Every two weeks your kingdom elects a King, and it is one of the few systems in Total Battle where the outcome is decided by negotiation rather than by numbers. Clash for the Throne runs in two distinct halves, and understanding that they are different games is most of what you need.
Day one: the Conquest Point race
The first half is a straight scoring race in Conquest Points, and it produces the ballot rather than the winner.
- The player who finishes first becomes Princeps, carrying 25 delegate votes.
- Players finishing 2nd through 99th become Senators, carrying 10 votes each.
One rule shapes the entire day: the top hundred cannot shield. Placing in the race means spending twenty-four hours as an exposed target, which is exactly the intended trade.
Day two: the Senate votes
The second half is not a fight. The Senate casts its delegate votes, and whoever holds the most votes takes the crown.
This is why the strongest player in a kingdom does not automatically become King. The Princeps starts with 25 votes and needs allies. A well-organised clan holding twenty Senate seats holds 200 votes and can crown whoever it likes. The throne is won in the diplomacy, and the race only decides who gets to negotiate.
Losing the race and winning the throne is an entirely normal outcome. So is a coalition of mid-sized clans crowning a candidate that no single large clan could have carried alone.
Where the Conquest Points come from
Conquest Points are earned by attacking other players, and the scoring is deliberately shaped to make fights happen:
Attacking a player stronger than you earns Conquest Points even in defeat. You do not need to win. You need to pick a target above your weight and commit.
That single rule created the kingdom-scale practice known as a CP run: clans coordinate volunteers who absorb attacks, spread the points across their own members, and compensate the losses out of clan funds afterwards. The Atlas has a full article on how these are organised. For this lesson, the thing to take away is that throne week fighting is usually arranged rather than spontaneous, and joining in without asking is how you end up on the wrong side of your kingdom's RoE.
Two captain notes for the week: Dustan carries a conquest point bonus of 0.5% per level, and unlike some scoring captains he still pays out if he dies in the siege.
What the King actually controls
Enough to matter, and less than new players imagine.
The Royal Treasury. The King directs kingdom-wide buffs — or misfortunes. It is the office's real power, and it is why a hostile crown is a genuine problem rather than a cosmetic one.
Titles. The King hands out titles carrying substantial bonuses, from Hand of the King and Queen at around +25% Valor and experience, downward. There are also punishment titles — Dog, Pig Farmer, Punching Bag — which actively weaken whoever holds them, and are used as exactly the instrument of humiliation they sound like.
Titles persist across reigns until they are changed. A title granted by a King three reigns ago is still doing its work, for good or ill, until somebody bothers to reassign it. New Kings often inherit a distribution they did not choose.
The crown does not give you the ability to attack inside your own kingdom, or to stop anyone else from doing so. The Rules of Engagement are still social conventions. A King who tries to rule by decree without the clans behind them discovers this quickly.
How to play the fortnight
- Ask your clan what the plan is before the race opens. There usually is one.
- Decide whether you are racing. Top hundred means no shield for a day — worth it for a Senate seat, painful if unprepared.
- Prepare as if you will be attacked, because if you place, you will be.
- Vote with your clan. A split clan wastes the seats it fought for.
Knowledge check
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What does finishing first in the day-one race make you?
CorrectNot quiteThe race decides the ballot, not the crown. The Senate then votes, and the most votes takes the throne.
Why can the strongest player in a kingdom fail to become King?
CorrectNot quiteThe Princeps holds 25 votes. A clan holding twenty Senate seats holds 200 and can crown whoever it likes.
How do you earn Conquest Points from a player stronger than you?
CorrectNot quiteThis is why coordinated CP runs exist: volunteers absorb attacks and the clan compensates the losses afterwards.
What happens to titles when a new King is crowned?
CorrectNot quiteNew Kings routinely inherit a distribution they did not choose, including punishment titles still weakening their holders.
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