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castle wars

1.0 - Introduction
Castle Wars is a members' only mini game, somewhat similar to capture the flag. It is based on two teams - Zamorak and Saradomin - that infiltrate the opposing team's castle, to steal their standard, on the top floor. Guthix, being a balance of good and evil, is not a participating team within the Castle Wars scene.

However, you may enter the Guthix portal, and will be randomly sorted into Saradomin or Zamorak; whichever has the least people in it at that time. Take note that you may not wear a helmet or cape whilst in the waiting room, as you are given a "Hooded Cloak" to wear during the war. When you die during the war, you spawn back in the starting room, and can continue fighting with restored stats.

Most forms of attack can be used in the battle field, Because Barrows armor requires a helm, its specials are ineffective here, though the armor still works. The most efficient way to access this place, is by rubbing a ring of dueling, and choosing the "Castle Wars Arena" option. Otherwise, you will have to get to Yanille and walk west, or from Ardougne, head south-west from the Khazard battlefield on the west side of the river, then south to the Observatory, then south from there to the arena.

The Castle Wars arena, is located to the west of Yanille:

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2.0 - Features
Area Area Information
The Lobby The lobby is where everyone appears when a war has concluded. In the lobby, there is a bank chest, and Lanthus, who can trade decorative armour for your tickets. The lobby also shows the scoreboard, which can tell you just how good some teams are (Picture). When the 20 minute war is about to finish, and a mage or ranger is attacking you from a far away distance, the blast or arrow will hit you in the lobby if its cast before the game concludes, but will cause no damage, this is particularly annoying if it is an ice spell.
The Waiting Room Here you wait for the game to begin (Picture). When you enter the portal, if you are wearing God armour, symbols, or prayer books that show alignment with a god whose portal you are in, you will be transformed into an animal. Zamorak transforms you into a sheep (Picture) or imp, whilst Saradomin transforms you into a Sheep or Bunny (Picture). Everyone on your team will appear as dark blue dots on the mini-map, whilst your enemies are regular white dots.
The Castle There is one castle per team, each being almost the exact same in structure. There are five floors in the castle.

1 .Basement - Contains the tunnels which you can use to infiltrate your opponents castle.
2. Ground Floor - Contains the storeroom (Picture) and entrance to the castle. The storeroom contains barricades, toolkits, bronze pickaxes.
3. Second floor - The starting room (Picture) contains a portal to exit the war, the bandages table, and a ladder leading up one floor. Outside is a corridor where opposing players run around and up another level.
4. Third Floor - Here is where you have to have enough protection to prevent the opponent from getting to the fourth floor. It also contains a trapdoor down into the starting room.
5. Fourth Floor - This is where the Standard is kept. This room is where you must bring back the opposition's standard to get a point. The room is usually heavily guarded, but its small size usually makes it hard to kill a prepared player.

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3.0 - How To Play
Castle Wars is a simple enough concept to understand. Walk into a portal, whether it be Saradomin, Guthix or Zamorak, wait until the 25 minutes has passed (Or receive an invitation to the existing game if the team is short of players) and then enter the arena. The mini-game involves:

Protecting your standard (flag), and base by any means possible.
Creating barricades, blowing up dungeons to block the other team infiltrating your base, healing warriors, and catapulting rocks at opponents.
Infiltrating your opponents castle.
Capturing the opposite teams standard and returning it to your base.
Protecting your standard is extremely important. If the other team manages to capture it, and return it to their base, they will receive one point. The team with the most points at the end of the 20 minutes wins the war. To fight off your opposition, you have to have people on every level of the castle, to prevent others entering and capturing your standard.

There are several ways to prevent them entering your castle and capturing your flag. All the supplies you need can be found in the storeroom, which is in the center of the castle (with the exception of the bandages table). They are:

Picture Name Item Usage
Bandage Heals 10% of your hitpoints, restores 30% energy and can heal poison. Can also be used on other people.
Barricades Used as small structures to block the path of enemies. These have 50hp.
Bronze Pickaxes Used to mine rocks, which get in the way in the tunnels. While these are present for everyone, it is suggested if you have to use a pickaxe, bring your own Rune pickaxe to aid in the game.
Buckets of water. Used to put out fires on your structures (i.e. barricades, catapult etc). They are spawned as ordinary buckets and there is a tap of water nearby.
Explosive potions Used to blow up enemy structures, and rocks. When dropped you will receive 15Hp damage.
Rocks Ammo for the Catapult.
Rope Used to climb walls from the outside.
Tinderboxes Useful for burning enemy structures (i.e. barricades, catapult etc)
Toolbox Used to repair the Catapult, Front Door

Healing
Healing is quite an important part to play, however it is not overly necessary. To heal someone, you have to get some bandages from your starting room, and use it on an injured player, or just eat it yourself. Each bandage heals 10% of your hitpoints as well as 30% energy. However, if you have a castlewars braclet (an enchanted Emerald braclet), then you will get 50% more healing from a bandage. They will also be able to do 20% more damage when attacking the bearer of their side's flag. It has 3 charges, and will lose 1 after each Castle Wars game starts. You must be wearing it when the game starts for it to work.

Barricading
Barricading is a very important part of Castle Wars. Barricades can prevent the other team from entering certain areas, or climbing stairs or ladders. These can also be attacked and destroyed. To make a barricade, all you have to do, is take one from the storeroom, and choose the "set-up" option. Note that your team may only have ten barricades set up at one point in time.

Tunneling
The two castles are linked via a network of tunnels, which run underground, from one storeroom to the other. Rocks and enemy structures may need to be removed down there for you to pass. Use your pickaxe to mine the collapsed tunnels, and explosion potions to blow things up and crush players by collapsing tunnels.

The Catapult
The catapult is located at the front of the castle, and is useful for blowing up your enemy's defense. The catapult will sometimes need repairing as it gets destroyed. To repair a catapult, go to the storeroom, pick up a toolkit, and take it back up to the catapult. To fire the catapult, you will need a rock in your inventory, which can be picked up from a table in the storeroom To fire a catapult, right click "Operate catapult" (Picture), and move the arrows up, down and sideways to get to your target.

Miscellaneous
Tinderboxes, buckets of water, and ropes are also useful throughout the war. Tinderboxes can light enemy structures on fire, which will eventually destroy it, whilst the buckets of water will put out fires. The ropes on the other hand, will allow you to climb the walls of the building; however, only on the first level. Explosive potions are almost vital when you infiltrate the opposition's base. They often have barricades set up that can't be burnt out (as they may have buckets of water). Using the explosive potion on a barricade, blows it up (Picture). If you'd rather just heal others, and repair your team's structures, you can do so. Just take some bandages, rocks, toolkits, ropes, and buckets of water and see what you can do.

3.1 - Interface
The interface of castle wars can seem useless, but it's quite informative. The below picture explains each part of the interface.

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4.0 - Tactics of Play
There is no tactic involved if you just turn up, with a bunch of people whom you have no relation to. Basically, all you have to do is Mage, Range or Melee the other team. However, below are a few pointers. It is useful to have at least 10 people guarding your own standard on the fourth floor, to prevent the other team snatching it. If you're really in it to win, the best offence is a good defense. Sometimes, you can allow players to come up to your standard room, snatch the flag, set up a few barricades (Picture), then don't let them escape. Kill them, and wait for the next person to come. It's best to have this on a few levels, to prevent mass attacks (Picture).

4.1 - Strategies
Strategy One
Defence: Mage defender, Range defender, Melee defender, Catapult runner, Trackers
Attack: Melee attacker
Forward team: Melee saboteur, Entrance blocker, Entrance opener

The mage and range defenders are mostly on the castle walls, attacking anybody approaching. Some melee fighters are required to kill off any melee character that made it to the walls and tries to kill the rangers/mages. Also, near the flag you want a mixture of fighters. The trackers can be anybody, but they remain with a captured flag and give the position on where it is and who is carrying it while attacking the flag runner.

The catapult needs to be fired as often as possible, it hits all the way to the bridge. However it requires ammo that needs to be brought up from the storeroom. This is commonly done by an ammo runner.

The forward team has several tasks:

Rope runner: 1-5 people load up on rope and throw them on the castle walls, since the main door is heavily defended. The ropes stay for several minutes so your main attack force can climb the walls.

The entrance opener is mainly a person who carries explosives and a pickaxe. Usually split into two teams, he runs in the tunnels to make them free and also on land he blows up barricades.

I mainly like my melee saboteur. As a saboteur you are likely to have mage prayer defense, heavy armour and loads of bandages, some explosive potions and a tinderbox. You run to the enemy castle and mainly sabotage their catapult; when explosives aren't good, use the tinderbox since not many people carry water.

So far I found that the main attack force will be melee combatants. I have so far hardly seen many flag capturers who are mage or ranger. Don't waste time killing the opponent; just go straight for the flag.

Strategy Two
The most important thing is teamwork. A team of 5 or more level 100's+ can easily win the game on their own if the opposition lacks teamwork. If you are over level 80 (melee-based combat) you should always attack the other castle. As far as defending goes, a few people usually guard your flag room, so don't worry about that. If you have 60+ magic or ranged, defend the castle, but do NOT range or mage when you have decent combat stats (70+ hp).

Some general pointers for melee attackers:
1) Teamwork. As I stated before, a small group of powerful melee warriors can literally destroy everything and everyone. Add each other; put your public chat on 'friends' and shout the names of the one you're attacking, so all of you can team on the same person.

2) Potions. Don't forget them, especially super defense. I'm 92 defense myself and I can guarantee you I'm almost untouchable, even when 4+ players are attacking me. So try to take a super defense potion so you have around 90 defense and the enemy will waste a lot of time before (and if) they manage to kill you. It would be best to take prayer potions and super attack/strength as well. With a SSP and Ultimate Strength prayer you can hit really high, allowing you to take barricades and doors down with no more than two hits. Not to mention all those defenseless archers, who are just begging to get killed!

3) When you're getting teamed badly, run around obstacles. For example, there are various barricades and such outside the castle walls - just run around them to shake off your attackers. And, when you're in the castle go up the stairs once and go back down immediately afterwards.

4) Avoid getting killed. When you have potted your stats will reset if you get killed, so instead of dying, run back to the starting room to collect bandages.

Using brute force doesn't involve much tactic, although everyone in the team should take one useful item with them. One of you should have a rope so you can all get on the castle walls, while someone else can use a tinderbox to destroy the catapult. Tear down their defense by teaming on their rangers and mages, and then scout their castle for the flag carrier.

Strategy Three
Solo Flag running: Bring 2-3 barricades, 8 explosive potions, and as many bandages as possible

Never leave the castle if you're not going to make it safely with the flag. If you're near death with no bandages, don't take the chance in dropping the flag in enemy hands.

When you have captured the flag, Take the far ladder, not the stairs, on the spawn room floor, and run underground. You can set a barricade a number of ways down there to lose your pursuers, in addition to being able to use the cave walls to further separate yourself from pursuers.

If players are following closely, but not attacking, collapsing the cave walls on the far side may eliminate the close following pursuers and distance yourself from other pursuing players

If you get in trouble and are out of barricades and the cave walls won't work because attackers are right next to you, you can go to ground floor and run back to your base. Remember: Zamorak North, Sara South.

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5.0 - Rewards
The only reward given, are Castle war tickets, which can be exchanged for "decorative armors", hoods and capes at Lanthus, in the lobby of the castle wars mini-game. The armor, and tickets are un-tradable. The tickets are distributed as follows:

Victory: 2 tickets
Draw: 1 ticket
Defeat: No ticket
Lanthus' store contains the following items:
Note: Red and blue decorative armour has the same stats as steel armour. White and teal decorative armour has the same stats as Mithril armour. Gold and black decorative armour has the same stats as adamant armour.

Red and Blue Decorative Armour White and Teal Decorative Armor Gold and Black Decorative Armor Miscellaneous
Picture Name Cost Picture Name Cost Picture Name Cost Picture Name Cost
Helm 4 tickets Helm 40 tickets Helm 400 tickets Castlewars Manual 5 GP
Body 8 tickets Body 80 tickets Body 800 tickets Castlewars Cloak (Saradomin) 10 tickets
Legs 6 tickets Legs 60 tickets Legs 600 tickets Castlewars Cloak (Zamorak) 10 tickets
Sword 5 tickets Sword 50 tickets Sword 500 tickets Castlewars Hood (Saradomin) 10 tickets
Shield 6 tickets Shield 60 tickets Shield 600 tickets Castlewars Hood (Zamorak) 10 tickets