let's play

If all else fails, you can always join your enemy’s alliance to stop a farmer. The first time I did this I felt really stupid, but I came to realize that it isn’t a bad way to find a good alliance since players who are good at Travian are always raiding and driving everyone else crazy.

If you want to join your enemy’s alliance make sure you do it right. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when joining your attacker’s alliance:

?    Your allegiance to your former team of player is important. Make sure you leave it on as good a standing as possible. Have you helped other players in your alliance? If you have contributed in any way to your previous union they will be less likely to pound you with catapults when you leave theirs for another.

?    Try to get into an alliance that can protect you and is stronger than your previous one. This means if the player who is raiding you is inferior to most of the players you are teamed with, it’s a better strategy to stand up to him/her with reinforcements from friends. Always move upward as you change from one team to the next.

?    Be discreet. Even at the beginning of the server, one small slip up where your name is found on two forum application threads can make a bigger player want you dead. Especially speed servers where everything happens faster. Keep confidential messages closed and only post/send a message when you meet the requirements of the alliance you want to join. A player who takes 2 weeks to join is more likely to be attacked than one taking 2 days to join and get in.

These tips go beyond the obvious polite words, being nice and having a team spirit tips that are mentioned on every alliance page. The three tips above come from experience and can completely ruin your game if you get them wrong. Make sure you do your homework.

In order to found additional villages in Travian one must have the required number of culture points. In your Town Hall you can host parties to build more culture points (CP) faster. This tip is integral to getting ahead of other players.

Once your fields are at levels 6-7 you should build a Town Hall. You will need to bring an Academy to level 10 as well as your main building. This is an excellent thing to begin doing in villages that already have a level 10 Residence and sufficient storage resources coming in from raids. Hosting parties will seem like it’s a drain on resources at first. Even the big parties that are hosted in a level 10 Town Hall are expensive. But think about it, more CP = more villages = more fields = more resources = more troops (and parties).

This is the formula that you must keep in mind.   In the first 3 months of a regular round it is arguably more important to host parties than build troops. This means if you have the choice to host a big party, or build 350 troops, first host the party and then focus your remaining resources on troops.   On the speed server I usually settle a new village every 3 days, and I’m not even hosting as many parties as I should be. On the regular server that would translate into a new village every 9 days. This strategy accounts for incredible internal strength, as long as you build troops later on as well.   Town Halls are expensive only because they are extremely valuable.