I'm sure everyone has noticed all the nonsense and etc about towns being created. Last I saw we had some four or five towns with more than a couple of residents each! This is the result of a plugin named Towny. This plugin brings a lot more to our fair and awesome server! This thread will go over the basic stuff everyone needs to know but if you want to really get a good explanation I suggest going to the actual wiki right here.
What all does Towny even give us?!
First and foremost Towny allows anyone to create their own town, invite their friends to be residents and enjoy a whole bunch of benefits from the mod! A couple of these benefits include block protection within the town, ability to turn on PvP within the town, join or form a nation and go to war against another nation for funsies, and more!
Starting your town
Towny uses plots that are 16x16 blocks (and 128 blocks tall, or the entire 16x16 square from bedrock to the height limit). In order to claim the very first plot of your town you must stand in the spot you want it to be and have at least 250$ in your iConomy account. Keep in mind this will be considered your 'Home' plot and every plot you claim afterwards has to expand outwards from this one. Once you figure out where you want to start then you simply type in this command, '/town new Town_Name' minus the quotation marks and replacing Town_Name with the name of your town (use underscores instead of spaces)
Now that you've created your town you need to expand a little bit! For every resident that is part of your town (I will go over how to invite/join a town soon enough) you get 8 more plots you can claim. Every plot you claim after the first one will cost you your town another 25$. In order to deposit money into your town's bank, you or any of your residents may use '/town deposit ##' minus the quotation marks and replacing ## with any value amount that you have in your iConomy account. Every plot you claim MUST be directly adjacent to one of your previously claimed plots or the home plot.
Now that you have created your town and expanded it a little bit there are a few things you need to be wary of. Every town has a daily upkeep of 10$. this upkeep is only collected once every 24 hours in real life, not every Minecraftian day. You can see when the next day will begin (and when the upkeep will be collected) by using the command '/towny time'
Now you've got your town going properly and you want to tackle even more stuff the mod has to offer. You want to form or join a nation with other towns. An admin is required for this but perfectly willing to help you! You can pester me if you want to make a nation or join one with the permission of that nation. This will allow you to more easily take part in any wars that may come down and have fun beating your neighbors senseless! Just be warned that the upkeep to be the king of a nation is 100$ a day so make sure your subjects are loyal enough to help you come up with the money!
Helpful commands for mayors!
You are able to turn on PvP as well as set specific permissions for your residents and anyone who isn't part of your town (outsiders).
The most important one you will want to use is '/town add Player_Name', use this to invite your friends into your town. They will need to enter the command that the chat tells them to in order to accept.
To turn PvP on and off for the entire town and use '/town toggle pvp' the same can be done on a plot by plot basis (for if you wanted to create an arena or something) you stand in the plot you want to toggle pvp and type '/plot toggle pvp'. These commands only work for mayors and maybe assistants. (Mayors can make assistants with /town assistant add player_name)
To toggle specific permissions you can do it for the entire town or for specific plots too. First you either have /town or /plot and after it you will put: {resident/ally/outsider} {build/destroy/switch/itemuse} {on/off}. The first one chooses whether the permission applies to your residents, your allies (other towns in same nation or towns you are allied to) and outsiders (anyone not a resident in your town) the second one chooses whether you want to turn on/off one of the particular things such as placing blocks (build), destroying blocks (destroy) using switches and redstone stuff (switch) and using items such as flint and steel (itemuse). I personally suggest allowing your residents to use everything (which is default I think) but also at the very least allowing outsiders to use switches just in case you got some kind of redstone mechanism they need to get through or if you have a minecart track they want to use.
That is the basics of it all if you need more, ask me or check the wiki in the link at the top of the post!