The shape of the hour
Three alliances share one battlefield for exactly 60 minutes, fought in your registered Saturday time slot. Rosters run up to 30 fighters plus 10 substitutes, and every player brings three squads (nine heroes deep), so bench depth matters more than any single whale march. The hour splits into four phases: 3 minutes of preparation, Seize & Conquer until minute 20, Garrison Occupation from minute 20 to 40, and Temple Onslaught from minute 40 to the end. The alliance with the most points at the hour wins; there's no early knockout.
What the buildings actually pay
| Building | Opens | Pays | Max value if held to the end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cluster of Ruins | Minute 3 | 600/min | 34,200 |
| Garrison | Minute 20 | 1,800/min | 72,000 |
| Temple of Tides | Minute 40 | 50,000 first capture, then points while held | 50,000 + stream |
Two numbers in that table decide most matches. First, the Temple's 50,000 pays on first capture only, not for holding it when the timer ends; alliances that save everything for a final temple push are chasing a bonus that was spent 19 minutes earlier. Second, a garrison held from minute 20 to the end earns 72,000, more than the Temple bonus itself. The unglamorous doctrine follows directly: your garrison is the biggest prize on the map, take it the second it opens, never fully abandon it, and treat the Temple as a sprint for the capture tap rather than a 20-minute brawl.
Phase by phase
- Minutes 0 to 3: assign lanes and a single caller. The event rewards organization over improvisation, and mid-fight replanning is how second place becomes third.
- Minutes 3 to 20: spread across ruins. They're the only income, and at 600/min an early ruin held all match pays a third of a garrison, so cheap uncontested ruins beat contested ones.
- Minutes 20 to 40: collapse onto your garrison with your defense group while attackers harass the weaker rival's. Retreating damaged squads to a building you control and using Conscript there recycles them far faster than dying and walking back from headquarters.
- Minutes 40 to 60: send your fastest marches through the transit hubs for the capture tap, keep the garrison held with the rest, and only commit to a temple hold if the 50K has already put the match within reach of the point stream.
Three-way politics
The third alliance changes everything about how fights price. Every troop you trade with one rival is a gift to the other, so the leading alliance should be fighting as little as possible and holding as much as possible, while the two trailing alliances are natural, temporary partners: both need the leader's garrison uncapped and both profit when the leader bleeds. If you're running second at minute 40, the winning line is usually to let the third alliance crash the leader's temple push and take the capture tap while they trade. And if you're the leader, deny that script: don't chase kills you don't need, because random fights score nothing and buildings score everything.
FAQ
Should our whole alliance rush the Temple at minute 40?
No. The 50K capture is one tap by one march that arrives first, and abandoning a 1,800/min garrison to escort it costs more than the bonus is worth if the garrison falls behind you.
We're clearly the weakest of the three. Is the hour a write-off?
It's your best format. Hold your own garrison, farm uncontested ruins, skip every avoidable fight, and contest only the Temple tap with speed marches. Two stronger alliances usually spend the hour bleeding each other, and 72,000 points of uncontested garrison income regularly beats a brawler's total.
Who do we bring: attackers or defenders?
Both, assigned in advance. A defense group sized to hold your garrison, an attack group for ruins and the Temple, and substitutes who actually show up; a registered no-show is a hole in the roster the other 29 can't fill. Expedition-skill logic applies to these squads, so the first-skill rankings are a fine starting bench.