The World Map tab provides an overview of the controlled territories of each faction, gives details for each ongoing battle, lists the current and previous missions, and shows the war goal progress of each faction. The world map is the place where players can choose in which battle to deploy their war effort, spend their coins, and where leaders can vote to attack new areas.
Factions
There are currently 6 factions in the game, and which of these factions you join will determine which side you are fighting for on the world map. Every faction behaves the same mechanically, though they have different starting territories, and may get different missions and war goals. These factions are constantly fighting against each other to control more territory in order to satisfy their goals and claim victory.
Territories
What faction is currently in control of a territory can be seen by its color on the map. Having control of a territory has various uses for a faction. During the prewar, controlling a territory gives your faction access to its resources, which are needed to start the war phase. Battles can also only be started on territories adjacent to ones already controlled by your faction. Finally, having control of certain territories is sometimes needed to fulfill certain mission or war goal requirements. Note that capital territories, marked with a larger dot than normal, can not be captured.
Battles
A battle is an attempt by one faction to take control of a territory controlled by another faction. For the faction that started the battle, it will be an attack, and for the other faction, it will be a defense. If the attacker wins the battle, they will take control of the contested territory, and if the defender wins, the battle ends with no change. However, it is important to note that in many cases where the defender wins, the attacker will simply start the battle again, making it wasteful to win a defense battle that the attacker was ignoring.
Winning a Battle
The winner of a battle is determined by which faction meets their effort requirement first. The effort requirement for each side is determined mostly by the number of active players in the faction, but can also be increased by the use of fortifications. There is no time limit for a battle, so how long it lasts is determined entirely by how much war effort the factions put into it.
Missions
Missions are special goals that sometimes appear on the world map, granting bonuses if completed in time. Most of the time, every faction will have one mission in progress. Missions will generally last for a few days, and they often have simple requirements such as defending a certain number of territories or controlling a certain territory at the end of the mission's duration. It is important to decide as a faction whether a mission is worth diverting attention into completing, since the rewards can range from table-turning to inconsequential.
Leaders
Faction leaders are powerful players that hold an important role on the world map. Every cycle, which lasts four days, the ten players who contributed the most war effort to their faction during the last cycle become leaders. The main benefit to being a leader is ability to buff all war effort contributed to the territory you are deployed at. This happens passively and scales with more leaders deployed in the same spot. Being a leader also gives you the ability to vote on which battles to start, giving you partial control over what your faction will focus on. Finally, the #1 leader has access to the special Rally Cry ability, which can be used to give a 10% buff to all war effort contributed to the territory it is used on. It can be used once per cycle, and lasts for 24 hours or until the battle is finished.