War seasons and ladder history
From the Polandball Go Wiki
Alliance wars have changed a great deal in a short time. They started as weekly preseason matches with no ladder at stake, became ranked seasons in late September 2026, and switched to an entirely different kind of fight in October. This page keeps that history in order and explains the ladder the seasons are played on.
1 Preseason#
Wars ran weekly well before the ladder existed. The match history in game shows weekly preseason wars going back at least to the week labeled Aug 27, 2026, and continuing through the week labeled Sep 17. Preseason wars were won and lost like any other, but the history shows no victory points (VP) for them, and the game files them under a separate "Preseason" heading.
Every war of that period was fought under the old one-hit rules: an attack was a five-match series, slot against slot, decided by effective CP. See One-hit wars.
2 Season 1#
Season 1 began in the week of September 21, 2026. The war labeled Sep 24 was the first one the match history calls "Season", and from then on each war awarded VP toward the war ladder.
On October 12, 2026, the war ladder screen read "Season 1 · war 3 of 3", with "Season ends" counting down to zero and every alliance's VP back at 0 while the reset ran. That fits a season of three wars, labeled Sep 24, Oct 1 and Oct 8, but the length of a season hasn't been confirmed beyond that one screen.
The ladder's tiers moved with the reset. On October 10 the highest tier any alliance had reached was Silver. Two days later, after the reset, alliances were showing in Gold.
3 How the ladder works#
The war ladder ranks alliances by VP over a season. Its tiers carry the same names as the PvP tiers, which run Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Crystal, Aurora and Ethereal. Which of these the war ladder has used so far is not fully known; Gold is the highest seen.
Within a tier, the standings are split into three zones:
- Promote, at the top.
- Stay, which the ladder screen labels "Safe zone".
- Demote, at the bottom.
The game's War Room shows the same bar, with a line such as "1 VP to reach the promote zone". At the end of the season, alliances move up or down from their zone, VP returns to zero, and a season reward is paid according to whether the alliance was promoted, stayed or was relegated. War Bonds include a bonus each season.
4 Victory points#
Each war's VP award appears on a War Award screen after the result. A loss still pays something. In one alliance's Season 1 history, two victories paid 164 and 137 VP, and a defeat paid 51.
Beside the award the game shows four grades in words:
- Dominance, such as "Contested".
- Fielded Strength, such as "Overwhelming".
- Mobilization, such as "High".
- Matchup, such as "Even".
The game doesn't publish any numbers behind these grades or say how they combine into the award. They are best read as the game's own explanation of why a war paid what it did.
5 Brackets and battlefields#
At matchmaking the game records each side's war power and the number of members who joined, then sorts wars into brackets A to D by members taking part. Each war is fought on a named battlefield, a real city the game chooses to set the scene.
6 October 2026: the big changes#
Week labeled Oct 1: the last one-hit war. Patch 4.3.3 brought round-based duels to PvP on October 1, and its notes said wars would follow. A recording of a real war attack on October 3 showed the old one-hit series still in place.
Week labeled Oct 8: team duels. From the attacks of Saturday, October 10, a war attack became one team duel: 1 to 5 balls against every defender still standing in a squad, with HP carrying over from one attack to the next. Item effects don't apply in these duels; items count only through their attack and defense numbers. See War attacks and team duels.
Week labeled Oct 15: empty zones pay. In the Oct 8 week, an empty zone that fell paid no zone bonus. From the Oct 15 week, every empty zone paid its bonus when it fell. That ended a short-lived case for leaving the back row empty. See Defense planning.
Patch 5.0, October 15. The update rebuilt territory into Lands and Capitals, in the same week as the empty-zone change. Its sieges brought the war idea of HP carrying over, from one guard wave to the next, to territory. See Lands, Capitals and sieges.
7 War Council#
polbielytics opened its own fantasy game on these wars, War Council, on October 9, 2026. Its Public game counted a Beta Week on the war labeled Oct 8 and began its own Season 1 with the week labeled Oct 15. War Council's seasons are the site's, not the game's, and they don't line up with the war ladder's.
8 On polbielytics#
The war ladder shows the season standings in the game's VP order. Each alliance's page lists its war history grouped by season, with the VP each war paid. polbielytics also has its own war ranking, which leaves VP out on purpose; see War scoring and the war ladder.
See also Alliance wars and the patch timeline.