FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
From Call of War Wiki
Gameplay
Gameplay related questions.
Q: The game is overwhelming, how should I start?
A: Read the Beginner’s Guide: How to Play here in the wiki, which gives you tips how to proceed on your first days. Consult the wiki for every new menu or game aspect you try to learn, but take your time. If you have specific questions you can also ask in the help chat or in the forums.
Q: Why are enemy armies shown with question marks?
A: Your troops have an outer and inner view range. Foreign armies located in the outer view range of your troops have question marks, indicating that only their location is known, but not their army composition. The army composition will be revealed as soon as they enter your troop’s inner view range. Foreign troops will also be concealed when they are stationed in a fortification / bunker of level 3 or above. They will only become visible when this structure is destroyed or when they are revealed via espionage.
Q: Why did I lose my province even though no enemy was nearby?
A: Provinces with 31% morale or less have a chance to revolt at the next daychange. Revolting provinces may join another country in protest. To prevent this you can station troops in these low-morale provinces, which suppress revolts. Provinces that currently have a chance to revolt flash in red stripes on the map. Since newly conquered provinces start out with 25% morale you should consolidate your new territory first before pushing ahead. Building Propaganda Offices helps to improve morale quickly.
Q: How do I win the game?
A: You need to conquer provinces until you reach enough victory points (VP) to trigger the victory condition. The amount of points you need is shown in the newspaper. It is usually 45% of all victory points on the map if you are playing alone or 65% of all victory points if you are playing in a coalition (the sum of VPs per player in the coalition is used). Both coalitions and solo players share th same ranking, so the game can only end either in a coalition victory or in a solo victory, but not both. After you win (or at any time you want) you can play more game rounds on different maps, using different countries.
Q: I’ve purchased resources on the stock market, the money was deducted but no resources were added?
A: In general resources are never lost, there is always an explanation for it. If you had units/buildings in the building queue (High Command membership required) at the time of your resource purchase, the bought resources will be spent to start producing the units/buildings in the queue instead of being added to your stock. There is also the possibility that your game client was not connected to the game server anymore at that moment, making the interface show wrong information. A reload of the game usually fixes this, with your money or the resources being added to your account.
Q: How can I increase my resource production?
A: The amount of resources you gain is influenced by 3 things: Any resource-boosting buildings being present in the province, the morale of a province, and the amount of troops which consume resources. First, the best way to improve resource production is to build Industry in your core cities, and Local Industry in your main resource producing rural provinces. Leveling up these buildings also improves the resource production further. To increase manpower production you need to build and upgrade Recruiting Stations.
Second, the higher the morale of a province, the more resources it produces. Build Propaganda offices in your main resource provinces which are struggling to reach 100% morale. Third, a big army also consumes more resources. If you are in peace time you might want to wait before building a huge army, or invest into your buildings in between producing more units.
Q: Why does my unit take so long to produce?
A: First, production times are increased if the province has a morale below 80%. Make sure to get your province morale on a good level to not waste production time. Secondly, production times of advanced unit levels become higher, but can be lowered by upgrading the respective production building. The unit production time of a unit is lowered in half by each additional level of the production building, until the unit’s minimum production time is reached. You can check the minimum production time of a unit in the unit details panel (click on its icon in the army interface or on the info button in the build menu). A rule of thumb which works in most cases is that you need the production building on the same level as the unit to achieve minimum production time. For example, if you want to produce Infantry level 3 without losing any time, your Barracks should also be on level 3. If your Barracks are lower than level 3 in this example you would spend extra time to finish producing this unit, while a Barracks level 4 would not speed up the production any further.
Q: Why are buildings in foreign provinces shown with a question mark?
A: Buildings of foreign provinces in the fog of war are hidden, shown with a question mark. You can reveal them by having the center of the province in the inner view range of one of your armies, or by using espionage.
Q: What is the daychange?
A: Call of War progresses in real time, and each ingame day lasts 24 hours in real life (unless the game round is a speed event). Each 24 hours a daychange happens, at which point certain important calculations take place. The exact moment depends on the starting time of the game round and can therefore vary from round to round. The time until the next daychange is displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen on mobile and the top right corner of the screen on desktop. At daychange armies heal, morale of provinces is increased or decreased, new research levels may become available, victory point amounts per player are updated and potentially victory is declared.
Q: How can units be healed?
A: Units heal automatically at day change, 15% of their missing health. Ground units heal when they are stationed on your own territory, air units heal when they are operating from one of your airbases and sea units heal anywhere on sea. You can also heal your units manually with gold via the corresponding button in the army bar. This is only possible if your units are currently not locked in combat.
Q: How is province morale calculated and how can I increase it?
A: Province morale is updated at daychange. It increases or decreases by 15% of the difference between current morale and target morale. The target morale is calculated by subtracting or adding all morale influences from a baseline of 102% (so that a province can reach 100%), with a maximum achievable morale of 100%. For example: If there is a negative influence of -30 and a positive influence of +10, the morale will climb or fall until it reaches 82% morale. There are many different influences, for example the expansion factor (negative) when conquering a lot of provinces or the presence or Propaganda Offices (positive). Building Propaganda Offices is usually the best way to improve province morale long term. You can also increase it at any time using gold via the respective button in the province bar. Head over to the morale article to learn more.
Q: Why can’t I produce new units in a province?
A: In general you can only produce units in urban provinces (cities). Additionally you can only produce units if you have built the required production building. Check out the unit details to see which buildings you need (click on the info button next to the unit in the build menu).
Q: How does patrolling with aircrafts work?
A: Aircraft sent on a patrol are protecting an area of the map from enemy attacks and also grant vision over that area. When an enemy unit enters the blue patrol circle it will be attacked repeatedly when the patrol timer reaches zero. Attacked enemies defend and damage your aircraft as well. The patrol timer ticks down to zero every 15 minute and your aircraft will deal 50% of its normal damage, while also receiving 50% of the enemy’s defensive damage in return. If multiple enemy armies are within the circle, all of them will be attacked with the damage values divided and spread out accordingly. If a patrol circle overlaps with the center point of an enemy patrol circle, both patrolling aircraft will attack each other as well. Additionally, patrolling aircraft defend against every aircraft that is attacking another army within the patrol area. When the patrol timer reaches zero there is also an espionage snapshot created for the armies within the patrol circle, meaning you will keep seeing them until the next daychange even when you move your aircraft away. You can abort your patrol at any time. If you move your patrol destination to another point within the flight corridor (the red cone originating from the airbase) then your aircraft travels straight to the new destination without flying back. If the new location is outside of the flight corridor, then the aircraft has to land at the airbase first before traveling to the new location. If the aircraft has to rebase to another airbase to reach the new destination it also has to refuel at the new airbase before proceeding to the new destination.
Q: Why are conquered provinces transferred to my ally/coalition member?
A: These provinces are core provinces of one of your coalition partners. It is a unique feature of coalitions that liberating allied core provinces from enemies returns those core provinces back to that ally. This ensures that your ally can stay in the game and fight alongside you. A corresponding article in the newspaper is triggered when this happens.
Q: I have achieved the necessary victory points to win. Why hasn’t the game ended yet?
A: Victory point counts are updated at daychange, and therefore also game victory is awarded at daychange. If the daychange has already passed without victory being declared then the likely explanation is that you are currently a member of a coalition and looking at the solo victory requirements. These are lower than the coalition victory requirements. As long as you are a member of the coalition the solo victory will not trigger.
Q: I sent a rocket or airplane to bombard another army in the fog of war but it looks like they did not receive any damage.
A: Most likely you are looking at an outdated espionage snapshot that shows the army with its previous health from before the attack. You have to scout the area again to see the updated health, which most likely went down because of your attack.
Q: I don’t understand the outcome of a fight.
A: There are many different factors playing a role in combat. For example the maximum amount of units being able to deal damage in an army is capped at 10. There is also a random factor of +/-20% influencing the end result. If you want to understand combat in detail, please visit the Combat article. In the game you can also click on the info button in the army interface, which provides the combat stats of an army as well as some helpful tips about combat.
Q: My units are fighting the enemy but nothing seems to happen, why?
A: Combat progresses in 30min intervals, meaning damage is only dealt every 30 minutes. This means that it can take several hours until an army is defeated. How fast this goes also depends on the army size, the amount of hitpoints and the damage statistics.
Q: Why is this game so slow?
A: Call of War is designed to be played in real time over the course of multiple weeks. To make this work certain actions have to take a while, so that each player in the game has a chance to react and play for a while before being potentially defeated. Certainly the game can also feel slower than it needs to be if you are managing your country ineffectively, which is normal on your first playthrough. Keep at it and you will learn how to achieve your goals in the game much faster than before. There are also speed Events available on a regular basis that allow you to play the game on 2x, 4x, 6x or even 10x the regular speed. Keep a look on the main page and the games list to not miss any such events.
Q: How do I build transport ships?
A: Transport ships are not producible. Your units automatically convert to transport ships when embarking on sea, while converting back to their normal form when disembarking again. When you research higher transport ship levels then your units on sea will be more robust and move faster.
Q: What happens if I conquer a capital city?
A: The morale of all the other nation’s provinces is immediately lowered by 20%, while your own provinces immediately gain 10% morale. The other nation’s provinces will continue to lose morale if they don’t build a new capital. You also receive half of the money that the other nation has stored at that moment.
Q: Why are buildings in conquered provinces always damaged/destroyed?
A: This is an automatic process and simulates the damage from fighting in the province as well as scorched earth tactics by the enemy.
Q: Can I upgrade my unit to the highest level immediately and do I need to pay for all levels in between?
A: You can skip levels when upgrading your units, meaning you can upgrade a level 1 Infantry straight to level 7 if you still have level 1 Infantry on the field, but level 7 already researched. You will only pay half the price/time of the level 7 Infantry to upgrade. This means it becomes more and more lucrative to upgrade your troops the longer you wait, but it also keeps your country vulnerable. You have to judge if the trade-off is worth it.
Q: What happens if me and my ally attack the same province?
A: Your armies will remain separate, but they will fight together against the common foe. Of course only one of you can conquer the province in the end. The army which arrives at an empty province first, conquers it. The army which does the last hit destroying the garrison of a guarded province, conquers it.
Q: How does Espionage work?
A: Espionage allows you to deploy spies in order to reveal enemy armies as well as country information or to sabotage enemy provinces on daychange. You can also defend your nation from enemy espionage or use agents (gold actions) to retrieve information immediately. Head over to the article about Espionage to learn how this works.
Q: I played an older version of the game and this is all so different now!
A: If you are a player who played Call of War Classic (also called CoW1.0), please check out the article which highlights most of the changes from Classic to the new Call of War version. In general, please read this Wiki to get the most up to date information about how the game is played. We try to keep the Wiki updated as much as possible, but it is possible that we missed something. If you find any outdated information in this Wiki, please notify us in the Call of War forums.
Q: What are Doctrines?
A: Each country belongs to one of 4 Doctrines and can not be changed. Doctrines grant bonuses to units and alter the day on which researches become available. Please check out the article about Doctrines to learn more.
Q: What does popularity with AI nations do, what affects it and how can I increase it?
A: Your popularity with AI nations determines whether they change their diplomatic relations towards you after a while in the positive direction (Right of Way or Shared Map) or in the negative direction (Trade Embargo or War). Maintaining a good popularity is therefore helpful if you do not want to end up in wars with a lot of AI. Your popularity with an AI nation is decreased when you: Have bad diplomatic relations or war with them or their friends, have peace or better relations with their enemies, have troops in their country without Right of Way, produce a lot of troops while you are already unpopular, get your spies caught by them. Your popularity with AI nations is increased when you: Have good diplomatic relations with them or their friends (setting them to Right of Way or Shared map), are enemies with their enemies, buy/sell resources to them on the stock market, get war declared on you by someone else.
Q: How did my units disappear?
A: There can be multiple reasons for this. For example it is possible that you accidentally moved your troops to another location. It is also possible that your troops were destroyed by an enemy, potentially by a long ranged weapon or aircraft. Another possibility is that your troops were stationed in a revolting province and were destroyed or changed ownership during the uprising. Destruction of units or ownership changes can be looked up in the newspaper or in the front reports, as it is usually mentioned in the automated articles/reports.
Q: What is the blast radius / area damage?
A: Every attack also damages all armies in a radius of 5 around the attack target (for comparison: An artillery has an attack range of 50). The damage amount is spread evenly among all affected armies. In case of close-combat attacks all armies within that radius of 5 also defend back against the attacker. Nuclear weapons damage all units in a blast radius of 50.
Q: Is there friendly fire damage?
A: Your own units as well as allied units do not hurt themselves or each other during combat (no friendly fire), with the exception of rockets and nuclear weapons. Rockets also hurt own and allied units in a radius of 5, while nuclear weapons hurt own and allied units in an area of 50.
Q: How do I select my whole army or specific units?
A: Double tap / click on an army, it will select all armies which consist of the same unit types. Alternatively you can select an army and then use the ‘add army’ button on mobile to add more armies to your selection, or hold shift on desktop while clicking on additional armies. Lastly you can also select multiple armies by drawing a circle around them: Tap and hold on the screen, then draw the circle on mobile, hold right click and then draw the circle on desktop. If you want to select or separate specific units from your armies, you have to select the army and use the ‘split’ command button in the army interface. Splitting units to optimize your army stacks is recommended.
Q: Why is my army taking damage even though there is no enemy in sight?
A: You likely put your army into a forced march. There is a button to toggle forced march on and off in the army bar. Units on forced march move 50% faster, but lose 5% hitpoints per hour. The other possibility is that your units were attacked by long range weapons, such as railroad guns, airplanes or rockets, without you noticing it.
Q: What resources do I get when I conquer a province?
A: When you conquer a regular province you receive 50% of the daily resource production amount of that province. When you conquer a capital province you receive 50% of the stored money of that nation.
Q: What is a trade embargo and why did everyone embargo me?
A: Trade embargoes are a diplomatic relation that can be set in the diplomacy menu. You can not buy offers on the stock market anymore from nations which embargoed you. Usually AI players embargo other nations with low popularity. Your popularity can for example drop when you start a lot of wars. If your popularity drops further AIs might also change their trade embargo to a state of war.
Q: How can I load an airplane onto an Aircraft Carrier?
A: Simply move or drag the aircraft onto the Aircraft Carrier. A carrier can only hold a certain amount of planes, which rises per level. You can read up on the current amount in the unit details panel. Only Interceptors, Attack Bombers, Tactical Bombers and Naval Bombers can land on carriers.
Q: How do I declare war?
A: There is no necessity to declare war upfront, although it is a courteous act. You can do so in the diplomacy menu, by choosing a nation, clicking on ‘your relation’ and changing it to war. War is also declared automatically when you attack a foreign nation.
Q: Why do armies sometimes ‘jump’ to a nearby position (e.g. another army or province center) even though they were still some minutes of travel time away?
A: There is a snapping feature in the game when issuing new commands. When an army is within a radius of 5 (for comparison: An artillery has an attack range of 50) to an enemy army or to an enemy province center, the army can jump directly to that position when receiving another command, and skip the remaining travel time.
Account
Account related questions.
Q: I can’t logout on the mobile app to login with a different account.
A: There is no logout button in the app. You’ll have to delete the app and reinstall it if you want to login with another account (keep in mind that having multiple accounts is not allowed). If you want to keep your current account, make sure that you set an account name and password in your account settings before deleting the app, otherwise you won’t be able to login to that account anymore.
Q: I reinstalled the mobile app but now my account is gone.
A: Most likely you registered a new account instead of logging in with your old account. Please reinstall the app again. When you open the app for the first time tap on “login”. There you can use your account credentials to log into your old account. This is only possible if you have set a username and password in your account settings beforehand, which is therefore highly recommended.
Q: I am not receiving the email to confirm my email address so I can use the game chat.
A: It is possible that the email ended up in your spam folder, please check it to make sure. If you still can’t find any trace of the confirmation email, please contact the support team for help.
Q: Why am I not receiving any combat stats or achievement progress?
A: It can take several minutes for your stats to update, which also includes the progress towards achievements. Please be patient. If stats still do not count then it is likely that you are playing in an unranked game created by another player. Only stats from ranked games count, and you can check the ranking status in the game details in the games list.
Q: It says that I completed an achievement but I don’t receive the reward!
A: Sometimes it takes a while before an unlocked achievement reward becomes available due to technical limitations. Please wait at least 24 hour before contacting support about this issue.
Q: Why am I unable to create a game even though I have High Command?
A: Creating own game rounds is only possible in the desktop version. If you can’t create games there you have either not reached level 11 or you don’t have an email address set for your account, or you have no High Command anymore. You can also only create 1 game per month.
Q: How long do game rounds last?
A: If game rounds are not won earlier there is a time limit at which point they are ended, with the player or coalition having the most victory points winning. The time limit depends on the size of the map. Maps with a low player count or small map size have a limit of 5 weeks, medium type maps usually have a limit of 7 weeks, and big maps usually have a limit of 10 weeks. Durations of event maps can deviate from this, and Dominion type maps currently have no limit at all.
Q: Which maps can I create with High Command?
A: Europe - Clash of Nations (22 players), Europe - Road to War (12 players), 1939 - Blitzkrieg (10 players)
Q: Why do I get redirected to the support form every time I try to log in?
A: Most likely your account was banned for violating game rules or the terms of service. If you want to appeal to the ban, please contact the support team.
Q: How do I change my username?
A: Players can change their username once in the account settings. On mobile you find the account settings menu in the bottom right corner when you are on the main page (not ingame), on desktop you can open it on the main website via the gear button in the profile preview window. If you already changed your username but there are important and valid reasons for you to change it another time, please contact the support staff.
Q: Why are some account names green in the chat?
A: The green names in the chat are usually Moderators or Game Operators , sometimes also Developers. Moderators are on the watch that the terms of service are followed in the chat. Sometimes they also just play the game and chat normally like a player. When they give instructions, please follow them.
Technical
Questions on technical problems.
Q: What does the “Server state differs from client” message mean?
A: This can happen sometimes when there is a data mismatch or connection issue between your game client and the server. It happens more often if you keep the game open in the background for a while. Reloading the game usually solves this problem.
Q: I can’t see my armies on the map. Only their number is shown on the map and they are only fully displayed when I select them.
A: This is an engine limitation. It can only display so many unit sprites at once to ensure a smooth gaming experience and to prevent crashes. Once a certain limit is reached unit images cannot be displayed anymore. You can still select such armies by using the lasso/circle tool: Hold the right mouse button on desktop or tap and hold on the screen on mobile, then draw a circle around the army. We are constantly striving to improve such technical limitations for the future.
Q: I can not see the game map / I only see a black map / there are graphical glitches / only the game interface is visible.
A: This is likely due to a hardware or software problem on your end. First try if the issue is resolved by reloading the game. If this does not help, please clear the browser cache or app cache (found in the browser or app/system settings). If this does not help, please make sure your device runs on the latest software. This includes using the latest operating system update and the latest browser version. On desktop also make sure to use the latest graphics driver available. If nothing helps you may want to contact support for further troubleshooting. It will also be helpful if you try to rule out other causes. For example you could try to access another game round, or to access the game from a different browser or device.
Q: I can not turn off the low graphics mode. The game just reloads in the low mode again.
A: You are likely playing the game on older hardware, which is detected as being too slow to run the game in the higher graphics settings with acceptable performance. Please play the game on a newer device if you want to enjoy its full graphical fidelity.
Q: Why does my chat say all of a sudden that email confirmation is required, even though I have confirmed my email already?
A: You can ignore this message, it is there for a technical reason. Most likely a game Operator has logged into your account to solve a support ticket.
Q: The game is currently loading very slowly or not at all, or the game feels very laggy all of a sudden.
A: Most likely there is a game update / release ongoing, during which game or server performance is suffering. This usually happens tuesday every 2 weeks, but there can be exceptions to this. Usually there will also be corresponding news on the main page highlighting the changes. If the game does not recover even an hour or more later, there might be more severe server problems at hand. In such a case we will inform the community in the forums and on social media about the ongoing problems and the efforts to rectify them. Our alert system ensures that Developers look into the issue to resolve it as quickly as possible.
Miscellaneous
Questions on various topics.
Q: Can I disable sound or music?
A: Yes, open the game settings in the lower right menu, among other game options you also find toggles to turn off sound or music.
Q: Is the other player really a human?
A: Call of War is a multiplayer game, so it is played with other people. However it is possible that players drop out of the game and become inactive, or that not all slots are filled up in a game round. In such cases the AI takes over the gameplay. You can determine if a country is played by an active human by checking if their status dot in the diplomacy list or when selecting one of their armies is green.
Q: Why are there sometimes single provinces which are part of another nation at the beginning of the game? / Why does this player have a Medium tank at the beginning of the game? / Why has this player a much higher resource production at the beginning of the game?
A: This is due to the tutorial. New players have to conquer back one of their provinces and receive a Medium Tank to do it. They also have 50% higher resource production for the first week of the game to make learning the game easier.
Q: I am not satisfied with the look of the map, can I change it?
A: Yes, in the game settings you will find various display options. Diplomatic view is the standard option, it paints yourself in golden color, enemies in red, allies in green and neutrals in brown. Political view gives each country its own color. Morale view paints provinces in different shades of red, yellow and green depending on their morale. You can also toggle low graphics mode, which simplifies the look of the map by reducing some elements and effects.
Q: The other player has to be a cheater, there is no other way he/she can have so much!
A: Cheating in the game is not possible. Actions have to be verified by the server, so players cannot give themselves unlimited amounts of resources and such. It is of course possible that the other player spent gold to get ahead, which is allowed. It is also possible that the other player is just playing very well, which might look incomprehensible at first to newer players. There are also some advanced mechanics that veteran players use when micromanaging their troops from time to time. Call of War is a complex game and there is much to learn, this wiki and the community will help you with that!
Q: What are the requirements for getting a custom roleplaying / tournament round created by the support staff?
A: Normally players are only allowed to create the maps which they have access to with High Command. But exceptions can be made to create bigger maps for the purpose of community tournaments or roleplaying rounds. In general there has to be proof that at least 50% of the map slots will be filled by players (e.g. by providing a sign-up list). If you can ensure this, please talk to the support team about specifics.
Q: How many players are needed to make the map ranked?
A: For player-created games at least 6 players are required for it to become ranked, and the game has to be created with anti-cheat on. System-created games are ranked on creation and do not have a minimum player requirement.
Q: What’s the maximum join day for game rounds?
A: Normal games rounds can only be joined until the 7th day of game has passed, as long as they have open slots left. Event maps only start when they are full, so this question does not apply to them.
A: Head over to the High Command article to get an overview.