyone. Check with your chat or your faction map to make sure you are building on claimed land. In reality, you are not fully utilizing a 16x16 piece of land, but rather a 14x14 for your chunk of land.

Now that the outer base is set up, it is time to build the interior. For the faction's home, make sure to build a one way access, such as a high platform and a pool on the bottom, or a one way iron door, so that the only way to get back to the spawn/home is to type /f home. This will prevent you or your allies from getting spawn-killed over and over again, as the enemy cannot access your spawnpoint. A chest full of weapons and food in the spawn is also important into defending it should you ever die.

Remember, utilize as few power as possible. I recommend not building horizontally, but vertically, with much of your important rooms in the home plot. A mine is generally not recommended in your base, as they are some of the easiest entrances to infiltrate with their numerous caverns. Instead, build a mine away from the base in the wilderness.

Finally, use a lot of doors and trapdoors. Put as much as you can. This will hinder an enemy's movement as they cannot use your doors and trapdoors.

V. War

Warfare, my favorite part of factions. Most faction battles follow this sequence: attack, infiltrate, kill, claim, and steal. First, a war starts with a target. If you are raiding for resources, you should search for a faction that is rich, and easy to attack. /f list is a useful tool for all attackers. Constantly spam /f list and keep note of either factions with less current power than their current land, or those that are near having less power than their current land.

If an enemy has a lot of people, but little land, obviously they will be an extremely hard faction to kill. You will even need a majority of their members to be on, just so you can kill enough people to lower enough power. Instead, search for a faction with lots of land and lots of people online. Again, use /f list and /f show constantly to keep track of other factions and to search for potential targets. Use it before raiding and during raiding to see if you have killed enough people and if you can start claiming away land. Remember that the format in /f list is (current land / current power / maximum power). Not many people will realize that they are dying multiple times and that their power is lowering.

Now that you have a target, you have to find their base to attack. The best way to do this is by just wandering around, with /f map on, until you find some claimed land on the map, or try to deceive them or someone else into giving you the coordinates. Once you have the coordinates, remember them or write them down. The next step is to infiltrate, declare war, and slaughter them. One thing I recommend is to not immediately declare a target as an enemy, as you may alarm and provoke them. Instead, keep your faction neutral until the very last second.

All bases have flaws, no matter how defensive or impenetrable they may seem. Both vanilla Minecraft and the server's plugins may have many features you can use to infiltrate a base. An enderpearl or pillaring in the nearby wilderness allows you to go over walls. TNT and fire can tear down bases if enabled. Alternatively, if you look down at the ground, you may find name tags walking around, which may indicate a mine that you can then dig into.

If you find a flaw, try not to let the enemy know, so they won't seal it up. Flee/exit an enemy base with teleportation (/f home, /spawn) rather than back through the hole you came through.

Finally, the slaughtering. Always use shift to sneak, and always make sure that you ambush them. Try to attack them while they are mining, focused on farming, etc. Surprise is a good weapon to have. Once you are ready to leap down and stab them, quickly switch to /f enemy. For tips on PVP, go to my guide here: www.minecraftforum.net/topic/566325-pvp-guide-for-noobs/.

VI. Misc Tips
Deceive your enemies with tricks. Maybe offer an alliance and then offer to go to their base.
If being attacked, and only you declared war with /f enemy, you can quickly /f neutral the attacker so that they can't damage you, allowing you to get an easy kill.
Remember to stalk other factions. Type /f list and /f show routinely, so you can see if an opportunity arrises.
One of the best times to attack is if your enemy has already died multiple times. This way, you will only have to kill less.
Remember, if you or your faction is low on power, avoid dying, so avoid doing dangerous activities until your power regenerates. Also, typing /spawn and /f home can help you escape getting killed. You cannot type /f home if you are on enemy territory and if there is an enemy nearby.
Take notice of your surroundings. Do you see any players or name tags moving? Use the enemy base's environment to your advantage. You can easily snipe enemies from high city walls.
Remember, you cannot open enemy doors. Many times a careless factions leave their doors open, allowing you to walk in.
Likewise, remember to close doors and trapdoors in your own base. Add pressure plates for automatic closing on one way exits.
To make it extra hard for an enemy to navigate around, put as many one way exits as you can, such as dropping into a pool of water instead of ladders.
When stealing land from enemies, you cannot claim chunks that have 4 other chunks surrounding it. The border chunks must be claimed first.