You are in the world of the Middle Ages, the age of the Crusades. Bitter religious conflicts and economic struggles have caused decades of oppression on the people fighting for predominance in the world. Many warriors have already paid dearly by losing their lives on the battlefield. However, participation in these wars has often brought honour and glory to many people and made them rich beyond their dreams.

Playing the game is free. When you register, you decide if you fight as a Christian Crusader, Muslim Saracen or Pagan.

Through the battles you fight you will gain experience points. If you reach a certain number of experience points, you rise up to a higher level. To become a better fighter, you not only need a weapon, a shield, a helmet, armour and a horse, but you also have to train your property values and those of your horse (if you have one) upwards. To do this, you need gold coins. To get the gold coins, you can work, plunder or fight.

You can also earn many pieces of gold by recruiting new warriors! To do this, use your own link, which you can find under Status > Diplomacy. Send this link to your friends, put it on your website (you can find banners under 'Download') or use it as a signature for your forum contributions. If somebody clicks on your link and registers at Holy-War within 30 minutes of clicking the link, you will recruit a new warrior! From then on, you will always receive 10% of the gold coins that your recruited warrior wins in warrior vs. warrior fights or in order battles. The 10% is an extra bonus for you! Your recruited warrior will not be charged or put at a disadvantage by being your recruit!

The Status Page is where you will find all your character information. How many gold coins you own, which weapons, shields, helmets, elixirs and armour you have and how many warriors you recruited. You also determine how high your property values are (attack technique, defense technique, strength, experience, stamina, agility and life energy). You can also add your friends and foes here (e.g., an enemy attack through 'Diplomacy' costs 2 gold coins). You can also train your character to raise your property values. If you have a horse, it will be shown here and its property values can also be trained. As a premium player, you may change the name of your horse (max. 23 characters).

Strength: the stronger you are, the more damage you inflict upon your opponent in a successful attack.

Attack: the higher your attack value, the better your attack technique and the more effective your attack will be.

Defense: the more defense points you have, the more you succeed in fending off a hostile attack.

Agility: the higher your agility value is, the better you master the fight.

Stamina: a rising stamina increases the number of attacks you can undertake during a fight.

Experience: the more experienced points you have, the lesser the damage caused by an opponent's attack will be. When you have accumulated enough experience points, you rise to the next level.

Life energy: life energy shows you the health of your character. You can see the maximum value and your present value. You are fully fit to compete when both values are the same. Your present value will be lower after battles. When your character rests, your life energy will recharge over time (with at least 10 life energy points per hour). Your recovery rate increases as you expand your residence. You can also buy elixirs for gold to speed up the recuperation of your life energy!

The messages area provides you with an overview of your incoming and outgoing messages in your mailbox. You can also view all your fight reports here (attack reports, defense reports, battle reports). You can also send emails to other players, your order members or reply to messages you received.

To raise your stock in gold and your experience points, you can attack another player in a warrior vs. warrior fight.

If you attack, you lose the fight if your life energy sinks below 10. If you defend, you lose if your life energy sinks below 10, or if the hitpoints you take are >= 50% of your maximum life energy. If this happens, the worst case scenario is a loss of 50% of your maximum life energy. In the arena, both parties are treated as attackers.

Up to and including level 10, you may be attacked only by an opponent whose level difference to yours is less than 4. This means, for example, level 3 may be attacked by level 6 or lower, but not by level 7 or higher. From level 11 on you may be attacked by every player.

After a victory, you receive between 5 and 10% of your opponent's gold stock. You can attack the same opponent only once every 12 hours. You can start a new attack every 15 minutes (premium players every 5 minutes). You can be attacked only once per hour. For every battle against an opponent on the same level as yours, you gain one experience point. If you win against an opponent on a higher level, you gain 2 experience points.

You can also win gold and gain experience points without engaging in a risky battle. For 10 gold coins, you can plunder and help yourself to the riches of this world! Choose the amount of time you plunder in ten minute intervals- 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 minutes. You cannot plunder more than 1 hour per day (premium players may plunder 2 hours per day). While you are plundering, you cannot do anything else.

On the Battle page, you see the upcoming battles of the day and the battles in which you participate. You may choose sides in an order battle and support other orders and warriors of your faith or choose to go against them.

If you are enrolled in a battle, you have the opportunity to go to the army camp. If you do not go to the army camp, you will be automatically drawn in as soon as the battle begins. While you are in the army camp, you rest up for the upcoming battle and you cannot do anything else. You cannot be attacked while resting in the army camp. In the army camp, your recovery rate and your life energy increases by 10% per hour (of your maximum life energy). With these preparations, you enter the battle fully recovered and ready to fight! An order battle cannot be scheduled within 14,5 hours before the next Holy Battle.

Holy Battle: From level 11 and upwards, you may participate in Holy Battles and support other warriors of your faith (Pagans must choose to support either Christians or Saracens). In a Holy Battle, you receive twice as many experience points as in a normal fight. You also receive an army wage (your level x 50 gold) and a fight reward (number of your fights x 100 Gold). If you are enrolled in a Holy Battle (end of enrollment is 1,5 hours prior to the battle), you can go into the army camp (at the earliest 12 hours before the battle, at the latest 30 min. before the battle). If you do not go into the army camp, you will be automatically drawn in before the Holy Battle. If you are in the army camp, you recuperate for the Holy Battle and you cannot do anything else and you cannot be attacked. Your rate of recovery will also increase. Your life energy will increase by 10% per hour of your maximum life energy. More than one game world participates in each Holy Battle. You can view the results of prior battles and the data on upcoming battles in the history under the map.

The City is where you can purchase necessary supplies for your character. The following shops are at your disposal:

Blacksmith: Buy or sell weapons, shields, helmets and armour

Elixir Shop: Buy or sell all kinds of elixirs

Horse stables: Buy or sell horses

Market stall: You also have the opportunity to buy or sell all items at the market stalls. Often you will find a better price for an item in the Market, but you must be patient. In the Market, you may sell an item for 80% to 110% of the Blacksmith's price. If you sell a horse on the market, it will lose its trained property values. As a premium player, you can sell more than one elixir at a time and you do not have to wait.

Work: Here you can apply for work. The higher your level, the better the pay. If you are summoned to an order battle during your work time, you cannot finish work and you will not get paid. The same holds true if you enter the army camp prior to the completion of work. If you do not receive your work pay before the battle, it will be paid to you automatically and you will then go to battle with your pay.

Mercenary market: You can offer your services as a mercenary on the mercenary market. Your maximum pay cannot exceed your level x 500. As a mercenary, it is your duty to go into battle with at least 90% of your life energy. Therefore, go to the army camp to recuperate or strengthen yourself with healing elixirs. Otherwise, you will fight but you will not be paid and the order that engaged you will get 50% of the mercenary fee returned. If you participate correctly, you will receive your pay and a good reference.

As Order Master or Army Commander, you can recruit mercenaries to support you in battle (cost: 10 gold coins per arrangement). You cannot recruit soldiers who have another battle 30 min. before or 30 min. after your battle. End of recruitment is 30 min. before a battle.

Arena: You decide on the amount of gold you want to put at stake. From level 10 onwards you can challenge others in the arena. If someone accepts your challenge, your oppponent sets the same stake (at least 10 x level, maximum 20 x level) and you meet in the arena for a fight. The winner gets the whole stake, minus 5% user fee for the arena. You can also accept the challenge of another warrior who is already waiting in the arena.

Tavern: With a bit of luck, you can multiply your gold here! In the tavern, you will find games of chance where you can bet and win gold.

In the forum, you can contact the Holy-War team and the playing community with your questions and comments. You will also find information about the game and the FAQs. In 'History' you will find information about past battles. It is important to us that you use the forum to post errors and inconsistencies you experience during game play. In doing so, you play an active role in the future development of this game.

To compare your character with others, use the 'High Score' feature. You can compare your statistics with other players using the dropdown menu. Search for high scores grouped by faith, order or all players. On the upper right side of the screen, you can see your current high score position sorted by gold captured along with other statistics.

• Level: shows the current level of your character
  
• V: shows you the number of your victories
  
• D: shows you the number of your defeats
  
• Haul Ø: shows you the average amount of gold captured per fight
  
• V/D: shows you the ratio of victories/defeats
• Gold captured: shows the gold you captured through fights (exception: arena)
  

The highscore ranking is sorted by gold captured. The more gold you capture, the higher your high score ranking. You can also sort the high score by level, victories and defeats.

You can expand your residence in stages. The more your residence is expanded, the higher your recovery rate (your current recovery rate is displayed on this page). Your defense value increases with the expansion of your residence and the height of your wall. Your defense rate increases with every expansion step when you are at home. (You are automatically at home if you don't perform an action e.g. fight or plunder.) You can expand the wall around your residence only after the expansion of your residence.

Here you can search for an order or join an order (from level 5 onward + same faith). As an order member, you will have certain duties, responsibilities and some advantages. From level 15 and upwards, you can create your own order. An order foundation will cost you 1000 gold coins. This gold will be used for the order foundation and for a stage 1 order residence. You can expand the order residence as your order earns more gold through donations from members and gold won in battles. The larger your order residence is, the more members you can accept.

As an order member, you will find an overview on all important order data on this page. On these pages, you can donate gold to your order, leave the order, view the order residence and read or write order messages. The Order Master and Army Commander perform the administrative duties of the order and control order alliances. Int his section, the Order Master may appoint an Army Commander, dismiss order members or disband the order.

The Order Master and Army Commander may search for another order and declare war (cost: 100 gold; from 5 order members onward). For 24 hours after a battle, an order cannot fight another battle. If war is declared on an order, the Army Commander and the Order Master will be informed through an ingame message.

Order Alliances: If you add another order to your alliance administration, your order members view a notation in the profile of members of the allied order stating, "Order alliances". If the other order accepts your order as an ally, the alliance is confirmed and will be shown in the order overview. After confirmation, the members of the allied order will be able to view the same "Order alliances" notation.

In 'Profile', you can enter your data, enter a player description (max. 5000 characters), change your password, install the graphics package and delete your account. You can find the graphics package in the menu 'Download'. If you are a premium player, you can upload your own character image (avatar) here.

In the 'Download' area you can find the graphics package for installation. Even if you do not install the graphics package, you can play Holy-War without any limitations. If you use the graphics package, the pages will be loaded much faster and overall performance will be better. If you have a slow connection, we strongly recommend you to use the package. In the download area, you can also find our banners and wallpapers that you can use free of charge.

If you buy a premium ticket, you become a premium player after ticket activation. As a premium player, you experience the game ad-free with these additional advantages:

Premium Advantages

• Play completely ad-free with greater comfort
• Upload your own character image (max. 180x180 pixel)
• Fight every 5 minutes (non-premium is every 15 mins.)
• As a premium player, you have access to more weapons, armour, shields, helmets and horses
• You can change the name of your horse
• You can sell many elixirs at once
• You can plunder 120 minutes per day (non-premium is 60 mins.)
• For every ticket that you activate, you get a bonus of 250 gold coins
• Premium players can search by level when searching for opponents,
• As a premium player, you can use the Shoutbox and communicate directly with other players in an ingame chat window.

You can buy and activate your premium ticket or check your premium status here.

Changing a ticket for gold

If you prefer gold to the advantages of a premium ticket, you can also change your ticket for 1000 gold. Click on the corresponding button "For 1000 gold" at the bottom of your Premium page.

You can find the available payment options for your country under 'Premium'