yes I've lost count of how many land wars games have been hosted on the forum (or even got any signups)
This is arguably the longest section in the game's rulebook.
First, you have to decide on basic things that determine the identity of your kingdom - what will it be called, what its theme is, and your starting focus.
The name of your kingdom (or queendom, or hivemind, or republic, or empire, or whatever you want it to be, but I'm referring to all player factions as kingdoms for consistency) is self explanatory. The theme is also self explanatory, although do keep in mind that the starting tech level is around the 1600s, and magic is widespread but not usable in extreme quantities - so not Avatar or Star Wars. Remember, if I have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you're powergaming, you might want to tone it down a bit.
Your kingdom's focus determines what it's better at compared to most of the competition. Pick one.
Force - 100 extra troops recruited per day: Whether due to a martial culture, a surplus of warm bodies, or the will to flood enemy defenses with mooks, your kingdom has above average recruitment rates for its military.
Industry - All projects take 2/3 the amount of time to finish, rounded down: Some kingdoms focus more on researching new technologies, trying new things, and doing ambitious projects. Your kingdom is one of those kingdoms.
Legacy - 1000 extra starting troops and 15 project points available at game start, but no long term bonus: Unlike the younger kingdoms, your kingdom has been around for considerably longer and has had more time to build up its forces and technology than others. However, it doesn't have that same spark the newer kingdoms have.
You'll also need a 500x500 map of your kingdom - see the Where spoiler for all your cartography needs.
Now on to the juicy stuff.
Troops
You can have the coolest empire in the world, but that means nothing if you don't have the soldiers to back up claims that your empire is truly the best. At the start of your game, you may have up to 4 troop types (5 for Legacy focus kingdoms) - which are up to your own design. You can assign individual costs to them - 1 recruitment cost is the baseline. Vehicles like boats/ships, portable siege artillery, etc. have a recruitment cost equal to the amount of people needed to crew them at full efficiency. An elite soldier would cost 3-5x the amount an ordinary rank and file mook would cost, and a swarm of weak cannon fodder would get 3-4 per recruitment cost. Use your best judgement for pricing and what your troop's capabilities are. A troop type specialized in something is better at its specialty than a generalist troop type of the same cost.
Just remember, if you're concerned about whether or not something is balanced, let me know in PMs and I'll give you my thoughts on it.
You can recruit 200 troops per day, and an additional 100 per additional tile fully controlled bt you. If you have 3 additional tiles, you can recruit 500 troops per day. This stacks with the Force focus - 3 additional territories with the Force focus allows for 600 troops recruited per day.
Heroes
Every self respecting fictional army has at least one badass amongst its ranks that leads its men into battle headfirst while leading by example. Those are Heroes, powerful units that require a 5 day project to recruit - but in some rare cases where I decide you've earned one - whether due to an ordinary rank and file soldier repeatedly kicking enough ass to qualify as a hero, to special events, or if I feel generous, you'll get an extra hero free of cost.
As for a rough baseline of a hero, they're as powerful as a 100 cost troop when unsupported, but when supported by at least a small army, they can be unstoppable if used correctly. Despite being really powerful, they are not invincible, and are bound to suffer some form of injury that makes them unable to return to the battlefield for a day or two - or worse. Don't be afraid to use them, but also know their limits.
Projects
Projects represent the technological research of your kingdom, as well as any noteworthy construction endeavors. Things like building new fortresses, researching new technology, training new types of troops, recruiting heroes, and more. You can spend more or less project points than the baseline, but this will also affect the reults - spend 10 project points teaching your troops how to fight on boats, and you'll have the greatest navy in Land Wars history. Spend 1 project point on a fort, and it's likely going to be noticably easier for the attackers to take over than it is for the defenders to protect.
Baseline costs:
Train a new type of troop: 2
Create a new strategic resource: 3
Recruit a new hero: 5
Create a new artifact: 5
Build a new fort: 4
Train your troops to do something (fight stealthily, use bombs, etc): 3 (this cost doesn't scale with army size)
Develop new technology: Cost depends on complexity and how far it is from your kingdom's current knowledge
Mass produce a strategic resource: 2 (automatically done for free if you obtain the blueprints by any mean)
Supplies
Sooner or later, you're going to realize that perhaps it's a good idea to have some unique resources or artifacts that only your kingdom has. They fall into two types:
Strategic Resources are the first type of supply, and take the form of a unique substance, material, mechanism, etc. that no other kingdom has access to without relying on theft or trade. Magical healing liquid, mythril, powerful focusing crystals, etc. fall under Strategic Resources. You automatically start with them mass produced, but you have to do a project to mass produce them if you obtain them after the start of the game.
Artifacts are single relics/weapons/etc. that are unique and way more powerful than their mundane counterparts. They cannot be mass produced, but they can be given to someone (preferably a hero that can make the most use out of it) for maximum power. You can start with them, but creating them yourself will take a while - on par with the cost of creating a hero. You can also recieve them by securing enemy artifacts during battle or through theft, and through events.
WAR
Sooner or later, you'll end up having a reason to raid neighboring kingdoms, such as resources, keeping their power in check, or because they jaywalked in your territory leading to you starting a genocide crusade against them. Regardless of the reason for the battle, there's mechanics for them - this isn't a roll to dodge, the only factors are environment, strategy, troops committed, and supplies commited. An attack template is at the bottom of this post.
Remember, if it's not in the attack spoiler, I won't consider it. Whether or not your kingdom has access to poison arrows is irrelevant if you don't specify that your troops are using them. In addition, if two or more players are working together, then they must use the same strategy.
There are 3 types of attacks:
Invasions: Taking place on another empire's tile, invasions involve the attacking side stating where they're attacking and posting their attack information in the thread. The defending side also posts their strategy in the thread, but to prevent metagaming, defenders are not allowed to make defense strategies that rely on non-obvious information.
Stealth attacks: There are situations where going in guns blazing is better than doing it sneakily, and then there are these. Stealth attacks are different than normal invasions for various reasons. The first one is that the attacking player simply states how many troops he sends to the tile he attacks, and PMs me the details. The defending player is then told his territory is under attack, and is asked to give as much relevant info as possible - building/city layouts, patrol patterns, important devices, etc.
If everything of value - important leaders, artifacts, strategic resources, etc. is locked inside a bullshittium bunker, I reserve the right to call bullshit and use my best judgement.
Duels: A less common type of battle, two or more sides fight on neutral ground for an agreed upon reason. Everyone involved lists their troops committed and where the battle takes place (if applicable), and submit their strategies to me.
Diplomacy:
There are no actual mechanics for diplomacy in theory (in practice, people will generally hate you if you break a non aggression pact or alliance suddenly), but if you're going to trade, please do it in the thread so I know why the dwarves suddenly started using elven longbows.
You can trade practically everything - strategic resources, blueprints, technology, troops, artifacts, etc. Just be aware of potential thieves - a trade convoy can travel up to 2 tiles away from their position at the start of the day, and can be intercepted if not protected well.
Some other useful info for battles:
-No plan survives first contact. It's a good idea to have a backup plan or two in case things don't go as planned.
-No editing strategies after you submit them. An exception can be granted if you ended up forgetting something important and obvious.
-Any enemy troops you manage to take alive will be captured and available for interrogation - both me and the player the troop originally belong to get to decide what information will be revealed. As a general rule of thumb, your average cannon fodder won't know too much about their weapons and machinery compared to a high ranking specialist.
-In the event that someone makes their territory near impossible to attack without taking massive casualties from environmental factors alone, I'll just throw in some hand waves and give raiding parties koincidentally stashed gas masks/diving gear/jetpacks/etc.
-If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
-You can only take territory in invasions. If you really feel the need to conquer via a stealth attack, then do something that will soften up the defenders before the main invasion force arrives.
General information and rules that don't fit anywhere else:
-No mass teleportation.
-No spies.
-No making kingdoms that are likely to get this thread deleted.
-Be creative. You don't need the standard melee/ranged/cavalry trio, be creative and use what you want.
-Activity is expected. If you can't make daily updates, at least stay in contact with the group to the best of your ability, and update whenever you can. If you miss a day, then just have your update spoiler cover multiple days. For those who shall rename nameless and just suddenly disappear from the game, your troops and leadership will die koincidentally and everything that remains of your kingdom (structures, supplies, troop training information, etc.) will be up for grabs and can be obtained by annexing your territory after a 5 day project that can't be double timed.
-Upon completely conquering a kingdom, you get access to all the information they had access to - troop training procedures, technology, supplies, etc. after a 5 day annexation project which cannot be double timed.
-Claiming unowned territory requires it to be free of any hostile forces and a 2 day project to claim it - you can't double time it and the timer will reset if any hostile forces enter the area for more than a turn.
-No metagaming, such as kingdom A doing project X, with kingdom B doing strategy Y which is meant to counter project X, despite kingdom B having no IC way of knowing about project X.