As the rules clearly state,
Racial slurs are a form of swearing - to our discretion. We’ve had plenty of people claim obscure things somehow insult their race (or conflegrations like things that aren’t okay according to their religion, being racist towards them…). We generally stick to things that are quite obviously insulting, not playful banter (e.g. calling the french baguettes or claiming americans eat mcdonalds) and the likes.
As the rules clearly state, we do not entitle players to certain punishment. Neither the innocent players (we want people to behave, we don’t want to give a free win over rules. If you get one lucky you, but hunting for one is futile) nor the rulebreakers (you may well lose every era you play over something minor - just don’t break the rules).
It depends greatly on situation - tone, what is said, background…
An indian guy using an indian slur towards a guy who keeps calling him out in the heat of the moment once and apologizes when confronted will for example get a far less severe punishment in most cases than someone who randomly starts using the N word for no apparent reason targeting an entire group of people after a long history of being mean to people.
Similarly if people for example solicit for and then save up PM’s with racial slurs and then report them once war starts, we’re fairly likely to call them out for that. We don’t want to get back into the business of rules being a tool to win eras. Ideally we’d like every era to be won by actual gameplay and admins to have as little effect as possible on the outcome.
Just don’t break the rules and report others, we’ll do our best to keep the game clean. Thanks!