If you go on the resource route, then you have many weeks to get to this. But the Teutons have the best thing a raider needs: the clubswinger. Cheap, pretty fast, carries a lot. This is what we need.

As soon as I register on the account (not in the first days, I like to let 4-5 days to pass, this moves me to the side and the chances to get more farms increase. As soon as I have the account ready I upgrade the Main Building to level 3 and see the Rally Point constructed. While my barracks get constructed too, I already open ALL village squares near me to see if they can be attacked. Some are still in the beginner protection, while others can be raided. I open the link, put a number in any of the troop fill in boxes and the answer is relevant: “no troops selected” means the village is not under protection but I can’t attack yet (true, the barracks are still being constructed or the clubswingers are in the making).

NEVER attack with the first clubswinger you get. The system allows you to create 2 and then you need to raid a bit for the third one. I start on the under 9 population villages. This way they don’t have the pesky rat or any army (not enough population points for any of these). The 30-30-30-30 loot will be useful for my next soldier. Can’t yet train it, I need another raid, but I already have more than I would produce in an hour at 8 resources as my fields give me.

After some raid the barracks should be working non-stop. I also grow my granary and warehouse (the resources come uneven and I can easily have an iron or crop overflow. Not a huge deal, but I don’t like wasting. I also get the market place up to use the NPC trader if needed or trade normally.

All these days I don’t do anything but put another level in the barracks (to “spit” soldiers faster) and raid all living souls near me. If you have lots of villages near that are not in the beginner protection, then you can work wonders. The more you raid, the more you gain. Put all resources in the army and you’d be amazed to see how many soldiers you can amass

Trapper:

The trapper when fully upgraded can save your troops from suprise attacks. It will capture any enemy troops without you needing to do anything. The only thing you have to make sure of is to continually rebuild them so that they are ready for the next attack

Phalanxes:

Phalanxes are incredibly useful. They have excellent cavalry defense and they are the basic troops for the Gauls. This allows Gaul players to have a very decent defense right from the start of their game.

Haenduans:

Haenduans are probably the troops with the best cavalry defense per upkeep. They also have very decent attack so they are very multi-purpose.

So if you want to become a skilled defender than your best bet is to pick the Gauls.

Happy defending

Luke

Others claimed it’s a good idea to “suicide” them since they are eating crop and you’re better off without them.

On the other hand the same units eating 1-2 crop each (might be paladins for instance) can also bring in over 60 resources at each raid. A decent player has enough soldiers to be able to free the others and keep on raiding.

I find myself forced to say this again: YOUR TROOPS MATTER! Don’t kill soldiers just because someone trapped them. Let them be there for 10 days if you don’t have other soldiers available, but don’t sacrifice your productive units out of being scared.

Most servers have been started for at least 2 weeks. Any player who’s worth his place in Travian should have enough units to fill a fully upgraded gaul trapper, but most still like to brag with population and have no troops.

Our alliance has set a place we’re gonna gather our villages. I chose a cropper and before settling there I was advised to get a normal village right next to the “cropper” so that I can defend it better and also pump up resources in it. When working with 12 crop fields and only 1 normal field for each resource, it’s clear you’ll need to send many resources from the other village(s).

The plan was successful. I created the “feeder” village next to my future cropper and started sending a lot of resources from the main village to kickstart it. Weird as it might seem I constructed the rally point, upgraded the main village to level 3 and prepared the first clubswingers in the newly constructed barracks.

Why?

Because it would take 1 hour for the merchants to get there and, even if it was 5 minutes, why drag the main village down? It has to develop troops (catapults and teuton knights are pretty expensive), there are more upgrades there too and still I needed to develop the second base as much as I could as fast as possible.

So .. we had our fist 5 clubbies and started raiding the new neighbours (so they knew who’s in town). In few days the army got to a decent size (was able to research new better units) and the new village could stand on itself. The moment it was independent from the main one, I was able to still grow both of them and not hinder the first village from growing.

Many like to keep the second village sort of a “parasite”. It’s wrong since it will lack defense possibilities and all the resources it will consume might have been used by the main one. Having a good army (even if just the first basic unit for some time) makes up for the resources, through raids. Upgrading the resource fields while also raiding a lot will make that village develop a lot in a very short time. Instead of being a burden, the new village will help your entire small “empire” grow stronger.

1. The resources you spend on the embassy could mean a better army.

I never understood the people who begin a server and put the first resources in an embassy to level 3. With those resources I make some soldiers and raid the living daylights of anyone closer than 2 hours from my village. Getting to a second village, catapults and a top 10 place on the server didn’t happen over night and not only based on resource production. When raiding tens of thousands resources / week one can really develop.

2. Big players (or just “cocky” ones), never care about your alliance.

In the server I am now one of the top3 alliances has disbanded due to some heavy attacks. We talk about people with experience and 2 villages already and a serious army. The fact they were in a top alliance didn’t mean anything. If someone wants to attack you, you will get attacked.

So, hiding under the alliance name won’t do any good. I personally raid some smaller alliances and I am able to wipe them out entirely (just 1 player against an entire alliance). And when I attack I always see what alliance we talk about. If you’re not ranked at least in the top 50 alliances on the server, then I am afraid you are in a world of pain.

3. If you have the embassy in your village, guess who’s getting the first wave of catapults?

I was always scared about this. A normal player (even if in the top), has less chances of being catapulted to account deletion than the holder of the embassy. Right now I am contemplating destroying 2 alliances and the bad thing for their leaders is that I am very close to them. I wouldn’t attack otherwise, but I just can’t help it. And so do other players who want to clean the area next to their villages.

4. You deal with morons, inside and outside your alliance.

You need to be very wise and diplomatic to not put your alliance in danger. Even if you do this, sometimes you get into problems because of others. It might be one of your members who doesn’t get the “confederacy” thing and attacks blindly, putting all the alliance at risk. It might be another alliance disliking your good place in the chart or disliking your blue eyes. No  matter who’s having a bad hair day, the fact you are leading the alliance doesn’t make your life better.

5. You will dedicate even more time and not have time for yourself.

As an alliance leader you need to know your work is a fulltime job. You cannot take a vacation (unless you have some good people to fill in for you), you cannot rest at night. There’s a lot of words to be written, messages, forum updates, strategies, abuse.

These are the reasons I chose to be just a member. I cannot brag about being such a cool leader, but I like to play ’solo’ and just follow some orders, when my leaders have a new idea I need to follow. Otherwise… it’s easier.

My first move after registering to a server is to build those first 2 soldiers and start raiding. In just days I have tens of them to be able to make up for the lack of resource production in my village.

At the same time (while trying to research scouts and build up more in the military area) I also increase my resource production. Because in some weeks, most my raids will be ZERO resources. My neighbours have almost all deleted accounts. Being raided daily (more times a day) won’t make any Travian player happy.

Lots of empty slots near me, while my soldiers (infantry and cavalry) need to travel some more to get those resources. At the same time I have a very nice resource production that helps me grow the village and the army.

I have personally broken down armies. Lost a lot of soldiers, but I can make them again in just hours. After “deleting” an entire army the target has a very hard time re-building the troops. With little resources and frequent raids, they are lost. I have made many delete account and I expect others to do so. All “cocky” and certain their troops will help them till the end.

Just try to balance all of this. Have a good army (you’re lost without it), but don’t spend all you can on the troops. Try to research the catapults/trebuchet as soon as possible (I had them in 2 weeks this server) since they kinda give you some more power when “discussing” with others. But do keep those resource fields to a good level. Even if your army will be wiped out you can rebuild in some hours and raid again to recover.

Play smart. Sometimes a bit of a “sim city” won’t kill you.

This is the message one gets on the residence/palace information tabs. In my case I needed few more days to be able to gather all the points needed. Sure, you can always throw a party and get 500 points, but the price for the event is pretty steep. You have to create the 3 settlers too so funding a new village gets costly.

Any player who’s not interested in creating his/her own alliance does have an embassy, but it’s just at level 1. All you need to be able to accept or decline alliance invitations. And still, the embassy can do some more.

If we take a look at the embassy information, there is something most of us didn’t notice (or never needed to notice) - it also produces CULTURE POINTS.

Here are the values and the embassy levels:

• 1 - 5 CP
• 2 - 6 CP
• 3 - 7 CP
• 4 - 8 CP
• 5 - 10 CP
• 6 - 12 CP
• 7 - 14 CP
• 8 - 17 CP
• 9 - 21 CP
• 10 - 25 CP
• 11 - 30 CP
• 12 - 36 CP
• 13 - 43 CP
• 14 - 51 CP
• 15 - 62 CP
• 16 - 74 CP
• 17 - 89 CP
• 18 - 106 CP
• 19 - 128 CP
• 20 - 153 CP

I am sure no one will upgrade the embassy to the highest levels just to be a member in the alliance, but getting it to level 3-4 can surel help you with those culture points. I was able to “cut” 1 day of waiting time since my CP production was bigger just by upgrading the embassy to level 4.

We have 2 situations we need to think about and both of them require a different approach.

1. First weeks in the server, you are being raided for resources only.

Even if you are a top player, there are still people who’d like to try their armies in your village. Some are in for some more “fun” while others are just too noobs to realized what they are putting themselves into by attacking a very aggressive player.

Regardless of the reason they attack your army (most offensive soldiers, since you are raiding now) should be OUT. Your troops are the most valuable asset you have now. Each soldier can carry resources and each is used to raid anyone near you or even in 2-3 hours distance radius.

By leaving the troops in the village you risk to have them killed. Most of the time Travian doesn’t help defenders, so, even with a good defence bonus and many troops, you will most likely lose soldiers. And this COSTS you more than it’s worth it.

This is why I like to leave no one in the village. I send my troops over night in a distance small village and they are back home when I know I can enter the server. Even if I would get raided in the night and lose some resources, my troops can make up for the loss, not to mention hit the attacker so hard he’ll quit playing.

2. You need to defend, catapult attacks are on you.

Things change once the catapults are sent to attack you. In this case, sending your troops outside is not a good idea anymore. You will need defence troops (make sure you have also upgraded them in the armory for better results).

So, if you are still new on the server and working on getting bigger, plus you didn’t step on any toes just yet, protect your troops and don’t let them be killed in the village. Protect your resources too, but if you lost some, you can always raid and recover.

Where am I placed on the Travian map? What does it mean that I have “+24/+24″ when I look at the map?

These are some of the most asked questions. Getting to know your Travian quadrant position is pretty difficult for a new player, this is why we prepared a graphic that would help you know better where you stand.

Travian map

If both numbers are positive, it means you are on the NE “wing”.

If you have the x negative and the y positive, then you are in the NW. For both values negative, look at the SW side of the map and if you have your x value positive and the w negative, it’s clear you are in the SE wing.

An example:

x=29, y=-45

We look for the positive x and negative y, that’s SE.

x=14, y=17

Both positive, NE.

And so on …

The so called “sim city players” always have problems, because Travian wasn’t meant to be as a “build as much as you can” game, but as a “if you don’t kill them, they’ll get you” system. And it’s hard for most people since they realize their actions will HURT others.

Were you ever raided? Do you recall the fear you had seeing the red countdown till the attack? How you felt sorry for the resources lost and the armies killed? You know you put other players through this too with your attacks, don’t you?

This is why many people would like to chose the peaceful way so that they don’t hurt others. It’s a nice thing to do, but Travian is not for peaceful people. Sooner or later these nice players will get wiped out. It’s a survival race there and the meek don’t inherit anything, just the delete button maybe.

And still .. how ca you still be a nice person? How can you be a positive “hero” in Travian?

1. Don’t be mean to your “farms”.

As an experienced player I also find it annoying to be contacted by other players to stop attacking them. Some use a nice tone, others use a foul language. Those who curse are reported or farmed till they delete account (I do have my mean days too and swearing is not something I’d gladly deal with), but many of those who are polite might get some time off my raids and also some hints.

I like teaching people from time to time, so I do take few minutes off to offer them some hints to avoid being farmed. The fact I stop raiding doesn’t mean a thing, since they are a target for many others. Knowing how to protect those resources will help them more since no one would be able to take anything from them anymore and the raids will eventually stop.

2. “OK, are you active? Then I’ll stop.”

Many raiders dislike attacking active players. Just because they know how frustrating the game might be for such people who are not able to build anything. But there are still so many villages left by players who stopped playing. Why not take those resources?

In this case you can spare the players who personally contact you and let you know they are active. If they don’t contact you, maybe they don’t care or have a strategy. Or maybe they just left town. You can then raid at ease and have your conscience feel good. You did try to be a good person.

3. Don’t hold grudges.

I know how you feel when being attacked. Especially by a smaller player who just doesn’t get that you are able to crush him in a second. Some smaller players don’t know the “unwritten rules” of Travian and try to push your buttons. Maybe they are just stupid, you think, or maybe they lack so much experience, they just don’t realize how big you are. You can be a good person and contact them to tell them what they are getting into. Solve this peacefully before wiping they village out. Sending a wave of catapults is easy, but maybe you wouldn’t feel that nice.

Overall Travian is not for “nice” playing. You have to raid so that you’re not raided. You need to be the farmer and not the farm. Most of the experienced people first build the barracks and the first 2 soldiers and then consider anything else. I do this too and was able to get to an over 300 population in 10 days.

Still, if you’d like to be a good person, there are things you can do: be considerate towards other players, don’t destroy them just for the fun, try to spare the players who contact you in a polite manner to ask you to give them some time off the attacks. Be a fair player and this would suffice. In the end all players in Travian know what they are getting into. The moment you see all the possible buildings and see how much emphasis is given to troops and military buildings, it’s clear Travian is not for peace.