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In a shock move, ITV have decided that the best show on television is to move to a new 9PM slot. In a worse turn of events, it will drop to only 1 episode per week.

The benefits of this seem to be that they can concentrate on making it grittier and probably more violent. They might even put some swearing in it. I have mixed feelings about this. In one respect, it will be truer to life and be able to more accurately portray real ife, but part of The Bill’s charm is its’ wide appeal, its’ soapy nature.

There are a lot of cop dramas, many of them are excellent such as Trial and Retribution, but The Bill needs to sit apart from these. Sure, there will be a lot of cross over between TAR et al and The Bill, but it has a niche and I wonder how it will compete with it’s heavier competitors.

What’s the aim of the game?

The aim is to get to the ‘end game’ – no really! where all kinds of crazy shit happens (a new tribe ‘land’ in the game called the Natar and start beating you up), but first you need to get on the right footing.

Where to begin?

When you first start out, follow the tutorial as it not only shows you how to play the game, but also gives you lots of vital resources. Without resources, you can’t build anything in your village, and will ultimately wither and die. Your resources (Wood, Clay, Iron and Wheat) are the currency you use to upgrade your buildings and resource fields. Each upgrade takes a certain amount of each resource. The bigger the upgrade the more time it takes to fund and build.

The problem is, what to build first?

The best thing you can do is study the build tree. That way you can plot what levels you need to get your buildings to to build the next item.

The way I tackled this is to firstly build a warehouse (level 3), granary (level 3) and main building (level 5). From there, you can start building a marketplace and rally point. Whilst you are doing this, you should be building up your resource fields. Wheat is always the problem so concentrate on this and aim to get it to level 5 as you can then build a granary (improve the production of the wheat fields). Later on, get the Iron, Clay and Wood fields to level 10 so you can build the woodcutter, foundry and brick shit house (it’s not really called that).

Offence and Defence

Depending on your style of play, you’ll want some defence before you start attacking. This is actually the wrong way round in Travian. The best best at the start of play is to build a few troops and go out hunting for extra resrouce. This can really make a difference when resource is tight. After that, get your defensive troops. It will take a while to get your troops and in that time, you’ll probably get attacked. The best thing to do in this instance is to build crannies. Crannies are hidey-holes for your resources so that incoming troops can’t steal them. Some troops can still take resources out of the crannies but it’s a way of keeping it safe until you can spend it. One tip here is to ensure that you have enough crannies to cover your granary and warehouse, otherwise it’s each pickings for incoming troops.

Travian - My homepage

The premise is the same but is now rendered nicely in your browser. You choose your tribes (Romans, Gauls, and Teutons) and then set about building up your empire.

You get the choice to be a ‘fighter’ or ‘trader’, which determines how you build your society, either by slaughtering your opponents or by trading with them. I went for the latter and get robbed blind as soon as my ‘new starter protection’ finished and this was the biggest problem for me.

As time continually rolls on, you get people attacking you in the middle of the night and it’s no better when you’re at work either. As a result, you come home, turn on the computer and realise that the nice little town you were building has been robbed for all it’s worth, leaving you with nothing (unless you use the cranny!).

Ultimately, it’s a nice little game but is the domain of those who can continually keep an eye on their towns, otherwise, once you lose your immunity, you’re toast.

John Sergeant

The real difference between these two shows is very little and ultimately comes down to a popularity contest. The problem with Strictly is that to have a valid opinion, you really need to know your rhumba, and let’s face it, if you get on the dance floor on a Saturday night (if you still do), then you won’t know much about that. Compared with X-Factor where you can tell if someone can sing or not, it’s damn near impossible to tell if someone’s feet are ‘not pointing in the right direction’. So this begs the question, why bother asking for the public’s opinion in the first place?

The answer? To make money and push the brand. Arguably, they have already done this, but when the ‘panelists’ then start talking about John Sergeant ruining the competition for the others, you really need to ask them to wind their necks in. Sure, the better dancers would certainly be a little peaved that they were out at the expense of Grandad, but that’s what’s entertaining. Seeing an old man, dance with a girl who’s 3 times his junior (nb. this isn’t always acceptable!).

Perhaps this is just an elaborate ruse to increase ratings of a poorer programme, in which case, they will have succeeded this week for certain, but in the end, it is a popularity contest, where the judges lose out this week