BEGINNERS GUIDE TO TRAVIAN
THE TABLE OF AMAZING CONTENTS!
- Post 1 : Introduction
- Post 2 : Tribes and their advantages!
- Post 3 : The Beginning of the Beginners guide to Travian!
- Post 4 : Signing up and logging on!
- Post 5 : Understanding the Main Buttons
- Post 6 : The Village Overveiw, the Village Center, and World Map
- Post 7 : Statistics, Reports and Messages, and Your Profile
- Post 8 : Building in your Village Overview
- Post 9 : Building in your Village Center
- Post 10 : Conclusion to the Beginners guide to Travian!
- Post 11 : Reserved to be used if needed
- Post 12 : Travian FAQ
- Post 13 : Travian Dictionary
WHAT IS TRAVIAN?
As the main page says, Travian is a browser game with a world full of thousands of users who all begin as the leaders of small villages. I believe it is a bit more than that. It is a competitive game where you build a mighty empire and destroy all who stand in your way! . . . . perhaps that is not the best description, but it fits it well enough. The point of this game is to build up your puny little village into something less puny and little, while managing to not be raided of all of your resources.
Is there anything else I should know before I descend into the World of Travian?
Yes, I beleive there is. Travian is not a game you can win in a day. It takes time and effort to be number one, so if you just want to play it once and never see it again, I don't think this is the game for you. You should also know that this game is based mainly on violence, so if you just like to build a nice little village and make apple pies for all your neighbors, I don't think you should play Trivian.
The Tribes and their Advantages!
The Romans
The Roman empire is the easiest for newcomers to Travian. Because of their significant social and technological developments, the Romans are the masters of building coordination, and their troops are the Travian elite. They are relatively decent in both attack and defense. To get this versatility, however, they must go through a long and expensive training. Their infantry is legendary, but their defense against cavalry is the lowest of all the tribes. For beginners and those who don't know exactly how they want to play, the Romans are ideal.
Special Features
- Simultaneous construction of resource fields and buildings
- Higher defense bonus from city wall
- Merchants can carry 500 resources (speed: 16 fields/hour)
- Extremely powerful infantry, mediocre cavalry,
- Training is long and expensive.
The Gauls
The Gauls are the most peace-loving of all the tribes. Their units are well-trained in defensive tactics, but their offense is lacking in comparison to the other tribes. Gauls are born riders, and their horses are legendary for their speed, allowing them to move quickly and surprise their foes.
This tribe is relatively easy to defend, but an offensive play style is also quite possible. It offers the possibility to go in every strategic direction (offensive or defensive doctrine, lone wolf or helper in emergencies, infantry- or cavalry-based, settler or conqueror), so anything is doable for a skilled player, but also good for beginners!
Special Features
- Speed bonus: Fastest units in the game
- Moderate defense bonus from the Palisade
- Merchants can carry 750 resources (speed: 24 fields/hour)
- Double cranny size (raid protection)
- Expensive siege weapons
- Cheap settlers
The Teutons
The Teutons are the most offensive of all the tribes. Teutonic warriors are dreaded everywhere because of their berserker rage in battle. They are the pillaging hordes roaming the lands, completely unafraid of death.
Because the Teutons lack the military discipline of the Gauls and Romans, they are somewhat slower and weaker than other troops. For offense-minded and experienced players, the Teutons are a great choice!
Special Features
- Pillaging bonus: Enemy crannies only hide 2/3
- The earth wall is almost indestructible, but offers little defense
- Merchants can carry 1000 resources (speed: 12 fields/hour)
- Unequivocally cheap, fastest produced, and the best carrying capacity troops
- Weak in defense
Walkthrough of the main page
Ok, so I know what it is, can I start making a mighty empire? Not yet! First, you need to understand the main page!
As you can see, I have numbered several of the items on this picture. Lets have a look and see what they are!
- 1.(Red): This is the Side Bar. It appears on every page in Travian. On the Side bar are several links to different pages in Travian. Homepage : This is a link to the main page of Travian. Manual : This opens a manual with a list of all buildings and Units. (Note that while not logged on, it shows the tribes, buildings, and FAQ, but if you are logged on, it makes a pop up, which only shows the units and buildings, but in more detail than the other version.) Tutorial : This is a small Tutorial of Travian. It doesn't have all of the useful information like my guide does, but feel free to check it out. Login : This is the button you press to log on to your account. We, however, are not at the point yet, so just sit tight for now. Register : This will bring you to the register page, where you can sign up for this wonderful game. Forum : This leads you to the wonderful forum, but for some reason, I think you already knew that. Chat : This brings you to a live chat room, where you can get your help fast and easy.
- 2.(Yellow): This is a list of all the different servers. They are based on Language, so if you feel more comfortable speaking a different language, feel free to join the right server that fits you. Just remember, I bet none of the other forums have such an en-depth guide as ours does now lol.
- 3.(blue): This is the Players' Statistic. It shows you the Number of Registered Players, the Number of Active Players, and the Number of On-line Players, all at the same time. I never thought of how useful this was, but it must be in some way lol.
- 4.(purple): This is a shortcut to the Tutorial we talked about before. Not much to be said, except that it takes about 60s to look at, but it doesn't tell alot of information.
- 5.(brown): This is a shortcut to the Login page. This will take you to the screen where you can log in and begin playing.
- 6(gray): This is just a little section dedicated to the forums. It shows you which post are the newest, so that you can stay up to date.
- 7.(orange): This is a little section of screenshots you can view, so that you can get a feel of the game before you play.
- 8.(green): This is the bottom menu bar. It appears on the bottom of the Home page, Tutorial page, links page, Rules page, Terms page, About Us Page, Screenshots page, and Manual page(non pop-up). FAQ : This takes you to the Travian FAQ, which gives you a bit of useful information, so you should look there if you are in need of a little help. Screenshots : This takes you to the Screenshot page, which shows you pictures of the game play. Links : This takes you to the links page, but unfortunately, there is nothing on it. Rules : This shows all the rules of Travian. It would be wise to read this entire page before registering and defiantly before playing. Terms : This shows all of the Terms and Conditions you agree to follow when you register and join the wide world of Travian. As you can see, it is in very small print, so that they can put little things like " you agree to sell your soul to the devil" in the middle and you never know, so I suggest you you read the entire thing thoroughly before joining. About Us : This page tell you exactly what it sounds like, a little information about the creators of Travian. It give their postal address and telephone number. Hmm, I didn't know the creators were German . . . guess you learn something new every day. And at the very bottom of the page, there is the little (C) symbol so no one can steal their ideas. So there you have it!!! A detailed description of the main page!
Signing up and logging on!
Ok, so I understand in great detail the main page, now can I start? WHAT? You haven't even made an account and logged in! You have to do that first!
As it suggests, you should read through the manual to get a better understanding of the three tribes, but since I'm planning to explain that to you soon, don't worry about that. First, lets concentrate on the task at hand.
- STEP 1 : Come up with a Nickname. As simple as it sounds, sometimes it can be difficult. I prefer original and interesting names, while others love to copy those whose talents in name giving surpasses their own. Whatever name you choose for your new account, just make sure it is appropriate for young children to view.
- STEP 2 : Submit your email address. I don't really have anything to say about this one, lol, since there is not much to say. If you do not have an email address, you can receive one for free from Yahoo.com or hotmail.com . Either one is good and well trusted.
- STEP 3 : Create a password for your account. Although this is a simple task, I have a few suggestions. Always try to come up with hard passwords. Never use your birthday or any part of your name, and always try to randomize it. Choosing numbers and letters in no real order is a good way to ensure extra security. Just remember to write it down, so that you don't forget it.
- STEP 4 : Choosing a Tribe. There are three tribes to choose from, each with there own advantages and weaknesses. As a beginner I think it would be wise to choose one that would bet soot your needs, which are to gain lots of resources and not be conquered. As such, the Gauls, who not only hide twice as many resources in their crannies (Explained later) but also have the best defence, would be a good choice. If you were more leaned toward killing and pillaging, then the Teutons would be the tribe for you. They not only have the best offensive, but they also can loot from crannies, so that the crannies only hide 2/3 what what they are supposed to. so if you attack someone with a cranny size that holds 300 resources (that's of each type, 300 wood 300 wheat 300 clay 300 iron, so a total of 1200 resources hidden) that would mean that the crannies only really hide 200 resources when you raid them. I think most people, however, would suggest toward the Romans, who are the most balanced of the three tribes. They have equal defence and offence, and they can also build two buildings at once, a resource building and a building in your village. Just go up to the second post and look there for a more in detail description.
- STEP 5 : Choose a starting Position. I don't think your starting position really matters. The fact is, no matter where you land in the game, someone is always going to raid you, so what does it matter? If you truly want an input in where to go, I would suggest southwest, just because that would land you in the negatives, and there is something cool about being in the negatives.
- STEP 6 : Read and accept Rules and Terms and Conditions. I really think you should actually read the Rules before clicking the little box, but I can't make you, lol.
- STEP 7 : Click Register. This may be the most simple step of all . . . click the box that says register. Step 7 will take you to Activation page, where it will welcome you to Travian and also tell you it sent an email to your email address. All you have to do is open up a new page, go to your email and open the message, then copy the code and paste it in the little box under Activation Code. Then press OK. If you look in your email and do not see the message, first look in the bulk section of your email account, and then go back to the activation page and click the green here. It will take you to another page, and give you instructions to get your activation code. I'm feeling a bit lazy, so I don't think I'll go over that in great detail.
Your account has been successfully activated! Click here to 'log in'
Click the green log in button, and that will take you to the log in page! The first time you come to this page, it will be blank, but the second time, if you leave 'remember me' selected, it will have the information already placed in. Just type in your account name and password and press login. Its so simple, you could have done it without instructions, but I provided them anyway!
Understanding the Main buttons
YES! I made an account and successfully logged on! Now can I begin playing?
That is basically what a new beginners Village overview looks like. No fields built what so ever, but we can get to that later. As you can see, I have pointed out some crucial things about this game map, lets have a look, shall we?
1.(black) : This is the same side bar as before, but a little different. As you can see, instead of log in, it has log out, which is you click that, will log out your character for you. You now have a profile button, which is where you can customize your profile and give additional information about yourself. There is also no registration button, because obviously, you already did that. The manual is also different, it brings up a pop up in the same window your on which shows you details of the units and buildings you can have( or can't have). And the last one at the very bottom is the Travian Plus button, which is where you can buy gold ((with real money)) and use that gold for special features. You get 35 free gold when you register for Travian (Lucky you!) and you can use it anytime you please. I find using it to make NPC Merchant trades useful, but increasing your porduction for 7 days by 25% isn't that bad either. 2.(Red) : This is the Village Overview button. It takes you straight to the page you are already on. 3.(Orange) : This takes you to your Village Center, which is where you can build many buildings, like a rally point, and cranny, or even an Academy. 4.(Blue) : This is the Map button, which will bring you to the huge world map of Travian. If you click it, it will show you exactly where you are located, but lets worry about that later. 5.(Yellow) : This is the Statistics button. It will take you to something like a ranking system for the game. You can see where you stand against other players, but since your pretty new to the game, your very low on the charts, lol. 6.(Purple) : This is actually two buttons. The one on the left is the reports button, the one on the right is the Messages button. You receive reports When you complete a trade, receive reinforcements, are attacked or complete an attack, or miscellaneous, which I have no idea what that one could be. You Receive messages from the game or from other players. When you receive a report, the left piece of paper turns green, when you receive a message, the right piece of paper turns Yellow. You happen to have a message, but you can read it later.
We have talked about the base of the game now. You know exactly what those buttons that will appear on every page does, but now you just need to know more about the game itself.
The Village Overview, the Village Center, and World Map.
This is the Village Overview. It is where you can build resource buildings to increase production. Right now, you have absolutely nothing in it, and before we begin, lets get a little more information about it.
- 1.(Purple) : This is the list of resources you have, and the amount your storage can hold. You can not have more than the amount you can hold, and it is not recommended that you allow it to fill up, because that would waste resources. All the way to the right, there is a wheat with a slash in it. That is your population. Your population eats wheat(duh!) so that amount is taken from your wheat production. That means that you are really making 12 wheat per hour, but it only shows you making 10 because 2 of it is being consumed as food. The number next to the 2 is the maximum amount of people your tiny village can feed, and it will stay that small until you increase it by upgrading your wheat feilds.
- 2.(blue) : This is the main view of all of your resource buildings. As your village grows, you will need to build more here, to increase production. Right now it is empty and will continue to be empty until we reach that part of the guide. There are four resources to be found on this map; Wheat, wood, iron, and clay. All four are important, but wheat is something you should always have plenty of, since you need more the more people and soldiers you have in your village.
- 3.(green): This shows the Amount of Production your village does in an hour. As you build more Resource buildings and increase their level, you will produce more.
- 4.(orange) : This shows the units you currently have in your village. Since you just started and you haven't even built a rally point yet, there are none in your village.
- This is the Village Center page. This is where you place your buildings. You can see that one building is already up, and that is the Main Building. The main building is one of the most important buildings you have, since it is needed for almost every building. As you can see, there are circles in your village center, where you can build structures, but there are hidden places where you build certain things.
- 1.(Green) : Mostly found on the river or around the rim, there is a place where you can build a wall to protect your city. Every tribe has a different wall, with different ways of protecting you.
- 2(Orange) : This is where you can build your rally point. It is used to direct your units and also to instruct your catapults on targets. The higher the level of your rally point, the better your catapults are at hitting when you want them to. The Rally point is also needed to build a barracks, so without a rally point, you can not have any soldiers.
This is the main map used for the entire game. In the center of the map, surrounded by a yellow square, is your village. The other villages, which are surrounded by orange squares, are your neighbors villages. Blue squares are villages in your alliance, green squares are alliances that are allied with your alliance, and light green squares are NAPs. (Thanks to BethWood01 vbmenu_register("postmenu_12232", true); for the conformation on the colors and their meanings.) If you scroll over a village, like I have over my own, you can see details about that village, like the name of the player, the population of the village, and the Alliance of the village. If you click that village, it would show you more detail about the village, and give you options such as to center the map on it, raid the village or send merchants to it.
The blue circled square with the lake and the small wheat field is called an Unoccupied oasis. If you were to click on that small square, you would see informaion about it, such as how many wild animal were there and even have options like to center the map at that location, or raid the Unoccupied oasis for resources. If you gain a Hero's Mansion in the future, make a hero, then level the Mansion to level 10, you could claim that oasis for yourself and gain a bonus from it, but you might not be that for in the game for at least a week .
The green circle contains numbers that can be used like a short cut to your village. If you put random numbers in, like -29 and -82, you would find yourself at a random place.
Statistics, Reports and Messages, and Your Profile
At the Statistics page you can compare your pathetic village to other players pathetic villages. Just above the list of players you can see, you can view all of the different ranking categories, like who has the largest village, or what Alliances are the best to join. The Statistics page can be useful if you want to show off your stuff to friends and family, or if you just like seeing who is the best.
The Reports and Messages pages are both important to a growing village. Reports are sent to you when you trade with someone else, are attacked or attack someone, and even when receiving reinforcements, and without this information, you wouldn't know what was going on when you were off. Messages can be sent by players or an Automated computer. You can also sent messages to your entire Alliance by typing [ally] as the reciever (Only if you have the right to do so) . Whether you send or recieve, most messages are important.
This is your Player Profile Page, where you can make edits to your account, or even describe yourself for all to read. Look at the Main task bar for The Player Profile Page.
The Overview will take you to the page you are currently on. On this page you can Edit your profile and view your villages.
On the Profile page, you can change the name of your village, give your birth day, tell us your gender and where you live, and give descriptions of the village or yourself.
The Preferences page is used mainly to change the time and which way the date is presented.
The Account page is just as it sounds, a page for managing your account. Here you can change your password, select a sitter, or delete your account. This is also where you go to put the name of the account someone who shares the same computer as you.
The Graphics Pack page is where you can download the graphics from the game onto your computer. It not only speeds up the loading time of the page, but also helps lessen the weight on the server. I would recommend doing this if you plan to play regularly, but it is not required.
Building in your Village Overview
Why don't we go and look at that email we received a while ago. Click on the Piece of paper to the right and click on the Message Welcome to Travian.
Well, isn't that nice. Now that you have started playing, your Beginner's protection has started decrease, so it is a good idea to start building soon. Yes, I said it, we are actually going to build now! Yay for you! Lets head over to the Village Overview by clicking the button with all the little numbers in the colored 6 sided squares.
Now that we are back to the Village Overview, take a look around the small picture there. Do you see the tan circles? Those are where your resources are coming from. Right now, you are not getting a lot from them, but as you level them higher, you will get more from them. Have more resources is what that message was talking about right? So lets level up one of our wheat fields. Do you see the the wheat space that I circled blue? Go ahead and click that. ( lol not on my page silly, on your own page!)
This is your Wheat field. As you can obviously see, it is level 0, and is only producing 2 wheat per hour. If we upgrade the wheat field, it will produce 5 per hour. I call that an improvement, don't you? Click on the green "Upgrade to level 1". This takes you back to the Village Overview, and if you look at the bottom of the page, you can see this: Building: Wheat Field (level 1) 0:02:30 hrs Ready at 07:03 pm Well, you won't see exactly that, but you will see something close to it, lol. Now just wait 2 minutes and 30 seconds . . . . ((Two minutes and thirty seconds later)) TADA! You now are the proud owner of a level 1 wheat field! You can see that your wheat production has increased, so that you are now making 13 wheat per hour. Lets go back to the message page and look at the other message we had, Upgrade resource fields. ((You may have something different, for I heard it is different for each tribe, but lets just go with mine for now.))
So, it says we should upgrade one of each resource to level 1. I don't think that will be hard, but before we can do that, you have to get more storage for our newly found resources!
Building in your Village Center
Lets head over to your village Center, so that we can build a Warehouse and Granary. Don't forget that to go to your Village Center, all you have to do is click the button that looks like the little village.
This is your Village Center. As you can see, the only building is the Main Building, which is automatically placed when you begin your game. If you look, you can see dark green circles against the light green grass. These are building spots for your village, where you can place buildings such as the Warehouse and Granary. Why don't we build the Warehouse first. Click on the spot circled in red.( I told you, on your page, not mine!)
This is a list of all of the buildings you are capable of . . . well . . building. As you build and level up more structures, more buildings become available to you. Lets just concentrate on building the Warehouse for now. You can see a list of resources that you will need to build the Warehouse. If you don't have enough resources, just wait an hour, but you should have plenty, so go ahead and click the green "Construct Buildings" under Warehouse. You can look at the bottom of the page, just as you did with the wheat field, and see that it has started to build a warehouse. It will take about 32 minutes for it to complete, so just take a breather, watch some TV, eat some chips, and come back in half an hour. (( thirty-three minutes and twenty seconds later)) Woo, enjoy your break? I sure enjoyed mine. Anyway, now you that you have completed a Warehouse, lets make a Granary. Remember that blue circle? Why don't we build it there. Just click the green "Construct Buildings" under Granary and begin building. Now, if you are of the Roman tribe, I would think going ahead and start upgrading one of each fields would be a good idea, but if you aren't, just wait about 25 minutes for it to finish, then continue to build on your resources until you have 1 of each upgraded to level 1.
(( Several minutes later, after you finish building))
After you get one of each resource to level 1, your Production bar in the Village Overview should look like this: Production: Wood: 11 per hour Clay: 11 per hour Iron: 11 per hour Wheat: 4 per hour
If you notice, your Wheat is lower than it was before, because as you build onto your Village, your population increases, and as that happens you need to use more wheat to feed your villagers. Always try to keep your wheat production the same as your other productions, as wheat is just as important as the other resources and more.
Conclusion to the Beginners guide to Travian!
You have mastered the most basic aspects of the game Travian. You have built up your resources and your village, and you know what most things do. But if you are wondering what to do now that you have finished my guide, I still have some useful information for you. When your beginner protection ends, people will raid you from every direction. You need to use your time wisely, so that they do not receive anything from you. Trying to use force will not help you at the moment, so building up your units would be a waste of the precious time you have. Instead, just continue to build on your resources and build two cranny up to level 10. By the time you finish with that, no one can touch your resources, and it will secure those resources for your own personal use. Also, just because you know what to do now, doesn't mean things wouldn't still perplex you. Don't feel dumb about questions you think are simple to understand, most of the time, it isn't that easy. Come to the forum to tell us of your problems. That would be better than trying to figure them out yourself.