I've never actually been in a Cantr war (except briefly in the Baron one if that counts, and besides one attack that luckily missed all the 'action' I saw was helping evacuate the forest and then putting up with the idiotic 'leadership' in Sjoftich until my char finally decided the whole thing was hopeless and left...and I still don't quite understand how the Barons were actually stopped...

)
But anyway, I'm wandering off here....what I was going to say was that the major part of a war in Cantr would probably be in preperation and recruiting and planning and planning and then planning some more. (that last part's my favorite for any major event...I don't know what it is about Cantr that brings out the detail-obsessed control freak in me.

)
Obviously it's not like that game you're talking about where you can do all that if 45 minutes...more like 45
days, and even that's assuming everything goes perfectly smoothly from start to finish, and that you already have a head start on weapons and vehicles.
Unfortunatley the long length of time it takes is also the reason you hardly see anything more than a pirate raid now and then (and usually the 'pirates' just run in and out of the unlocked buildings real quick and then undock...). Before you were actually
ready to go to war, most of your people would have probably had a heart attack or fell asleep or wandered off with your weapons, and then of course good luck finding replacements, you'll likely never see that many people at the same time again who agree that A.) you're not an evil tyrant for wanting a war in the first place, and B.) they have any reason to interrupt the personal project they're working on and go out of the way to help their town.