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.