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Creating & Managing an Alliance
Quick answers
- How many players can join an alliance in Iron Realms?
- An alliance opens at fifty lords and its hall grows with the banner's collective might: six tiers raise the cap from 50 to 75, 95, 115, 135 and finally 156 members at the top. Alliance tags are 2 to 6 letters and must be unique within your kingdom.
- What do alliances do in Iron Realms?
- Alliances hold forts and Seats of Power, declare phased wars, run weekly bounty boards, reinforce each other's walls, and share alliance technology funded by member donations.
- Is Iron Realms free to play?
- Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download and no account required. Every building, troop tier and Seat of Power is reachable without spending money — purchases buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.
- Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?
- No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the pre-alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.
- How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?
- Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.
An alliance is the heart of the mid-to-late game. Alone you can clear camps and grow; together you hold seats, win wars, and shape a whole realm. This guide takes you from founding or joining a banner all the way to running one.
Join or found?
- Join an established banner if you are new — you inherit its help network, forts, and know-how immediately. Open the Alliance menu, browse the alliance finder, and request to join one that is active and near you.
- Found your own if you want to lead. You become its first leader and set its name, tag, banner, and message of the day.
You can leave and switch banners, but wars, forts, and seat holdings belong to the alliance — think before you jump ship mid-season.
Ranks & roles
An alliance is a small hierarchy. Ranks carry powers, so promote deliberately:
| Rank | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Leader | Everything: promote/demote, kick, set war and battle plans, disband, manage forts and the Discord webhook. |
| Officers (R4+) | Invite and manage members, set the message of the day, run rallies, and speak in the private officer sub-channel. |
| Members | Chat, help timers (1.5% off a build's own duration per help, 20 helps maximum — up to 30% off, and worth most on long upgrades), join rallies, garrison forts, and contribute to alliance tech and the war effort. And the Hall's 🤝 Help the hall press: one tap takes 60 seconds off the longest build of every bannermate, up to thirty of them, then rests four hours. |
Two more things a banner does for its own, both server-enforced: seats your alliance holds in the same region shield each other (+5% defence per allied holding beyond the first, to +30%), and a lord may second one commander to a bannermate for an hour, who fights at 80% while the lender cannot field them at all. See Alliances & Seats of Power.
Managing members
- Invite from the finder or approve requests. Aim for active lords in a compatible time zone over raw numbers.
- Promote reliable players to officer so invites and rallies do not bottleneck on one person.
- The message of the day (MOTD) is your standing orders — the current target, the muster time, the rules. Keep it current.
- Kick only inactive or disruptive members; a healthy banner is chosen, not crowded.
Talking to each other
- Alliance chat — your main room, always in the HUD so you never miss a muster.
- Officer sub-channel (R4+) — a private room for planning without tipping your hand.
- Kingdom chat — the whole realm, for diplomacy and trash talk.
- Discord webhook — a leader can pipe alliance activity to a Discord server so the banner stays coordinated off-app.
Alliance forts & garrisons
Forts are the alliance's own strongholds on the map. Claim one, then garrison it — members station real troops there (not just gold), and donate resources to level it. A well-held fort projects power across a region and feeds your Conquest score. See Alliances & Seats of Power for the seat side.
- Station troops to defend a fort; recall them home when the front moves.
- Donate wood/stone/iron to raise its level and its garrison cap.
- Assign officers to coordinate who garrisons what, so no fort stands empty.
War: rallies, declarations & scoring
- Rallies — an officer opens a rally on a target; members join with troops; it launches as one overwhelming host. This is how you take anything bigger than your own keep.
- War declarations — formally declare on a rival alliance for phased, scored conflict; spoils pay out on resolution.
- Battle plans — leaders set the standing plan so every member knows the current objective.
The Conquest Season & the Bounty Board
- The Conquest Season is the grand alliance-vs-alliance contest: hold seats and forts, win wars, and record deeds to climb the standings for season-long glory and rewards.
- The weekly Bounty Board sets cooperative combat goals the whole banner chips at together — a reliable, fair source of spoils.
A great alliance runs on three habits: press Help constantly, keep the MOTD current, and show up for the muster. Do those and the rest follows.