Clans & Nations

Conquest is fought by nations but run by clans. Your nation is the flag you fly and, on the war server, the side you’re on; a clan is the player organisation inside that nation which actually wages the war — and joining one is the only way to take part in port battles at all. This page is the human structure behind the sieges: nations as conquest factions, the clans that drive RvR, the roles and permissions inside a clan, the friendly-clan list that decides who can fight beside you, and how a clan runs a port it has taken.

Nations as conquest factions

You pick a nation when you create your captain — the basics of that choice, and the advice for a newcomer, are in Account, Server & Nation. For conquest, what matters is that on the war server your nation defines who your enemies are and which ports count as friendly. Every port your nation holds is home water you can stage and resupply from; everything else is a target or a threat. Your nation is the largest team you belong to — but it’s a loose one, because the actual fighting is organised a level down, by clans.

Alliances and who you can fight

Nations don’t each fight everyone individually; they fall into broader sides, with the Pirates as a faction apart. That alignment sets the macro shape of the war — who is broadly with you and against you across the map. But national alignment is not the same as the fine-grained cooperation a port battle needs: two clans being in allied nations doesn’t automatically let them fight in the same battle. That is decided clan-to-clan, by the friendly-clan list below. Think of the alliance as the war’s weather and the friendly-clan list as the actual guest list for a given fight.

Why clans matter

A clan is a player organisation within a nation, and in RvR it’s everything: belonging to one is the only route into port battles, so a captain who never joins a clan simply cannot take part in conquest, attack or defence. Beyond that gate, clans pool effort — organising fleets, coordinating the flag run and the screen, sharing knowledge — and, crucially, clans are who own ports: a captured port belongs to the clan that took it, with the income and control that brings. You join an existing clan by enlisting (the in-game clan list shows active clans by nation, so you can find one that fits your language, schedule, or friends), or you pay to found your own and recruit to sustain it.

Roles and permissions

A clan is run through a ladder of roles, each with more authority than the last, so that power over the clan’s assets and diplomacy stays with trusted members:

• Member — the base rank: fights, contributes, and takes part, but doesn’t manage the clan.
• Officer — can recruit and remove members and promote others to officer.
• First Officer — adds the sensitive powers: managing the friendly-clan list and configuring the clan’s captured ports (their tax, access, and defence window).
• Creator — the founder, with full authority over everything, including disbanding the clan or handing the reins on.

The pattern is that the further up you go, the more you can touch — recruitment at the officer level, then diplomacy and port management reserved to the first officer and creator. It’s worth knowing the ladder even as a new member, because it tells you who to ask when you need a friendly clan added before a fight or a question about how your clan’s port is set up.

The friendly-clan list

The single most important piece of clan diplomacy is the friendly-clan list: the explicit roster of other clans your clan will fight alongside. Only clans on that list can take slots in your port battles, attack or defence — which is why national alliance alone isn’t enough, and why the list has to be right before a battle, not during it. Managing it is reserved to senior roles, and every addition and removal is logged for the whole clan to see, so the diplomacy is transparent to the membership. The practical habit for a port-battle night is simple: confirm the allies you’re expecting are actually on the list before anyone sails.

Running a port you’ve taken

Winning a port battle hands the port to the victorious clan, and owning it is an ongoing responsibility, not a trophy. The first officers and creator configure how it runs:

• Tax. The clan sets the tax taken from activity in the port, which becomes recurring clan income — but set it too high and you drive traders away, so the rate is a balance between greed and traffic.
• Access rights. The clan controls who may use the port — for instance warships of the owning nation only, versus all friendly warships — though enemy traders can generally always slip in.
• Defence window. The clan sets the hours during which the port can be attacked, steering any siege toward a time the clan can actually field a fleet to defend it.

And ownership has to be defended: a held port can be challenged again by enemy clans — or by NPC raiders — and a clan that can’t turn out to protect what it took will lose it back to neutral. That standing obligation, the recurring income, and the say over a piece of the map are the real endgame of Naval Action: not any single battle, but holding ground over time. It begins the moment you join a clan and follow it into its first conquest.