You need a country before you can go to war

This is a very basic beginner note, but it stopped me at the start, so maybe it helps you. When war was added I wanted to jump in and attack, but the game kept telling me to join a country first. I did not get it. Now I understand that a country is the foundation of the whole war system. Let me explain simply. In this game every player belongs to a country, or should. Your country is your side. And war is built entirely around countries. Here is what that means in practice. You can only attack towns that are in a DIFFERENT country than yours. Think of it like your countrymen are on your team, you do not fight your own team. So if you have not joined any country, the game does not know which towns are your enemies and which are your friends, and you cannot attack at all. That is why it asks you to join a country before fighting. And it works the other way too. Only players from other countries can attack YOU. Your own countrymen can never take your town. So your country is a kind of safe circle, everyone inside is on your side. When you look at the attack page, every target list already removes your own countrymen automatically. Everyone you see there is from a foreign country and is fair game. That is the game enforcing the same rule, you fight foreigners, not family. So step one for war, honestly before even building an army, is to join a country if you have not. Pick one, ideally an active one with friendly people, because those are your allies. Some countries even organise together now that war exists. You also need your own town, of course, because your town is where your army lives and it is what others try to occupy. So the two things you need before any fighting are simple, a country to belong to, and a town of your own. With those two, the attack page opens up and you can start. One more thing I learned, when you occupy a foreign town, or when you get occupied, the 10% production tax flows between the two players. There is also a bigger version of war where whole countries fight each other, but as a beginner I am staying with the simple town attacks for now. The point is, everything, small or big, is organised around countries. I also found it is worth actually talking to your countrymen. Since your country is your team, coordinating who attacks who, or defending each other, is powerful. War made the country choice matter a lot more than before, when it was mostly about bonuses and money. So if you are confused why you cannot attack, check that you joined a country and that you have a town. That was my whole problem, I had skipped joining a country properly. Once I fixed it, the war world opened up. Country first, then town, then army, then fight. That is the order. Simple foundation, but you cannot skip it.