Travian Review

This game is pretty cool, you dont need a good computer or a good network for it to play it. Its pretty old game, but it continues to grow up every year, there are many servers on which you can play, i think that every country has its own server. The game is pretty easy. If u dont make enemyes the game will go well, and you can build a nice empire, or if u are interested in army, attacks, more action then build an army and start conquering the villages. You will need to choos between 3 races romans, teutons, gauls. Every one has his own advances and dis advances. Romans have a expensive army and they can build 2 buildings at once, teutons have really cheap army and they are really bad at defending, but when its talk about attack, they are the best, gauls have double shelter and they have a good army in defence, they are not good at attack. Next you need to do is pick your position. You need to choos will you be on se, sw, ne, or nw (south, north, east, west). Then you will be randomly summoned and you will have one villages. You are first given quests to do, and you will get revarded for them by resources. Resources are wood, iron, wheath, brick. I recomend you to follow the tutorial because you are pretty much given rewards. In game you can make guilds, guilds are made to gather people and defend eacho other, help each other and many more. Guild is made of 60 man max. You will need a guild to win the game. You win the game when you build the world woder. First when natars come you will need to kill them and conquer their village, then you need to build up the world wonder up to lvl 100. The first one who does that wins. So when you start building the world wonder, you will get a lot, i mean a LOT of attacks, that is what you need your guild for, to send you resources, and defending armies. Ingame you can buy gold, gold is used for nps trades. You can finish your buildings at once for i think its 2 gold, you can increase your production rate for all of recources, you can become a gold member and many more. Like in every game there is statistics, you need to compete in something, you can compete in population, to have the biggest empire and population, to be the most succesfull attacker, to kill enemyes in their villages, to be the most succesfull defender, to kill enemyes in your village. You can be revarded with medals, medals are won by beeing the most efficiant in the week. There are 4 sequences, attacker, defender, population, and robber. These medals you can place in your own profile, then in looks kinda good.
That is my review of game, and rating 6. I found it pretty interesting.

I’m from Brazil, and consider myself a veteran in Travian, but only in normal speed servers. And this is the only online game I’ve played for more than 3 months (3 years actually). Probably because I can play it during work. Well, this is the first time reviewing a game, and forgive for my poor english.

Travian’s servers have duration determined by events. In the end, a group of alliances win, the best players and the best alliances are placed in the hall of fame, and the server reestarts from zero.
A normal speed server, has duration about 1 year. The so called speed server, has duration about 6 months, and recently they released servers even faster in some countries.
The main event that culminate in end of server, is to construct a World Wonder (WW) level 100. Its a very dificult duty, especialy when the alliances are well balanced. Only possible with participation of most of alliance players, to defend it, or even better, to destroy enemys WW.
So, this is a game with a objective. And very intense group work, as more team work the alliance is capable, the better chances it has to win.
The alliances are limited to 60 players, but usually there are groups of alliances.
My actual alliance has about 400 players, our enemy has about 600 or more, and we will make them cry. I’m holding a WW, waiting the release of the buildng plans to start leveling the WW.

You start the game with a village with level zero fields, and a obrigatory tutorial to folow. I sugest you do strictely what the tutorial says to do, or else the resourses won’t be suficient for the next task. You are rewarded with resourses doing these tasks, with the strictely necessary to perform the next task, and it really teaches newbies the basics. Tutorial takes about 2 days, after that, you are on your own.
Try to learn to assault your neighbours even before the 5-day newbie protection expires. In the first month, it makes much diference for you the resources collected from other players. But be carefull to not loose your precious troops in defended villages.
If you are atacked by other bigger players… and you will be, almost impossible not to be atacked at least 1 time in the beggining… well, don’t be angry, it part of the game, and probably the other player only wants your resources, nothing personal. Don’t make it became a big issue, I sugest to talk to other bigger players, ask things, but don’t expect to be recruited in a good alliance if you are a good source of resources (a farm). There are ways to save your resourses from assaults, and the leaders know this is a necessary thing all members must accomplish by themselves.
For example, I had a neighbour to my account that I assault several times a day. For weeks in a row. Then, suddenly, he start saving his resurces, make defense troops, and so (he decided to read instructions). He came talk to me, I agreed in putting him in the alliance, and he became a very good member, a very offensive one.
Some others, also come talk to me, with low language, even treats… well, in these case, I destroyed him entirely. For fun.

Your 1º village is just 1 of the many you should have in time. After a month, you should have your 2º village, or less time than that.

Some player have sharers. 2 or even more guys with just 1 account. Its totally legal… but I personaly don’t like. Some other try to have more than 1 account in the same server… well, this is illegal, and there are multi-hunters thah can punish you when discovered.
You can have 2 sitters, and be sitter of 2 other accounts. Sitters can do almost everything the proper owner can, and is very handyfull to have at least one to help you.

In this game, time doesn’t stop when you close the browser. You can be atacked while off-line, but don’t worry, atks with catapults, that destroy your buildings, are too slow, can take days to reach you, enough time to ask for help and put a good defense in your village. Except if you have a very close enemy… In this case, destroy him before he destroys you.
But who attacks has a great advantage: fake attacks. The enemy never know how much troops you are sending against him. You send 1 kamikase troop in several villages, but in one of them you send your entire army… He won’t know wich one to defend. When the leader calls alliance to atack, its always asked to send a great ammount of fakes, to dismiss the enemy defenses.

About resourses, there are 4: wood, clay, iron, and grain.
Grain is the far most important resourse, because its needed to keep troops alive. It usually limits the size of your army. So, always build new villages to increase your grain production.

Travian can be played with a few hours a day, but the ideal is that you give a look in your account several times a day, even if for short time, like 2 or 10 minutes, just to up buildings, fields, read the alliance requests, send raid atks in “farms” and so.

About spending real money in the game, well, some of the payed features really help, like plus account, gold account, NPC resouce trade and automatically building. Here in Brasil, most of the players doesn’t spend real money. They probably wont be one of the top10 players of the server, but who cares? The main thing here is the alliance, help defend the WW, defend important villages, important artifacts, destroy enemy villages, capitals, steal artifacts from them, destroy their great atk troops and so on. And most of this is a team work.

Another thing, Travian should be in the Browser Game section, and MMORTS section too.

I used to like this game, but after all these destruction, I”ve realized that this game is just a huge waist of people”s time. So for those who are big and powerful, good for you, but to people who either don”t have the time, or can”t afford gold to help you out, DON”T PLAY THIS GAME. It”s horrible.

Also, follow blackheart”s advice, help.travian.us is you golden bible to winning Travian.

For more reviews for Wii games and such, please visit www.HearMii.com (Go to Storm”s YouTube, he has a review of MGS4).

Travian is my first free browser game. I’ve read the previous comments and I will say that I’ve ended up early on a server, so that might account for some of the different experience, but I think not all.

First of all, if you’re going to play, go read the FAQ: http://help.travian.com/index.php?type=start&mod=100
No, not that tiny intro they show you. This FAQ has much of what you need to know, and will prevent a lot of the nastiness described below.

First off, I’ve been playing for about a week and a half, and I have NO troops. Nor do I need them. I would have to have some terrible luck to have someone repeatedly go after me with catapults — thus, reducing my town to rubble — rather than raiders, who can’t get to my cranny-hid resources. By the time you need an army, you’re probably fit for an alliance, and that will dissuade attackers while you build up troops. It’s not that hard.

However, the pace is slow. I mean glacial. I’m told that my server will probably conclude in endgame months from now. This is good, in that I can duck in in the morning and fire off a command, then back in the evening for two or three more little tweaks. But if you’re in the mood to, you know, actually sit down and *play* something… well, there isn’t much of that, if you’re building buildings or fields. You might make a decision in a few seconds, issue a command, and be able to do nothing useful again for two or three hours. So you can busy yourself with other games, RL, or whatever. This is like a play by mail chess game. Intriguing as a long-term strategy game, but don’t expect to be whiling hours away engrossed in what’s happening in the moment.

cons:ok now when your begginner protection wears off your village gets attacked every hour before you can even spend your resources..now from now on theres no spending resources when these people keep attacking you>=[ 3/10

My beginners protection wore off, and within the hour the attacks started. There are these vultures that just sit around and wait for the protection to wear off. What measly troops I was able to create, were killed off by someone bigger than me. And after an entire day the same 3 people have been attacking me. ALL DAY. Seriously, over 15 attacks by these 2 individuals. Quite sad if you think about, these people with no lives,having to bully people though a virtual site but I’m getting off topic.
Unlike others I do have 2 full made crannies(a special building that ‘hides’ a certain amount of supplies from your enemy so that it won’t be stolen). So these enemies aren’t pillaging anything, but they won’t stop.
I can’t build any troops because by the time(remember everything is in real time, and building a single troop can take an hour and a half) they’re created, they’ve gone and attacked me, and of course killed my troop.
When you go to the boards for advice, or *gasp* perhaps some help, you are quickly told off by the “supreme” older members. They will call you a whiner, and other such pleasantries. And their ‘advice’, delete, go to a different server, and hope for the best. As if the same thing won’t happen to you there.

Now for another feature not mentioned here yet. You can upgrade your account, to save some time(though not for waiting on resources), and gain some perks. You can buy different levels of gold pieces, and use them to increase your defense or crop production or whatever, for only 7 days. Then you must use more gold to extend this. I have purpose in explaining this to you.

Remember the main ‘advice’ you will receive, if you are having a hard time, is to delete your account, which you have dedicated a week too, move to a new server, and hope for the best. Best part, if you’ve used the gold you bought, to upgrade your defense, or your production or whatever, you can’t take it with you. What kind of crock is that?

They’ll let you transfer any gold specifically you have left, but what was used, and STILL active, goes to waste. So for example I buy 100 gold pieces. I spend 30 to extend my plus status for 2 weeks, then and additional 60 to increase my resouces production for 3 weeks. I’ve got 10 gold pieces left.
Well if hard times come, I still get to keep my 10 gold pieces. Who cares that I’ve still got 3 weeks invested into the account. Not your fellows users, nor the owner.

If your into being ruthless, beating up the equivalent of senior citizens, and toddlers, then this is the game for you.

I suppose when you start at the beginning of a reset you get attacked more, but if you jump in the middle i seem to not be noticed by anyone.

anyways the game is pretty fun, more interactive then some other web browser games i’ve played recently.

It’s not so much that it’s bad for people who are new to online games in general, as it is bad for people that are new to Travian. All the established towns seem to feel like it’s their right and privilege to obliterate all small new towns in their general area. Anything that’s less than half of what they have is up for grabs and they will.

I’ve tried to play this game countless times, and this last one was the biggest joke ever. Since every other time I’ve played all that support says (both privately and on the forums) is “Build a Cranny” when you complain about getting attacked by someone 4 times the size of your town, I decided to only build a Cranny unless I absolutely had to build something else.

Cranny level 5, town population 40. Attackers town population 290+, after that my resources all went down to 60. What exactly is the point of the Cranny then if I still lost nearly all my resources. Obviously it doesn’t matter one bit at all, and the devs just don’t care who likes their game one bit.

Like I stated at the beginning- it COULD be a good game: IF they’d put in some kind of balanced system for attacking other towns.

Increase resources by raiding the guy down the road, or defend yourself, he’s coming your way!

Form alliances with your neighbors, or N.A.P. (non agression pacts) and band together for protection the (romans, teuton, or gauls; you chose) are coming!

Become king/queen and settle multiple villages and soon you will own the world! But, I get ahead of myself.

Spend just a few minutes a day, or micro manage several times a day. A great game!