Rules

Server rules as of October 18th, 2021.
The link to the current rules document (the one containing the rules listed below) can be found here. 
== A) Server Rules==
A1. Mods: No hacking or using mods other than Optifine, Shaders, Minimap mods or other modifications specifically allowed by a staff member. 
A2. Bugs: No using Minecraft glitches and bugs to break server rules or gain an unfair advantage.
A3. Lag: 
# Lag machines are prohibited.
# Any person causing severe lag may be temporarily banned, in order to mitigate the lag.
A4. DDoS: No DDoSing the server.
A5. Alts: Using alternate accounts is allowed, but only when you are not at war. When at war you may only join with one and the same account for the entire duration of the war (including ceasefire). Using an alt to circumvent a ban or another punishment is strictly forbidden.
A6. Loopholes: Do not attempt to circumvent any server rules and restrictions. Do not abuse your rights. 
== B) Staff Rules==
B1. Abuse: Staff members may not abuse their position. Doing so results in a demotion and a ban. 
B2. Admin-logs: Whenever a staff member takes any important administrative action (banning somebody or similar), they must post it in #admin-logs. Mutes do not have to be logged, unless they are longer than 24 hours.
B3. Item protection: Staff's items are protected while they are taking administrative or other staff actions.
B4. Exclusion: A staff member cannot participate in decisions regarding his nation or decisions that have an effect on it. 
B5. Appeals: A temporary or permanent ban can be appealed, if staff allow. The staff member who punished the offender may not participate in the appeal, but may explain the situation and give comments on the appeal to the staff team separately.
B6. Interrupting Staff: A player who is found to be acting in such a way to specifically slow down or prevent staff work intentionally; such as killing a staff member doing staff work, actively lying or ignoring staff, etc; may be punished accordingly.
B7. Rule Breaking: 
# Any player who suspects a rule break in-game may report it to staff if they wish it to be rolled back. If they do not wish it to be rolled back they should not report it.
# If a staff member finds that it is legal, they can only tell the player that the suspected rule break was actually legal. No further information (who, what, etc) is allowed to be given. 
# If a rule break took place, the reporting player will be informed, the offender will be punished, and the rule break will be undone. If the reporting player does not wish the offender to be punished, the rule break will not be undone.
==C) Chat Rules==
C1. Spam: 
# Do not spam in the server chat or in Discord channels, except in #bot-spam.
# Do not excessively post messages that are unrelated to the topic of a Discord channel, especially in the »server important« category. Any unrelated messages will be deleted. In addition, staff may delete any message they deem to be against server rules, or even personally disagreeable. They will be expected to defend their actions to the rest of the staff team.
C2. Pinging: Use pings moderately. Do not use the DiscordSRV bot to ping everyone or a certain role. Staff reserves the right to mute you for excessive or unnecessary pinging.
C3. Doxxing: Do not reveal personal information about other players. Do not reveal or disclose the ages of players. If staff discovers a player is under the age of 13 they will be reported to Discord, and may be banned from the server, as they are in violation of Discord’s Terms of Service.
C4. Harassment: Harassment is not allowed. This includes verbal and non-verbal harassment, as well as excessive and continuous killing of a specific player with sole intention to make their experience less enjoyable (i.e. excessive RDMing). 
C5. Hate speech: Hate speech is not allowed.
C6. Threats: Do not make any threats that are not related to gameplay or role-play on this server to other players, especially threats of actions in the real world (i.e. IRL threats). Do not encourage anyone to harm themselves.
C7. Advertising: Advertising any other servers is not allowed.
C8. NSFW: NSFW content is not allowed in game or in chat.
==D) Nation Rules==
D1. Creating: A nation must have at least one member and a recognized claim on some territory in order to declare wars, participate in international relations or receive staff protection. To create a nation write down its name, population, and its territory in #land-claims.
D2. War nations: You cannot create a nation specifically for war purposes. 
D3. Leader/s: The person who creates a nation is considered that nation’s leader, unless they grant leadership to another player. If the leader leaves the faction without granting leadership to anyone, it is up to the members to choose the new leader. Leaders may give people permission to perform leadership actions on their behalf, possibly with stipulations. A nation may have multiple leaders, who may all individually take leader actions. 
D4. Joining/Leaving: You may only join a nation and be kicked out of it with permission of the nation’s leader/s. No person shall be a member of multiple nations. You may leave your nation at any time.
D5. New nations: If a nation changes its name, changes its leader or it is couped, it is still considered the same nation. Same applies for nations that are disbanded and reestablished soon after. Such nations keep all their members and land. Their immunity and cooldown periods do not get reset.
D6. Uniting: 
# If two nations unite, the newly formed nation is not considered a new nation and keeps all members and all territory of both nations. When uniting, immunity and cooldown of such a nation do not reset, but rather follow the immunity/cooldown of the nation that had fewer days of immunity/cooldown left. 
# When a nation joins another nation, the latter automatically gets all land and members of the former. All immunity/cooldown times follow the times of the latter nation.
D7. Declaring independence: Only a member of a nation may declare independence from it. Declaration of independence must be posted in #land-claims. A nation that declares independence is considered a new nation. It may claim all territory that is de facto controlled by its members. Control includes leading a nation, leading a region, being the mayor of a town or owning a building on your nation’s territory. Such a nation automatically gains all players that reside on its territory.
D8. Vassals: 
# Because vassals are separate nations, all rules apply to them as well. A vassal may grant another nation permission to make certain decisions on its behalf, but may also revoke that permission at any time.
# Vassals must be reasonable and may not be used to abuse or circumvent the rules. Each nation may have at most 2 vassals. A vassal cannot have a vassal.
D9. Disbandment: 
# The leader/s may disband the nation at any time.
# If no member of a nation joins the server for a week, the nation is disbanded and its territory is no longer protected by staff. If a player will be absent for a longer period of time, they can notify the staff beforehand and an exception will be made.
==E) Land Claiming Rules==
E1. Claiming: Territory can be claimed, bought, sold or given away only with the permission of the nation’s leader/s. Whenever new territory is gained, you must mention it in #land-claims. 
E2. Claimable territory: You may only claim territory without a recognized claim on it, unless you are declaring independence. In that case your nation may claim all the territory that the members of your nation control.
E3. Unclaimable territory: The Nether and the End are free for everyone and cannot be claimed. The Sea is not protected with the exception of waters 6 chunks (96 blocks) out from the shore of your nation.
E4. Over expansion: The amount you can claim is based on your (population), current developed land, and the popularity of the area you are claiming. You must have more members than usual to claim land that is farther away from your pre-existing claim. For each non-connected land claim, you must have an additional player. No creating excessive or unreasonable claims for a nation (such as claiming all of Africa with 3 people), which shall be decided by the staff on a case-by-case basis. 
E5. Colonies: A nation can make colonies only when it has 2 or more active members. Colonies must have a settlement (at least 3 medium-sized houses), must be reasonable (e.g. a landlocked country cannot make colonies) and must have at least one member permanently living there.
==F) Gameplay Rules==
F1. Griefing: When not at war you may grief or edit buildings and structures only if you are the leader of the nation, owner of the building, mayor of the town, you have permission from the leader, owner or mayor or the land is unclaimed. Everyone can edit naturally generated terrain that is unclaimed or claimed by the nation they are in. Naturally generated terrain may be rolled back if staff deem that players have caused extreme unnecessary damage to the terrain. 
F2. Looting: When not at war, a player may loot another nation only every 24 hours and only up to 9 stacks per player may be taken every raid. Shulker boxes count as 1 stack + 1 stack for each stack inside. Looting your own nation is not limited. 
F3. Killing: 
# You may attack and kill another person even when not at war. 
# No spawn killing. A player may not be attacked until 30 seconds after they respawn, unless you are able to prove they hit you first or started illegally griefing. 
F4. Images: You may not use the ImageToMap plugin to break any server rules.
F5. Shops: Do not abuse shop protection to prevent your items from being stolen.
==G) War Rules==
===Declaration===
G1. Declaration of war:
# A nation can declare war on another nation only with the permission of the nation’s leader. Every nation (including allies, vassals and other nations) that declares or joins a war must post their declaration in #war-declarations, name which nations they are declaring war on and ping their leader/s.
# You may only declare war on another nation when one of its members is online. The defending nation in a war must be aware of the declaration before any wartime activity can take place.
G2. War Immunity:
# If a nation was created by a player that has recently joined a world, such a nation may not be declared war on for the first 7 days since that player has joined the world for the first time. Other nations are immune to war declarations for 3 days since the establishment of that nation. If a nation with immunity declares war on another nation, it loses its immunity.
# If a nation that has declared independence from another nation is declared war on by that nation, it loses its immunity.
# Despite provisions of the previous two paragraphs, a nation may declare war on another nation that is immune from war declarations, but only with permission from the immune nation.
G3. War cooldown: A nation cannot declare war or be declared upon if less than 24 hours have passed since it signed a peace treaty. Two nations that have been recently at war with each other cannot declare war on each other if less than 48 hours have passed since they signed a peace treaty.
G4. Volunteers (Mercenaries): 
# During war anyone can join the army of another nation, but only with permission from the leader of the warring nation. The leader of the warring nation may revoke the permission at any time. Each volunteer must mention which army they are joining in #war-declarations. A volunteer is not regarded as a member of that nation. 
# You may not volunteer if you are not a member of any nation. You may not volunteer for two nations at the same time. If your nation is participating in a war, you may not volunteer for the opponent, unless you leave your nation or declare independence beforehand. During a war cooldown between yours and another nation you may not volunteer against the latter. If a person from an immune nation volunteers, that nation loses its immunity. 
# Volunteers may not teleport or use alts during a war. When the opponent is online, they may perform any wartime activity against the opponent, but only if a member of the nation for which they are volunteering is online. Their mother nations are not protected from war declarations.
# You may unvolunteer at any time, but you must wait 24 hours before you volunteer again.
===During War===
G5. Wartime Activities:
# Wartime activities cannot take place until 30 minutes after the original (valid) war declaration. 
# Any wartime activity must take place while a member of the opposing nation is online. Wartime activities include griefing and looting more than 9 stacks a day per person. Killing other players is not a wartime activity and is allowed even when not at war.
G6. Griefing: You may only grief buildings, structures, cities and terrain of another nation when both sides are at war. Griefing includes placing blocks, destroying blocks, lighting up fire, killing captured or tamed mobs or villagers, destroying beds and igniting TNT. Private property is considered a part of the host country.
G7. Looting: When at war, you may take as many stacks as you want from the opponent. 
G8. Teleports: You are not allowed to use teleport commands, back command, home commands and/or spawn commands when you are participating in a war. 
G9. Supervision: If possible, a staff member should always supervise a war. It is also recommended (but not mandatory) for all players to record wars. 
===Peace treaties===
G10. Signing: A war may end only with a peace treaty. All peace treaties must be posted in #peace-treaties and must be signed by leaders of all nations that were at war.
G11. Voluntary treaties: Nations may sign a voluntary peace treaty to end the war. Voluntary peace treaties are not necessarily enforced by staff.
G12. Involuntary treaties: A nation which thinks that it should be declared the winner of the war can appeal to staff. If it is obvious that the nation has won the war, the staff (taking into account the opinion of Helpers and other veteran players) may declare them as a winner, taking into consideration the amount and proportion of damage dealt to the opponent’s buildings, the amount and proportion of the damage received, number of kills, morale, duration of war and other factors. A peace treaty is signed, in which the losing nation must accept all reasonable offered peace terms. Such treaties are subject to a certain amount of staff control, but are not necessarily enforced. 
G13. Disbandment: If a nation is disbanded during a war, it capitulates. An involuntary treaty is signed, in which the winning nation/s may stipulate peace terms. 
G14. Avoiding wars: 
# Each day of the war, at least one person from each warring nation must be online for at least 30 minutes. If no member of either nation is able to do that, the sides must reschedule the war in a reasonable time. 
# If no member of a warring nation is online for at least 30 minutes every day during the war, the nation has lost and must capitulate. An involuntary peace treaty is signed, in which the losing nation must accept all reasonable demands of the winning nation. 
G15. War crimes: If a member or multiple members of a nation during war severely and in its entirety break an important rule, which considerably changes the outcome of a war, that nation may be forced to surrender, which is decided on a case-by-case basis. In such cases, an involuntary peace treaty is signed, in which the surrendering nation must accept all reasonable demands of the winning nation. In addition, staff may choose to include rollbacks as part of this involuntary peace treaty, depending on the rules that were broken.
G16. Rollbacks: Rollbacks may not be included in any peace treaty.
===Civil War (Revolt, Rebellion)===
G17. Factions: Civil war is a war between two factions that starts with a declaration. No faction may exist outside of a civil war. All factions in a civil war may consist only of citizens of the same nation or its vassals. A faction is not a nation and may not participate in international relations, but it may engage in relations with its own members, other national factions, their members and foreign volunteers. 
G18. Creating a Faction: If not stated otherwise, all nation rules (except D2. and D7) apply for factions as well. A faction is created with a declaration of civil war automatically. Each declaration must specify either a faction or a person, on which you are declaring. The person that has declared becomes the leader of the attacking faction and the players that are declared on become the leaders of the defending factions. 
G19. Territory and Members: During the civil war you may always join, leave or create a faction. The opposing factions must be informed when a player joins or leaves a faction. The nation leader and the player on whom the civil war was declared cannot leave their faction. A faction cannot claim land, as land claiming rules do not apply for them. It is considered that a faction possesses all territory that is controlled by its members. It automatically gains all players that reside on its territory, unless they leave the faction. 
G20. Relations: If not stated otherwise, relations between factions, faction members and volunteers follow the same rules that apply for nations, as if they weren’t in a common nation and the faction was independent. That doesn’t apply for relations of a faction or its members with their own nation, other nations, their members (except volunteers) or factionless players. Factions do not have an effect on such relations, as if they didn’t exist. 
G21. Civil War Rules: If not stated otherwise, all war rules (except G2, G3 and G17-G21) also apply for the factions in a civil war. A civil war in a nation cannot be declared if less than 24 hours have passed since that nation or its factions signed a peace treaty. Members of two factions that have been recently at war with each other cannot declare a civil war on each other if less than 48 hours have passed since they signed a peace treaty. A civil war in an immune nation is allowed. If a war against a nation and a revolt against the leader of a nation are happening simultaneously, that nation can be only griefed by the opposite nation in the war if one of the non-rebelling members of a nation is online. When a non-rebelling member of a nation isn’t online, the rebel may not grief the opposing nation in a war.