What is a Club Penguin Army? How does the concept of an army work in Club Penguin? These, and more questions of this type, will be answered in this post, which is mainly aimed at the new members of the community and those outside of it.

What is a Club Penguin Army?

Armies are special, tight-knit communities operating on Club Penguin. They are very similar to other non-army communities operating in Club Penguin or Club Penguin Private Servers, with the main difference being that an army interacts much with others of its kind. Each army is shaped around a theme, which is usually also portrayed in its uniform. A uniform is a set of items that an army wears in its events. Participants in the army’s events wear the army’s uniform.

The army community has been around for a while, since the very early Club Penguin days. The first official army was the Army of Club Penguin (ACP), opening in September 2006. Ever since that time, there have been several hundred armies, both in the Club Penguin and the CPPS eras. A list can be found in the Club Penguin Army Wiki; there are several smaller ones missing from it, though.

Armies Setup

The size of the Discord servers of the armies can vary, with some larger ones having 10s of thousands of members. Each army is organised differently, with some also hosting events in other games apart from Club Penguin. The Rebel Penguin Federation (RPF), for example, has a whole section dedicated exclusively to non-Club Penguin events. Originally, the armies were mainly located in Club Penguin, but after its shutdown, they have spread over to several CPPS. Currently, armies mainly use the army-based CPPS CPA: Battleground (CPAB), where tournaments and battles are hosted. Several also choose other CPPS, such as the Club Penguin Journey and the New Club Penguin.

Almost all armies have their own websites, usually featuring a short summary of their events. Some of them also have guides and valuable information about the CPPS in them. An example of that would be the Templars, who have a very detailed CPPS guide system. Many examples of event posts can be found on the Water Vikings (WV) website, with one of them being linked here. The Army of Club Penguin website should also be noted, due to its historical significance, holding the Shamrock Bulletin.

Army Organisations

Now you may ask what the purpose of this place where this post is hosted is. Club Penguin Armies (CPA) is an army community organisation. To give some historical context, the main army organisation in the Club Penguin era was the Club Penguin Army Central (CPAC). It is also considered the most successful one, having operated for almost 8 years and becoming the center of the community. In short, its purpose was to report on the community’s news and let the broader community become aware of it, and at the same time host tournaments where the armies could participate. In addition to that, it also allowed community members to express their opinions on the matters that they found interesting.

CPA

Many organisations passed through that time, till CPA finally opened on July 1, 2022. Since then, it has been the central army organisation, aiming to keep CPAC’s spirit alive. Aside from news, opinion posts, and editorials, CPA is also publishing various columns, Top Tens, which will be analyzed later, satire posts, comics, and stories. It also hosts tournaments for the armies, as well as events for the community, with the help of the Community Committee. Three prime examples of these activities are the 2025 CPA Summer Olympics, where armies could complete tasks and advance on a board, the multiple Christmas activities, and the various galas that have been hosted over time, with their results being found here. CPA is also active on social media, having YouTube, TikTok, and Spotify accounts.

CPA has also been transformed more into a hub where people from all armies can meet together and discuss or debate their opinions. At the same time, army leaders come together in it to discuss and decide on some community rules, together with the Administrators, also known as (Chief) Executive Producers. The admins are currently Edu14463  and JojoTeri, who are responsible for maintaining and improving the organisation.

Battles Layout

Battles usually last for 30 minutes and happen almost exclusively in CPAB. The competing armies log on to a server, usually starting half an hour before the battle, to gather up and prepare. Then, when the battle starts, a room is announced, and armies need to move to it. Battles usually have 3 rooms, each lasting for 10 minutes. In each room, there can either be a winner or the room can be declared a tie. If the final result is a tie, there may be an extra overtime room to determine the battle winner.

There are multiple types of battles, but the layout generally remains the same. First of all, the tournament battles. Those are organised by a league, CPA, for example, as part of a tournament. There are also war battles, which happen after an army has declared war. The final type of battles is the practice battles. Those are agreed to by the participating armies as a form of training. The settings in these can be different, depending on the army leaders’ wishes.

How Do Battles Work?

First of all, it is time to explain how battles work in Club Penguin. Since there are no guns or weapons in Club Penguin, aside from one CPPS, it would be a reasonable question to ask: How does fighting work? In short, by doing organised formations and tactics against each other, the best organised army is declared the winner. However, in practice, it is much more complicated than that.

• Tactics consist of in-game text messages or emojis that the army members all use at the same time. Tactics are usually led by the army leaders in a Discord channel during an event. The army leaders are the ones who generally lead events, with other people often relaying in the voice chat, to make events easier to follow.
• Formations are made by penguins sitting in specific places. They usually resemble shapes or letters.
• Speed also matters as it is important that an army does not remain inactive for a large period of time, which gives the enemy one an advantage.
• Creativity can also help an army overcome its opponents. Creativity is defined by having unique, rare forms and well-executed, sophisticated tactics that match the battle theme.

Apart from those, there are more important factors, such as coverage. Coverage is the ability to be able to cover the opponent with your tactics. Usually, better coverage is acquired via choosing more suitable formations or just having a larger “size”. Size is defined as the number of troops being online for an army in the room where the army is present.

An Example

It is easier to understand by visualising it, so below I provide an example from a recent battle between the Templars (TCP) and the Help Force (HF).

In this screenshot, we see TCP in an “anchor” shape, while HF is in an “upside-down T” formation. We can also see that HF is doing a word tactic related to TCP, while the Templars use an ice cream flicker – alternating between strawberry and chocolate ice cream emojis. We can also notice that the Help Force manages to cover the vertical line better, as they appear more in it.

Judging

In order to be able to declare a victor in a battle officially, there are judges. Their goal is to determine which army performed better and award them the win. The judging organisation, which is also partnered with CPA, Club Penguin Army Judges, contains a detailed set of guidelines to help people understand how it operates. They will not be analysed here, to ensure that the post remains as simple to understand as possible.

Movements

The movements usually happen when an army enters a room, or in between making formations. They consist of the army members (troops) moving together in a shape. There are different types of movements that can exist in a battle.

• Wipe. While wiping, the army troops move back and forth in the same direction. For example, in a diagonal / wipe, troops move from the bottom left to the top right while also doing tactics, for the entire duration of the movement. There can be more complex wipes, such as a Z wipe.
• Waterfall. In this movement, the members move up and down in the room – vertically.
• Rake. In this one, the troops move left and right – horizontally.
• Bomb. When an army “bombs”, it means its troops move in random directions in the room while doing tactics. It is a chaotic movement. Sometimes, all movements are referred to as “bombs”.
• Clockwise/Whirlpool/Blender. This is one of the more complex movements and is tougher to accomplish well in a battle. Troops move in a circle around the room, as the names also suggest. Below, there can be seen an example from a Water Vikings event.

Wars

Wars can be split into two categories. Those that take place in a map, and those that do not. The concept of a map will be explained later, as it is more complex, but regardless, the main structure of wars is the same. An army can declare war on another army, or multiple ones, through a declaration. In the declaration, the attacker states the terms of the war, as well as their reasons for declaring. In off-map wars, the declaration terms are not enforced by the organisation; it is up to the involved armies to respect and honour them. Upon issuing the declaration, the attacker(s) usually schedule a battle as well. The defender(s) can also schedule battles against their enemies. In off-map wars, the war goes on till either both parties agree on a winner or one of them gives up.

When some armies are at war, non-involved ones can also join the war either through declarations or by simply providing unofficial support. The entire concept of having wars causes armies to create alliances or defensive pacts with other ones. There is not really a punishment for losing a war, apart from the fact that you have to watch the rival faction, boasting about their win. It should be noted that battles are scheduled in a designated channel inside the Discord server.

Map

The map is an interactive tool aiming to further promote the army roleplay and make it easier for people to visualise the wars, while giving an objective at the same time. In the map, armies fight for territory, striving to gain control of more land. Currently, the Templars and the Army of Club Penguin own the most land on the map. Each piece of land on the map corresponds to a server in the CPAB, so when an army schedules an invasion, they log onto the respective server to invade it. Apart from army-owned land, there is also the freeland, which is not owned by any army, and is open for taking, undefended. Additionally, each army has a capital server. The current version of The Map can be found here and is updated consistently. If you want to read the detailed map rules, you can find them here.

Map Declaration Terms and Treaties

Unlike the off-map wars, the map ones can have specific war terms, as they were decided by the army leaders or the community in the past. Wars have a winning condition, which is usually an army losing its capital. Another way a war can end is when an army surrenders. After a map war has ended, the winning side can impose a force treaty, requiring the losing side to take “reparations” actions. Force treaties can also include a truce, not allowing the two sides to engage in conflict on the map, for up to four weeks. If the treaty is violated, the violator usually loses their map land, if they have any. Force treaties mainly affect the map and do not interfere with off-map battles. However, they are enforced by the organisation when it comes to the map.

Non-Force Treaties

These are treaties signed formally by two armies. Upon being posted in the respective channel, the organisation enforces these treaties. Usually, they are non-aggression pacts, with armies attempting to make strategic moves.

Tournaments

Apart from the wars and the practice battles, there are also tournament battles. Tournaments happen every few months, with the main three ones being March Madness, Legends Cup and Christmas Chaos. Usually, they have a single elimination format, but sometimes they vary. For example, the Around the World Cup tournament uses a round robin format, while there have also been tournaments with even more custom designs and unique rules. There have also been tournaments hosted on the map, such as the Summer Blitz tournament. During tournaments, especially in the main 3, armies reach their peak performance, which can also be seen from the March Madness XI Grand Finals, which happened recently.

Top Ten Armies

Many army community members look forward to the Top Ten Armies posts each week. Before we analyse what the posts contain, it should be explained that when someone says “Y army maxed X”, it means that army Y had up to X troops online at the same time, at some point in their event. Additionally, the community has defined 3 main timezone groups. The first one is “AUSIA”, containing most of Asia and Oceania, the second is “EU”, including parts of Asia as well as the entire Europe and Africa, and the last one, “US” contains the Americas.

Each Sunday, the Top Ten Committee gathers information about all events hosted by all armies in the previous week (Sunday to Saturday). This information contains the number of maximum troops per event, the number of events, the timezone group that they were hosted in, and the type of event. The data is then placed on a sheet, and is analysed on a post that gets released each Sunday. The Top Tens are a good way to understand and predict the army trends. It also helps the army leaders have a view of their army’s performance compared to the community overall. To find more details about these types of posts, you can read one of them and see for yourself.

Aside from the weekly Top Tens, there are also Monthly ones. At the end of each year, the Top Ten of the Year is also released, which is the most detailed Top Ten. The Top Ten Managers are currently brainstorming ways to offer the community even more data.

Army Classifications

Given that the Top Tens provide much information about the armies’ performances, it would make sense to split the armies into categories based on it. Thus, armies that achieve 20+ size points consecutively for 3 Top Tens become Major armies, while the rest are Small – Medium. Most recently, the Dark Warriors managed to climb up from SM to Major.

Apart from these classifications, there are also some terms to define special armies (which also abide by the SM – Major classifications). The first one is the “Meme Army” term. A Meme Army is one whose main intention is to just troll around. They are usually made up of friends who get together to have some fun in the army community. Meme armies usually don’t participate in tournaments and wars, there are exceptions, though, and they are known for making bold decisions sometimes.

The next term that will be analysed is the “Proxy Army”. A proxy army is one that is used by another, aiming to achieve something. This can be several things, varying from attempting to loophole through rules, to just declaring war on a third army. The final definition is the “Colony Army”. It is not used that often recently, but a Colony Army is similar to a proxy. There are small differences between the two. A colony is often used to offer better training to members.

Misc Definitions

• Army Hopper. An army hopper is someone who changes armies very often. They are usually seen as disloyal and not very trustworthy, so the more someone’s army hops, the less likely it is that they get trusted with a higher rank.
• Multilogging. The act of the same person logging on to multiple Club Penguin accounts. It is heavily frowned upon and can damage your army and its reputation.
• Troopstealing. The act of convincing or bribing people from an army to join a different one. It is a controversial practice that sometimes happens.
• Generations. Since some armies have been around for a while, they split their history into generations. Usually, an army’s generation ends when the army shuts down, and the new one begins when it reopens.
• Revival. When an army hosts an event after being shut down for a while. Usually, for an army to be revived, the army’s creator needs to give permission. There are some special exceptions to this rule, though, depending on how each army is built.
• Legends. A Legend is someone who has left a huge legacy behind in the army community and influenced it greatly during and after their time. There are Major and SM legends, depending on their contributions. Legends are decided by a dedicated board made up of active legends.

Armies Internally

I brought up the generalised armies setup, but I did not get into much detail. This is because there is already a very detailed two-part post written by former Chief Executive Producer, Mchappy. In his posts, he analyzes everything a new member of the community needs to know in order to start their own army and provides useful examples. Below you can find the two posts linked.

• How to Create an Army – Part One 
• How to Create an Army – Part Two

Notice: The first post mentions that 10 penguins are needed online in order for your army to be registered. This has changed ever since the post was written, and registration has been removed as a whole. After you have hosted an event and have let us know, your army is considered an active army, as long as there are at least 2 people in your event.

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Summary

Even though the army community contains much lore and information, someone who has just joined can still wander around. All of us were new to the community once, but then we slowly got the hang of it. Hopefully, this post will make the process easier, while solving some possible questions and providing extra information if you wish to dive deeper. Whether you are someone just passing by, a new member of the community, or someone who has been around for a while, this post could still help you. Additionally, if you wish to open your own army, you should try it. Have no fear. After all, it is just pixels on your screen, so it is not that deep. Of course, if you still have questions, you can reach out either to me or to people in the CPA community chat.

Did you enjoy this post? Would you like to see similar guides being published in the future? Did this post help you clear your questions about the Army Community? 

For The Community 

Jojo Teri
Chief Executive Producer

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