The Federation's map at midsummer 2018Jun 1, 2018 →

The Federation era is the first fully recorded period of Wynncraft guild warfare — the continuous territory-exchange log begins on 3 January 2018, weeks before the era's opening crisis^[1] — and it was dominated end to end by a single alliance.

The Coalition fractures

On 16–17 February 2018, five guilds — HackForums, Paladins United, House of Sentinels, Emorians and Kangronomicon — left the map-holding Coalition over map disputes and formed Alliance Alliance together with Fantasy and Necronomicon, declaring war on their former allies^[2]. The trigger came on 16 February, when the Coalition published a guild-by-guild division of the province of Wynn; Drew1011 wrote that "within an hour of announcing the map... five guilds left Coalition", which then "attacked the rest of the Coalition, and had the map before the night was over"^[3]. In response the Coalition remnant merged with the remains of War Syndicate into a new alliance: the Federation, founded and led by Drew1011^[4]. (The founding credit is not undisputed: Slayne wrote on 14 November 2018, "In a way, you could say that I created Fed because I (along with some others) created Double AA" — a claim to have caused the Federation by co-creating Alliance Alliance^[5]. Every other account names Drew1011 the founder.) The Coalition Civil War ran until 19–20 March 2018, when Alliance Alliance was reduced to a single territory; the Federation had taken the map a month earlier, on 21 February^[6].

Total war, total control

Three days after forming, the Federation attacked HackForums' 111 territories and wiped them to zero in under 12 hours on 19 February 2018 — the end of Hax as a territorial power, a year after its ~350-territory peak^[7]. The Federation took Llevigar on 17–18 February, bankrupting Emorians after an attack opened by Snowythewolf of Hall of Fame; then the swamp, the Dark Forest and the Light Forest; then Aldorei overnight, taken by IceBlue Team's night shift. Drew1011 wrote that "at the very latest hours of the 19th, Snowy announced it was time to attack Hax. At the time they held 111 territoires. Less than 10 hours later, they had none."^[8] His under-ten-hours figure is shorter than the under-twelve hours of other participant accounts. On 22 February 2018 the leaderboard's largest holders showed only 43 territories^[9] — guilds neither bloc was fighting, such as Blacklisted, drifted to the top of the table for about a day.

From 21 February the Federation held the entire map for 8 months and 25 days, with a single ~3-day interruption in early March^[4][6]. On 16 April 2018 all 15 territory holders were Federation guilds, 384 territories in total, led by Kingdom Foxes with 82^[10]. The alliance grew to 37–40 member guilds^[4]. Within it formed the Aesir Pact (25 March 2018) — sister guilds Fantasy, Sins of Seedia and IceBlue Team, joined by DiamondDeities in July, 'especially dedicated to Gavel'^[11] — while Valkyrie persisted alongside as a community layer.

When the map was won

The Federation's takeover came on 21 February 2018, when it held 356 of 383 territories (93%) against Alliance Alliance's 24^[12]. That is four days after the 17 February split, close to Drew1011's "Three days after the Civil War had begun, Federation had won the map"^[8], and it fits the "8 months and 25 days" of his tribute, a span that counts back from 10 November 2018 to mid-February^[4]. During the 1–5 March relapse the Federation fell to 43 territories (11%) on 3 March, with Alliance Alliance back at 308^[13].

The community timeline dates map control to 20 March^[14], but that date belongs to a different event: on 19–20 March Alliance Alliance fell from 72 territories to one and the Federation reached 99% of the map^[15] — the elimination of the opposing bloc and the end of the war, not the day the map changed hands.

The March interruption followed a mob update that took effect on 1 March 2018, after which Alliance Alliance attacked Gavel "using broken defenses that the vast majority of players were unable to overcome". Tntdestroyd coordinated the first days of the response — Drew1011 wrote that coordination passed to himself on 3 March — and the map was retaken in full "by the 5th". Paladins United was admitted to the Federation on 7 March at Slayne's request, and House of Sentinels left Alliance Alliance on 12 March^[8]. Drew1011's November tribute thanks Tntdestroyd "for fighting hard to reclaim the map back in March"^[4].

How the bloc was run

How the bloc was governed was barely recorded. The alliance was run through a Discord-hosted council of guild leaders deciding by two-thirds majority; Drew1011's tribute thanks AurumKitsune of KingdomPhoenixes "for setting up the discord and coming up with things such as the 2/3 majority voting rule that contributed greatly to its success"^[4]. The structure was not designed but inherited — the alliance "copied the exact same structure that Coalition had", Drew1011 wrote — and its name began as a joke about the Coalition's own naming^[8]. Drew1011 said he had "tried to not thank co-leaders and only mention the leaders"^[16]; the tribute's roll of credited names thus approximates who sat in that council.

Warfighting was concentrated in a smaller group still. Answering the tribute on 13 November 2018, the member Lego_DW named "the absolute gods of war this alliance created" — himself, 21(n), Goden, Antho74, InnerJoker, 0x7cf and snowy — as the people who "really held the alliance together in terms of war power"^[17]. Goden, a Kingdom Foxes officer who rose from recruit to guild leader inside the era, is the only one of them recorded elsewhere.

Fantasy's war

The era's one sustained challenge came from within. Fantasy left the Federation in late May 2018 and fought it across the map all summer — over 220 territories were exchanged with the bloc^[18] — before rejoining on 29 October 2018^[7]. The departure appears to date to the week of 28 May, when fighting with the bloc jumped to sustained war levels^[19]. Fantasy's earlier movement between the blocs is contested: its Alliance Alliance membership is recorded as ending on 19–20 March 2018, while Drew1011 wrote that its leader defected to the Federation mid-battle on 18 February in a deal he negotiated himself^[8] — a stint boundary and a decision, measured differently.

The collapse

At around 3 AM EST on 10 November 2018, one guild left the Federation — and the alliance cascaded apart within a day^[4]. The Hive had left a month earlier, then Odysseia; Imperial's exit 'snowballed into a major attack on Fed together with the enemy alliance [Ent]'; Arisen followed; and after 14 hours of constant warring the Aesir guilds quit, ending both the Federation and the Aesir Pact^[20]. The opposing bloc was named only as [Ent], a tag corresponding to no alliance otherwise recorded. 'What killed Federation was... internal affairs', wrote Drew1011 in his tribute three days later^[4].

Aftermath

The winter of 2018–19 was an interregnum: per the community timeline, 'all guilds keep to themselves with valk owning most of Gavel'^[2], and Kingdom Foxes and Imperial were the top territory gainers^[21]. In the post-collapse chaos SOL was created — the alliance against which Luna would form in February 2019, opening the alliance wars of 2019.