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Castle Wars
By: Data/Loggy, Lazyboy164, and Deathbyape
(This is a members-only feature.)
Game Overview
Recommended Items
Getting Started
Gameplay
In-Game Equipment
Flag Tactics
Rewards
Location: Far Southwest of Ardougne, past the Observatory
Requirements: None
Note: This is a 'safe' Mini-Game. If you die, you will not lose your items.
Castle Wars is a fun little Runescape version of “Capture the Flag”. Located far southwest of Ardougne, you can access it easily by using a Ring of Dueling. There are two teams. Since this is a Runescape version, the teams are named after two of the Runescape Gods. There is team Saradomin in the blue, and team Zamorak in the red. In this game, you will have to fight other players, defend your castle, try to capture your opponents flag, and thus get more points.
You may be thinking that this sounds easy, but as you read on you will see it is a lot more complicated than what has been explained so far. Regardless, CastleWars is one of the most popular places in Runescape!
What makes CastleWars so fun is that it’s basically just like the wilderness, only if you die you just go back to your base and you don’t lose anything. CastleWars is multi-combat zone, so multiple people can attack a single person. Some people like to train there for the fact that it’s a little more exciting than training on regular monsters. It’s not the best experience, but hey, who doesn’t like killing other players?
Game Overview
Each team has a base; a castle, of sorts (thus, Castlewars!): One in the Northwest corner, and one in the Southeast corner. The object of the game is to run from your base to the other teams base, “capture” their flag, run back to your base, and put the opponents flag into your pedestal.
During the game, you can do a variety of things - meleeing, maging, or ranging. You could go and try to capture the opponents flag, or you could defend your own, and chase anyone that takes it. You could play defence, and stick near your castles, maybe meleeing on the field or maging behind the spear walls, or you could mage from atop the wall, or fight inside the castle itself. You take the fight to the enemy castle, or you could fight with all the action at midfield, at the river. In Castle Wars, you can deploy all kinds of equipment, from explosive potions to barricades.
Each game lasts for 20 minutes, and at the end of the 20 minutes, each member of the team with the most points gets two CastleWars tickets! If the game is a tie, then everyone on both teams get one CastleWars ticket. With these tickets you can buy armor and other things, but this will be discussed later in the guide. There are many other things we have to go over.
Recommended Items
In Castle Wars, you won't actually need to bring anything. You can just show up, jump in a portal, and play - as long as you don't have a hood or cape of any sort on you. As you might know by now, Castle Wars is a combat based game. You're going to have to fight. Of course, in Runescape, there are three ways to fight - through melee, ranged, or magic. There are some things you should know about each one before you choose what to use during Castle Wars.
Melee
There are many, many different ways to melee other players. The most popular is standing at the top of each base guarding the flag or pedestal and killing the opponent as the come up. If you stand guard next to your base and guard the flag, you can get an early attack on the person attempting to get the flag. This works great if you have barricades (see below for more on barricades). Once your flag has been captured you have two choices: you can either follow the person who stole the flag and attack them as they run to your base, or you can stay up and start setting up and protecting the pedestal so when the person who has the flag scores or dies, you’ll be ready. It is suggested that you do chase the person, as if you kill them, and they die, then you can hold onto your own teams flag.
If you are going to melee, it would be smart to use the best equipment available to you. You may also want to bring a variety of armour and weapons to help protect you from the large variety of fighters. Bringing a secondary poisoned weapon, like some sort of poisoned dragon dagger, is also a good idea as well.
Magic
Magic is probably the most important attack style in Castle Wars. One mage can make or break a team. The most common spots to mage are either on the first floor of your castle (outside the starting room), up near the catapult on the wall, or simply on the ground fighting with the meleers.
If you are going to mage, especially with bind/freezing spells, you should be thinking about where your flag is at all times. Try to hold who ever steals your flag, and don’t lose track of where they are, because you are the most important player on your team.
Modern/Normal Magic
Normal magic is a bonus, and is usually used by players who just want to train magic, or are using melee/range and switch into magic robes to snare or entangle a flag stealer. With 'normal' magic, you can use useful binding spells, and use cheap but damaging spells, such as Wave Spells.
Ancient Magic
If you have a good, smart ancient mage on your team you almost have a sure victory. As you can see in the below picture, Ancient Magic can be a great weapon to have on your team.
Ancient mages usually use ice burst or ice barrage spells, which are multi-way spells. They can freeze multiple people at a time, and do massive damage, where bind/entangle does no damage at all. If you want to really help your team, use these spells, but they are very expensive.
Lunar Magic
Though Lunar Magic isn't good offensively, there are various spells which you could use to help out your teams a lot. You can transfer energy, and give the power of Vengeance to your teamates. You can also use the Cure and Heal spells to restore the HP of your team, as well as cure them of poison and other such things. If you do plan on using Lunar Magic, try to stay out of the way of the enemy, and bring some backup weapons.
If you are going to use magic, it’s suggested you use Ahrim’s Robes, or at least Mystic Robes. Use spells that can do a lot of damage, and or freeze/hold the other team’s players. Try to stay away from enemy meleers in a place where you can safely mage the enemy.
Ranging
Ranging is also a skill commonly used in Castle Wars. Rangers commonly are on the wall, where the catapult is. If you want to help more, you should get off the wall, and chase who ever steals your flag. It is common for the flag stealer to turn on Protect from Melee or Magic, as most people melee, and mages can freeze them. But if you’re ranging, you can still hit your max damage.
Equipment for ranging should be the best hide armour and bow you can use. Do not forget that you have to pick up and use your own arrows if you want to keep them. The best bow to use would be a Crystal Bow, though poison arrows are also a help. Crossbows, with the various uses of enchanted bolts, can also be a big help.
Other Equipment
You really won't and can't bring anything else - non-combat items (eg, food of your own) is not allowed in the arena, and wouldn't matter that much. When you die you respawn with full hits and stats, so it isnt worth it.
Getting Started
If you want to play Castle Wars, you will, of course, have to find the arena first. It's located far southwest of Ardougne. You can easily get there by teleporting using a Ring of Dueling; otherwise, you'll have to walk. From Ardougne, head to the Gnome Battlefield; then, cross the river and head south. You'll eventually come to two bridges that form a sort of 90 degree angle; cross these and you'll be at the Castle Wars arena. There is a bank chest inside, so you won't have to gear up before hand.
In the Castle Wars lobby, there is, of course, the afforementioned bank chest, as well as a chap by the name of Lanthus that sells various rewards of Castle Wars, in exchange for Castle Wars tickets. We will learn about that later. In addition, there is a door off to the sides that lead to the walls of the whole Castle Wars Arena, atop which you can survey the game. Otherwise, the only other things of an interest (besides the message boards that display the record of both teams for that day), are the three portals - a red one, on the left (if you're facing the portals as if you just walked into the lobby facing forward), for Zamorak; a blue one, on the right, for Saradomin; and a green one, in the center, for Guthix.
Whence you are geared up, choose your team. The teams really don't make a difference; your castles are essentially the same, there are no advantages for either, and so on. If you wish to join the afformentioned Zamorak team, enter the red portal. If you wish to join said Saradomin team, enter the blue portal. If you aren't sure, enter the green Guthix portal, which sends you to the team with the least amount of people. You won't be able to join the Zamorak or Saradomin portals if one of the teams has a larger amount of players than the other.
Whence you have entered a portal, you will be brought down to a cave waiting area. You will be equipped with a cape and a hood -red if you've joined Zamorak, blue if you've joined Saradomin.
However, there is a fun little feature to Castle Wars. If you wear another piece of god equipment in one gods team portal, the god will turn you into some kind of animal. So, if you wear any kind of Guthix or Zamorak equipment (eg, a Guthix Book of Balance, or a Zamorak Plate), into the Saradomin Portal, you may get a message (from Saradomin!) saying something about y'ou daring to wear the equipment of my brothers here?!', and you will either be turned into a sheep or a rabbit.
The same goes for the Zamorak Portal (except for wearing Saradomin Equipment instead of Zamorak Equipment), though you can be changed into a sheep or an imp. Please note that this changes nothing; you will be turned back into a human once the game begins or if you leave the portal. Saradomin items in the Zamorak portal turns you into an imp; while Zamorak equipment in the Saradomin portal turns you into a rabbit. Guthix equipment in either portal turns you into a sheep.
A message near the top of the screen will tell you much time is left before the game begins. When the appropriate amount of time has passed, the game will begin!
Gameplay
When you're waiting in your team's waiting room cave, when the game begins, you be teleported to the portal spawn room of your team's Castle. There is a spawn of bandages, which are unlimited to you in Castle Wars. They heal 8 hits and some energy. There is also a portal in which you can exit the game, and a ladder leading upstairs. You have 2 minutes to leave the spawn room - its unfair if you just sit in the spawn room, where the enemy can not get to you.
When you're in the actual Castle Wars arena, several little notices will appear on your screen. Possibly the most important ones are to the top left of your screen - showing the Saradomin Flag and the Zamorak Flag. It will either tell you in green text that either the flags are safe, or taken in red. If the flag is dropped in to the arena, a yellow message will say 'dropped.' Further down from the flag notices, there are five other messages. The first one will tell you the health of your Castle's Main Gate. The second one will tell you the status of the smaller, secondary door of your castle - its either locked or open. The next two symbols refer to the rock obstacles in the tunnels - they are either Collapsed (in green), or cleared (in red). The last icon will inform you of the status of your Catapult - either operational or damaged.
And, of course, in the bottom right hand corner, a message will tell you how much time is left in the game. Once you've got that set, before you can really get into the game, you'll need to know the layout of the Castle Wars Arena.
Castle Wars Arena Map
The above map is the aboveground of the Castle Wars Arena. It also shows the lobby, complete with a bank. There are a few areas to go into with more depth. Revert back to the above map with each section if you can.
The Castles
Again, there are two castles; the Saradomin one in the Northwest corner of the Castle Wars arena, and the Zamorak one in the Southwest corner. Both castles are identical as far as important things go. Below is a sort of good view of the three levels of both castles.
When the game begins, you will be teleported from the lobby chamber to the spawn room of your castle. You will have 2 minutes to leave the room, or else you will be booted from the current game. Otherwise, grab some bandages if you wish, and head out.
There is much in the castle. The very top floor holds the flag; the second to top floor is empty, though it is a good place to set up barricades and stop any enemies going for the flag.
The next floor down, the same one that contains the spawn room, can also be set up as a useful bottlekneck to stop enemies from progressing upwards. Many people set up barricades to block the enemies path - teamates can take a detour through the spawn room.
The ground floor of the castle is very important. Inside, you can access the various unlimited kinds of equipment available to you (see the In-Game Equipment section for more info). You can also enter the tunnels inside. Furthermore, this is where you can get up on the walls, a good place to be.
Up on the walls of your castle, you can defend well, especially if you're a mage or ranger. You can cast spells or fire arrows at enemies running around below from the safety of the parapets.
Becareful, though - enemies will try to get up on the wall themselves, and take you out! Enemies can use rope on the wall to quickly scale it or, if they manage to gain entry in your castle, they can enter the same way you did, using the steps.
With this in mind, melee fighters on the walls are also important too, to protect the mages and ranges. The catapult is on the wall as well - but we'll go over that later.
There are four ways to get into the enemies castle. Both Castles have two doors - a large, main door, and a small door way on the other side. The small door can be picklocked open, but the large door will have to be destroyed, either by attacking it, or using explosive potions on. When the main castle door is destroyed, it will remain this way until someone repairs it with a tool box. You can also get in the castle by scaling the wall with rope, or by using the tunnels to climb up to the bottom floor. The picture below displays the mini-map of one of the castles (they're the same, except in appearance); the black circle to the left is the small door that can be picklocked open by the enemy or locked by the team, while the black circle to the right is the main castle doors. The blue circle is the ladder leading up from the tunnels. The other ladders lead further up into the castle.
Lastly, there is the field surrounding both castles - a tattered battlefield. Much fighting is done here, mostly by melee fighters and mages; most rangers stay atop the wall where they can hit most on their field. As shown in the picture below, its dangerous to travel to your enemies field.
Spear walls are littered about the field, and you should take advantage of them if you are maging or ranging or have a halberd. You can go behind one and safely attack your enemy. The spear walls also create a good way to slow down your opponents, as well as an enemy that has your flag.
Midfield
Midfield is, of course, the area in the middle of the field, around the river that runs diagonally through the field. There are three ways to cross it. If you've taken your enemies flag and you're trying to get back to your own castle, the river can be a big obstacle. You could use the bridges and the island in the center of the field, but this would be a bad idea. A lot of fighting goes on there, mostly by players trying to stop enemies with their flag.
They use barricades, and place rangers and mages atop the old outposts there. You could, however, climb down into the tunnels from midfield, and try to make your escape there. Your best bet would be to use one of the stepping stone trails, located near the end of both sides of the river - it's a popular spot for those with the flag to flee to.
Both trails are usually much less crowded, though enemies can easily set up barricades at either of the ends of the trail to stop you - this can make things difficult, for you probably wont have enough time to destroy it.
The Tunnels
Below the Castle Wars arena, there is an intricate system of tunnels. You can access this cavern by using the ladders in both bottom floors of the castles, or by the ladder in the center of the field. There is a large room with ladders in the center of the cave, and then two tunnels on either side that lead to ladders that you can use to enter either of the castles, each blocked with a rock slide.
In the tunnels, there are rockslides and rubble that may block your path. You will have to use a pickaxe to clear them. Becareful, though; there are many tight spaces in the tunnels that are easily blocked by barricades and enemies.
In-Game Equipment
As mentioned up yonder in this here online text document, the bottom floor of you castle offers a variety of equipment, unlimited to you (excluding bandages, which are found in your starting spawn room). These have a variety of uses in Castle Wars, and information on them can be found below.
Supplies
Item | Image | Use In Castle Wars |
Bandages |  | They are the only ‘food’ you can use in Castle Wars. They heal 8 hitpoints and 30% energy. Only item not found in the main room of the ground floor of your castle; found in starting room instead. |
Toolbox |  | Used to repair the catapult or the main castle doors. |
Rocks |  | Used on the catapult (see the Catapult section below). |
Rope |  | Used to scale castle walls. |
Bucket |  | Used on the tap to fill up with water; use the bucket of water on a burning barricade or Catapult to put out said fire. |
Tinderbox |  | Used to slow damage barricades and Catapults by setting them on fire. |
Explosive Potion |  | Used to blow up barricades or cause boulders to fall down in the tunnels, which hits very high if someone is standing underneath. |
Pickaxe |  | Used to clear the rocks blocking the pathways in the tunnels. |
Barricades |  | Used to bock off areas; see the Barricades section below for more info. |
Barricades
Barricades can single-handedly help you win Castle Wars if you use them right. Each team is only allowed to have ten barricades, so it is important to make sure that you do not waste your teams barricades by putting them in pointless spots.
If you want to maximize the use of barricades, put them on staircases. This is by far the best place to put them. Another good spot is right outside your starting room, blocking the staircase going upwards. Please note, if this is blocked off, and you can not get out, do not attack your teams barricades. Simply go through the barrier, back into your starting room, and back out the other side.
Barricades are great for defending; in fact, you could set them up around the enemies pedestal if you and some teamates manage to take it; thus preventing the enemy from bringing the flag back and putting it in their own pedestal. You see, they have to be next to the pedestal to put it back; they can't do that if there is a barricade in the way.
The Catapult
The much-mentioned Catapult (located in the corner of the balcony atop the wall) is fun to use, but not worth using when seriously trying protect your flag. If you hit someone with it however, you can hit around 15 or so with it. The way to use the catapult is to use the arrow keys and lineup the “x” on the crude map of the catapult to a place where people are/are going to be on the real minimap. It’s best to line up the catapult in a place where people are likely to go; eg, right in front of the catapult, right in front of the bridge, ect. When someone is not very far away from the spot, fire the catapult and you should hit them. The problem with the catapult is that it hits everyone within a certain radius - meaning you can hit your own teammates. However, if you've completed the Catapult Construction Quest, you will automatically do no damage to your own team when using the catapult. Also, it is not very accurate. You can burn your opponents catapult down using a tinderbox, and if someone burns yours down or it gets broken you can use a toolbox on it to fix it.
Tips
There aren't many actual tips to Castle Wars - you basically just fight. However, there are some tricks you can do to either protect your own flag or capture the other team's.
Flag Tactics
It is strongly recommended that you do not attempt handling the flag if you are under 70 combat, and/or have less than 43 prayer. Capturing the flag can be very fun if you’re successful at it. When going to capture the flag always make sure you have the following items: bandages, plenty of prayer, good armor, explosive potions (see above), and a defense/super defense potion wouldn’t hurt. There are three routes to take:
Straight out the castle and across the middle bridge.
This is the quickest route, so if you have good defence and protection, this is a good route to take; however, it will be most crowded route to take - mostly crowded with your enemies.
Underground via the tunnels.
This route is the longest. After grabbing the opponents flag, you could go straight into the tunnels through your opponents castle; or, you could go the island in the center and climb down the ladder there. However, there may be many obstacles in your way.
Across the river stepping stones.
Either of the stepping stones paths will be less crowded then taking the island in the center of the map; however, it is a bit of a hassle to step across them, especially if you have people chasing you.
Regardless of what route you take, explosive potions are a must. The last thing you want is to be stuck so close to the place where you score and end up dieing due to a barricade. If you have an explosive potion, just use the explosive potion on the barricade to blow it up and walk right past. If somehow you forgot to bring explosive potion, you can use your tinderbox on it to set fire to it, and if all else fails just attack it. Using a tinderbox takes longer, and straight out attacking it will almost be in vain if you have a group of people on you. If you take the underground, bring a pickaxe, or use explosive potions to blow up the rocks.
When you die, and you are holding the flag, it drops on the ground. A person from the team whose flag it is can pick it up and hold it. So, say I'm on the Zamorak team and I have the Saradomin flag - if I die, a Saradomin-team player can pick up the flag and run off with it, preventing the Zamorak team to score. Then, in order for your team to win, you have to kill the flag holder and then get back to your base alive to score. This can be very hard, as after a team has their own flag, they all guard it and it is hard to get it back.
This always happens except for when the person is in their own castle. If someone dies and the flag is dropped, the team whose flag it is (example, a Saradomin person has the Saradomin flag) can hold their own flag.
However, in some places and situations the flag is automatically returned to the pedestal. Some of these places/situations include when the rocks fall on you, the stepping stones, or certain places by the catapult.
If you capture the other teams flag, and are going to die, die in one of the places above, or you will put your team in an extremely hard situation to recover from.
Castle Wars Bracelet
A useful tool in Castle Wars is the Castle Wars Bracelet.
The wearer of this bracelet does 20% more damage to bearers of their own flag. This can help you out a lot if you're after someone on the enemy team with your teams flag! See the Crafting Guide for more info.
Castle Wars Rewards
Upon completion of a Castle Wars game, you will receive 2 tickets if your team wins, 1 if the game is a tie, and none if your team loses. These tickets can be exchanged for a variety of items. The guy I mentioned earlier, Lanthas, is the person you have to talk to for exchange. Select the option to 'trade' with Lanthas, and a window will pop up of all possible rewards.
Below is a table of the rewards you can obtain, and how many tickets is required to buy them. The rewards are mainly decorative equipment; they do not have very good equipment bonuses.
Image | Reward | Price |
 | Red Decorative Sword | 5 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Red Decorative Plate | 8 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Red Decorative Legs | 6 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Red Decorative Shield | 6 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Red Decorative Helm | 4 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | White Decorative Sword | 50 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | White Decorative Plate | 80 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | White Decorative Legs | 60 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | White Decorative Shield | 60 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | White Decorative Helm | 40 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Gold Decorative Sword | 500 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Gold Decorative Plate | 800 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Gold Decorative Legs | 600 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Gold Decorative Shield | 600 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Gold Decorative Helm | 400 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Blue Castlewars Hood | 10 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Blue Castlewars Cloak | 10 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Red Castlewars Hood | 10 Castle Wars Tickets |
 | Red Castlewars Cloak | 10 Castle Wars Tickets |
That's it for Castle Wars. The rest is up to your combat skills and flag handling. Good luck!
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