“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”
—Eddard Stark, A Game of Thrones
No noble family can secure its future alone. If you’re going to win the Game of Thrones, you’re going to need to find allies to rely on—and the best way to do that in Game of Thrones: Conquest is to become part of an Allegiance. Working together with an Allegiance allows you to accomplish tasks and meet challenges you might never be able to take on alone…provided you’re working with the right people!
How Allegiances Work
Allegiances in Game of Thrones: Conquest aren’t just groups of players—they’re power structures, similar to the noble families in Game of Thrones itself. To join an Allegiance, you must swear fealty to a Liege, and your Liege must swear fealty to a Liege of their own…all the way up to a single high lord who is responsible for the whole Allegiance.
When you swear fealty to another player, they become your Liege and you become their Bannerman. Each player can have five Bannermen, after which they can’t accept any more. Your Liege can also have a Liege of their own, and so forth—forming an Allegiance. Any given Allegiance can be up to four tiers deep, with a maximum size of 156 players in a single Allegiance—one high lord with five bannermen, each of which have five bannermen, each of which have five bannermen of their own.
Tip: Each player has a roman numeral next to their name, laying out what tier of their Allegiance they are—someone at the top of their allegiance would have an “I,” while someone at the very bottom would have a “IV.”
Being part of an Allegiance has a number of benefits. We’ll break these down in a little bit more detail below.
How do I join an Allegiance?
There are two basic ways to become part of an Allegiance—declaring fealty to a liege, and starting an Allegiance of your own.
Starting your own Allegiance
Starting an Allegiance of your very own is simple—all you have to do is convince someone to become your Bannerman. This can’t be forced! After all, a Bannerman who doesn’t choose to swear fealty to their Liege is no Bannerman at all!
If you have Bannermen of your own, and you swear fealty to no one, you automatically become the lord of your own Allegiance, however small. Your House banner becomes the banner of your whole Allegiance, and you can choose a Tag to represent you as a group.
When you start playing Game of Thrones: Conquest, you’re automatically assigned a Tag at random—to set your tag to one of your choice, click on the icon for your player Avatar on the top left of the screen:
From here, you can click on the Edit icon
. This will take you to a screen where you can change your Avatar, your username, or your Allegiance Tag.
Tip: If you swear fealty to another player as your Liege, then your Allegiance Tag will automatically be updated to match the one your Liege uses. If you leave that Allegiance to strike out on your own, your tag will automatically switch back to the one listed on your profile.
Joining an Allegiance
While the temptation to start a royal dynasty of your own can be strong, making alliances with houses greater than your own can be critical to surviving the early stages of the game. Because of this, most new players w C ill find themselves wanting to swear fealty to a Liege at some point.
To join an Allegiance, all you have to do is select another player and swear fealty to them as your Liege. To do this, you can select any other player—whether it’s on the World Map by finding their Keep, or by clicking their name in the chatbox—and then clicking the “Apply” button in the bottom left.
If the player chooses to accept your fealty, you will automatically become their Bannerman.
Tip: You can choose to automatically accept new Bannermen from the Allegiance menu, or to manually review applications yourself.
Why didn’t I get accepted?
If you apply to become a Bannerman and don’t get accepted, there are a few reasons why this might be.
- The player you applied for has all their Bannermen slots full. A player can only accept 5 Bannermen, so if they already have 5 Bannermen they won’t be able to accept you without leaving one of their other Bannermen behind.
- The player you applied for is tier 4 in their Allegiance. An Allegiance can only go 4 tiers deep, so players at the bottom of a 4 tier Allegiance can’t accept Bannermen of their own.
- The player you applied for chose not to accept you. Some players or Allegiances will want you to communicate with them before joining—do your research before you ask!
Why Join an Allegiance?
Being part of an Allegiance has a number of benefits for a player. Below we’ve listed some of the most important ones.
- Allegiance Gifts: Any time a member of your Allegiance purchases a pack from the store, a gift is also shared with all the other members of the Allegiance. In larger Allegiances this can very quickly become a key source of resources. You can claim these gifts in the Allegiances menu—but be quick because they expire!
- Taking and sharing Seats of Power: The major Seats of Power in Game of Thrones: Conquest frequently require the combined effort of many players to take and hold, making them extremely difficult to control without the support of an Allegiance. Controlling them provides you not only personal benefits, but also benefits that can be shared with your Bannermen.
- Rallies and Reinforcements: When your Keep comes under attack, you’ll feel better knowing there are Bannermen you can call to come to your aid with Reinforcements. Likewise, when you’re attacking another Keep, Rallying other players to your side can be the difference between success and failure. For more information on Rallies and Reinforcements, see our PvP guide.
- Events: Game of Thrones: Conquest will frequently introduce scheduled Events, in which all the players in a particular Kingdom will compete for the opportunity to earn rewards over a limited time. Many events will provide rewards not just based on your individual performance on the leaderboard, but also the overall performance of your Allegiance—granting you the chance to earn rewards based on how well you do as a group. For more info on Events see our Events Window guide.
- Social Connections: While guides like this one can be valuable, the best way to learn and develop your skills as a player is to learn directly from others. Joining an Allegiance gives you access to special Allegiance-only chat options in-game, and many Allegiances have their own communication platforms (such as Discord servers) where you can connect with other players, ask questions, share resources, and learn.
The benefits listed above are some of the most common reasons to join an Allegiance, but they’re not the only ones. Game of Thrones: Conquest is ultimately a game about cooperation and political intrigue. Your most important resources aren’t troops, wood, food, or even dragonglass — your most important resources are your fellow players.