Overview
Castle Wars is a Runescape minigame for members only. It is like Capture the Flag, but with fighting. To access this minigame you must head southeast of the Tree Gnome Village. (Remember, this is a member's only minigame; therefore, it is in the members only area!)
Castle Wars is essentially fighting Capture the Flag. To start off, you need to pick a team. Each team is based on the 3 Runescape gods: Saradomin(good), Guthix(neutral), and Zamorak(evil). If you are loyal to Saradomin, step into the blue portal. If you are loyal to Zamorak, step into the red portal. If you are loyal to Guthix, however, you will be put into the team that has less players when you step into the green portal.
Bring what you need, but you won't bring a cape or helmet, as you will be supplied with a hood and cape of your god's color. Don't worry about dying, you won't lose them if you die. You will be sent back to your team spawn room instead of Lumbridge.
After the time is up for entering players, the game starts.
Map
When you start playing, you will have 20 minutes to capture as many of your enemy's flag as possible. Do what you must to get the flags. The arena consists of two castles with an accessible castle wall. A river seperates the two castles. There is a bridge that you can cross of course. There is also a tunnel beneath the arena that you can use to sneak between the castles. However they are caved in and you will need a pickaxe to clear the rocks. Don't bring one though, you will be supplied with a bronze pick.
Playing the Game
When you join a team and the game starts, you will appear in your team's spawn.
First Floor/Spawn Room
There will be a table with bandages. You should grab a few but save some space as there are other tools essential to your war. You can use the bandages to heal yourself or a teammate. Of course your enemies can't get in, but you can only stay inside for two minutes. You can leave and go back in the spawn room. Of course, what's the point in that if you're here to play the game?
Bandages
These heal 6 hp and you can heal yourself or a teammate with these.
Second Floor
If you go up the stairs outside or climb the ladder up and you'll find yourself on the second floor. There isn't much here except the stairs to your team's flag.
Top Floor
The top floor is where your flag stands. Some enemies will camp out here and wait until the flag appears at your flag holder. If you can't capture the flag, you can wait here and kill enemies attempting to capture your flag.
Ground Floor
The bottom of the arena(besides the tunnels underground). This is where enemies can charge your castle. This is where the tables of equipment are. Let's see what they are.
Equipment
Here's a list of equipment that you can grab and what they'll do.
Tool kits
The little gray boxes are the tool kits. They fix things that can be broken by your enemies like your castle gates and catapult.
Barricade
The pieces of wood on the table next to the tool kits are the barricades. They can be placed anywhere and they block anyone. Of course they're destroyable by attacking them or using explosive potions.
Buckets
Buckets are on the floor next to some crates. There's a sink that you can use to fill it up. If your catapult or a barricade is on fire, you can use the bucket of water to put it out.
Explosive potions
Explosive potions have orange liquid in the vials. They can be used on barricades or a catapult to destroy to them. Also they can be used to cause a cave in and prevent movement between castles underground. You can dig and remove the rocks though. WARNING:Do not drop these, they will cause 15 damage to you when dropped.
Rope
On the table next to the explosive potions, there are ropes. If you use them on a castle wall, you can scale the wall without having to get through the castle gates. It won't disappear after you scale the wall, it will stay there for the remainder of the game. You can use these to an advantage by setting as many ropes as you can on the enemy's castle wall.
Rocks
Rocks are used to bombard a small area around your castle by a catapult. Good for slightly longer distance ranging assistance. Not as effective as ranging with a bow however.
Bronze pickaxes
As said earlier, you won't need a pickaxe. You're supplied with one. If you're going underground, you're going to need one to dig your way through a cave in.
Tinderbox
If you're going to destroy the catapult, you might as well set fire to it, right? That's what a tinderbox is for. It slows down the repairation of the catapult and you can use that time to attack the enemy fixing it.
Now, there are multiple ways to make yourself useful.
Tactics
There are multiple tactics to make your character useful. A * indicates a description from Wikipedia.
Flagbearer*
Holds the team's flag if obtained, or steals the enemy's flag to score. This player should be one of a relatively high combat level (at least 90+) in order to prevent an easy kill if the opponents swarm the single player. Advantages of such a player would be to have access to multi-target Ancient Magicks (Ice Burst and Ice Barrage) to enable the immobilising of any pursuing enemy.
The flagbearer holding his/her own team's flag usually hides along their teams outer walls, or upon their own castle wall (use a rope on the wall to climb up, as entering the castle will cause the flag to be 'Safe' - returned to it's original position, thus an opponent will be able to obtain it with less fighting involved ). They are generally surrounded by many people to help defend that player, or as medics to heal him/her when low on hitpoints. One tactic some players use is to use emotes (other than 'Yes' and 'No') to 'hide' the flag, and thus preventing passing enemies from seeing it. To cause further confusion, other allies standing nearby could also dance so an opponent would find it even harder to find the flag. Another strategy is that players stand on the same spot as the flagbearer, to hide him/her from view.
Ideal items for the flagbearer to bring would be runes (if using Ancient Magicks), a number of Explosive Potions (if attempting to steal the enemy flag) and many bandages. Also, barricades can be used in some places to block pursuing opponents. Ideal armour would be Barrows armour, Dragonhide or Dragon/Rune armour to have a chance to withstand attacking opponents.
Medic
A medic heals teammates that are essential to important jobs such as flagbearer capturing the flag. Usually these players should have a combat level under 50; therefore, having less of a chance to withstand other player's attacks. Medics should have a lot of bandages and a few barricades if neccessary.
Mage*
Mages usually stand along the outer wall of their own castle using spells on those who run by. They usually wear mage robes and have necessary runes in their inventory.
Ancient Mages, however, can gain much more experience by going to the enemy's spawn room level and casting multi-player Ancient Magic (normally Ice Barrage or Ice Burst) to gain decent amounts of experience, or often by locating a flag carrier, as they often have many people swarming about them. In crowded areas, ice barrages and ice bursts often give great mage experience and hinder movement. A possible use of Ancient Magicks is to attack multiple barracades, as this offers relatively good experience and helps your team.
Rangers/Meleers*
Usually consists of those who do not fall under the above categories. These players are normal "soldiers" who fight random opponents, whether tactically or randomly. Normally attacking an opponent with a flag is strategic unless outnumbered severely. These players should travel in groups to achieve maximum effectiveness, enabling them to kill solitary opponents quickly, thus reducing damage done to themselves. These players play a crucial role in Castle Wars, and the rangers usually "snipe" opponents from the top of the castle (just as medieval archers did to protect their castle). If you are training to become a ranger, and cannot afford arrows or simply do not have the time to make them, go to Castle Wars on a populated world and stand below the archers. They generally do not have time to go down and pick up their arrows, and you can easily pick them up and gain hundreds, though some rangers may frown upon that and consider it a form of stealing.