Have you looked at how Towny war works?
Even if war was turned on, there are only 3 nations and a lot off cities without nations. These towns without nations cannot take part in the war-activities (they can`t be attacked either). o there would be only 11 towns participating. And the number of towns in the 3 nations would hardly provide a fair fight: 7 vs. 3 vs. 1 ? The nation was 7 towns would win a blitzkrieg within 20 minutes and the war would be over. Or if the nationleaders of the smaller nations are online when the admins activate the war-function, they would simply use the function to pay towny for neutrality.
The 3 nations simply weren`t founded to fight wars. 1 nation "Draconia" isn`t even trying to actively expand at the moment because the whole town is busy with projects like the public farms, spawners and other things.
And did you see how these wars are fought. You stand around for a certain time on a townblock to conquer it. With 7 vs 3 vs 1 town there wouldn`t even be good fights (it would be like 20 attackers from the big nation vs. 4 from the smallest) and without fights the attackers would simply stand on the townblock and grief it (that`s allowed by towny during the war, they get restored after the war is over). Where`s the fun in that?
There is also the problem that the destruction would most propably not be restricted to the townblocks. The surrounding of the towns would be mined, forests chopped down, etc. so the attackers can build forts and other things on the conquered townplots. And these surrounding won`t be restored by towny after the war.
The only results would be:
1. Biggest nation:- The biggest nation would either win the war within minutes if they participated
- or it would break apart in case their leader doesn`t support the idea of a war (and I would be very surprised if she chooses war), while some of it`s mayors want to go to war (and therefore break away and found their own nation that would then go to war).
2. Smaller nations:A lot of players in the smaller nations would (upon seeing that the townblocks they have put much work intoare being destroyed and rendered useless during the war):
- either ask their nation to drop the nationto be out of the pvp/warsystem (which would just result in one or two fewer nations on the server, rendering the nationsystem completely useless)
- leave the town to join one of the nationless towns (destroying the community of these functioning towns)
- or choose point 3.
3. Individual players:Many players would simply just leave the server because:
- they have choosen this server because there is no world pvp and suddenly they have to face pvp in their towns during war.
- they despise any kind of griefing because they see it as a sign of disrespect against the builders of the griefed objects. Even if the plots are restored, it`s similar to destroying a painting or burning a book. It`s not the property itself that matters, it`s the act of the destruction that is the disrespect agains others. And even if it`s restored the restored building would only be something like a copy, it would be spoiled. There is a reason why
this (ICRC-Link) exists in the real world. some people really but weeks and a lot of soul in their projects. Destroying that is like slapping their efforts in the face.
- they have seen enough war and death in their real life and have chossen tihs game and server because there are no "kill x enemies" or "destroy z" objectives here). If they wanted that they would play other games (or on other servers) and wouldn`t need a bunch of kids and teenagers reenacting the things that are the stuff of their nightmares in real life.
So in the end:
Not a small number of players would leave the server.
Towns and nations would break apart.
The whole war was over in a few hours (due to imbalance of nations for wars and disinterest of towns to participate).
The cleanup of all the "plundering" damage around attacked towns would be a mess for the admins/mods.
There would be tons of "social fallout" because some teens would get carried away and say / do the wrong things, and we already have enough teendramas on the server.
So yeah this war would pretty much be the end of all wars for the server.
If you want wars, find a way to limit it to another world (like the pvp world) or build a huge open pvpworld where teams of players can build and destroy forts, traps, etc. (and the participation is voluntarely). Or start a apocalypseworld with an highly increased mobspawn were the the player really having to fight for survival every night.
And if your town doesn`t have enough to do why don`t start a building a "Wonder of the world", some gigantic project like i.e. the underwatertown that is being built on the server atm. Projects that will take teamwork and weeks of time to complete.