Fair play

Tinysword Kingdoms Arena · how matches are rated · 28 September 2026

Short version: only Quick Match games between two signed-in players move your rating, and only when both sides really fought. New accounts, and the same rival over and over, move less. Every match that moved no points says why, and links here.

Why these rules

The server plays out every battle, so nobody can fake a victory. The one way left to buy a place on the leaderboard is boosting: winning against a second account, or a friend, who lets you win. These rules make that slow and pointless, without getting in the way of real matches.

What moves your rating

A counted match (both lords signed in, no bot) of Level 2 (Full war), played through Quick Match or its rematches, that lasted at least 3 minutes. Ratings are Elo, from 1000, K = 40: beating a stronger rival moves more than beating a weaker one.

Matches that move no points

Private match

Private matches are for friends and practice. They stay in both players' history, with their replay, but they are not rated: rated points only come from rivals the game picks for you.

No contest

A match that did not end at the castle (a retreat, leaving the field, or being idle) is rated only if the loser lost at least 5 units or 1 building first. A match given up without a fight moves nothing. A castle razed always counts.

Short match

Shorter than 3 minutes.

Level 1 (Basics)

The learning rules do not count; only Full war does.

A player left the leaderboard

A player who switched "Show me on the public leaderboard" off in Settings is not rated.

Both players idle

When both lords leave the field idle, nobody wins and nothing moves.

Excluded by hand

A match can be excluded with a reason (cheating, a bug that decided it). The ratings are then worked out again from all the matches, as if it had never been rated.

Matches that move less

New accounts (provisional)

An account is New until it has 10 rated matches against at least 5 different rivals. Meanwhile its own rating moves as usual, so it finds its place fast; but an established player's rating does not move at all against it, won or lost ("rival is new"). Two new accounts rate each other normally. The leaderboard shows "New" beside it, and its page shows how far it has come.

The same rival

Within any 7 days, the matches between the same two players move a shrinking share of their points:

Only rated matches count toward the list. Play other rivals and the shares reset as the week goes by.

Boosting found later

The ratings are always worked out from the stored matches. Matches found to be boosting are excluded by hand, and the tables are worked out again: points won that way disappear. Seen something odd? Write to privacy@tinyswordswars.com with the players' names and the date.

What this does not use

These rules read only what every match already keeps (its kind, length, level, how it ended and each side's losses). Nothing new about you is collected for them: see Privacy.