Archeage - Castle Guide in Auroria

On the 4th of November 2014 Trion is releasing the Northern Contienent Auroria. What does this mean for us Archeagers? We will be getting: Castles, Anya veins, More housing area's, XP, World Bosses and MASS PvP. To help you get started in Auroria, there are lots of Auroria Information in a few separate guides the links to each guide will be posted below.

Castles
Housing
The Continent

Obtaining a Castle in Auroria

Castles are the end-game for any large guild. They are constructed and controlled by the guild that claims the castle area. When the castle is built it can be modified completely by the guild making all castles unique. Castles can only be constructed in Auroria and will open a whole new definition for World PvP. So what are the benefits of owning a castle?

A set area where YOU choose who can place farms, houses, workbenches etc, usually resulting in a guild area. The lord can destroy any buildings with the castle range.
Control of the Tax's in the whole zone, The guild leader (Castle owner) will get the tax's in gold. (Unknown until release)
Security and more resources for the guild.

So how do you construct your castle?  With time and effort of course.  Your first step is mining Anya Veins these take 50k Mining Proficiency can be mined in Exeloch in the Caves of the Lost Serpent.

But its not as easy as just walking in with 50k mining and going to town. The caves lie behind a solid stone wall, which takes 3000 Labor to break down. This can be done by 10x people with 300 labor each or 1x person with 3000 labor its quicker to break the wall with 10 people than 1 person. there are about 10 veins in each cave, Each vein costs 50 labor and will net you between 1-4 pebbles per vein. According to the information we have gathered each vein has a 15 minute respawn time, you must leave the cave and knock down the wall after you've cleared the cave of all veins. There are also a few veins on the outsides of the walls these will be heavily contested.

Once you've got 300 Anya Pebbles you need to turn them into 100 Anya Ore, This can be done at any smelter with 20k Metalwork Proficiency. The next step it to get 50 Blood Archeum Crystals these can be bought at any General Merchant for 40g a piece, for a total of 2000 Gold.

Now that you have 50 Blood Archeum Crystals and 100 Anya ore, You can craft a Purifying Archeum Pack. These cannot be made in Auroria so you have to travel from the Western or Eastern Continent to Auroria with it on your back. Which can be very dangerous. Next you have to choose where you want your castle, there are 13 possible castle spots open around the 4 Auroria zones, but once a Castle Heart has been placed no other castles can be built on that specific zone. Resulting in 1 castle per zone

Once you've placed your castle you will become the Lord, No matter who in a guild places the castle the lord will always be the guild leader. Now you are able to construct your castle, place houses and defend. Before we move on to Siege's i will add a few bullet-points with some other tips.

The lord can destroy any buildings/structures in the area around the castle heart.
The lord of a castle can set the taxes for the entire zone, Including outside the castle heart region, he can only set a max of 50%
Housing plots will open as soon as the first castle is built (only in that zone)

Defending/Attacking Castles

Now you know how to build a castle you need to know about defending and attacking castles, There will be 4 castles to claim and then attack and were going to tell you how.

Siege Scroll is the starting point to conquering castles every 3 weeks after a castle is constructed a Siege scroll will appear in the Auction house to bid on. Each castle has it own Siege Scroll.

Siege scrolls will appear in the section of the above picture with a starting bid of 500 Gold the bidding war will last 24 Hours and whoever wins the bid will be given the right to siege that specific castle. Once bidding has ended, the winner will have 24 hours to get his Guild prepared for the oncoming battle. It is advised that your guild makes sure guild members will be online and ready for the event before you bid on the siege scroll, Sieges will be at a set time and not whenever you feel like attacking. As far as we know Siege scrolls will go on the AH on a Friday night last till Saturday night and battle will take place on Sunday night. The exact times are not, to our knowledge at the moment, but will be updated when we know more.

Now your guild is ready, it's time to attack, Using the scroll will activate a server wide message that will tell everyone that your guild is launching an attack against a certain territory. You've now started your 30 minutes preparation time, The attackers and defending will have to pick a total of 70 players for the defense/offense of the siege. 50 of the participants MUST be in your guild the other 20 may be from an allied guild or from your own guild. The attackers will start with the full 70 participants while the Defenders will start with 50 and will be allowed to call in the remaining 20, 30 minutes into the siege. (All siege partipants must be in the same guild.

It is also possible for the defendant to call in an extra 30 participants who can be from any guild, Only the defender has this option but if he adds the extra 30 the leader of the attackers will be able to bring in an extra 30 people. This makes the total participants of the battle 100 Vs 100.

At the start of the battle a mini map will a appear showing the attackers area and defender area, Only people participating in the siege will be allowed to enter the castle zone. Attackers will receive a respawn zone, which includes an NPC who sells items that can be useful to the attackers.

In order to win the battle the Defending guild has to keep as many of their defenses (walls, doors) alive, to keep their crystal alive. For the attackers to win the battle they need to destroy the defenses and kill the crystal, if they manage to do this one of the guild members will have to channel the guard tower for a 5 minutes (Non stop) the battle will end and the attackers will have won the siege. If the defenders manage to stop them channeling for 5 minutes or keep their castle secure they will keep the castle and lands for an extra 3 weeks until the next battle. They will also receive 20 lord coins to spend in Mirage Isle.