Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by A. di M. (talk | contribs) at 23:43, 29 January 2009 (→Factions: spaces). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Travian is an award-winning German massively multiplayer online browser-based strategy game developed by Travian Games GmbH.

The game's developers drew roughly from Classical antiquity and particularly from the Roman Empire to create a predominantly militaristic real-time strategy. Along with three English versions, and the original German version, the game has been translated into over 40 other languages, and has over 3 million players and over 250 servers worldwide. In 2006, it won the Superbrowsergame Award, in the large games category.

Travian is programmed in PHP and runs in most modern browsers (such as Camino, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari). Travian was also the first game of its type to be playable on mobile phones. When played on a cell phone, it uses Java.

The game

Every player enters Travian as a leader of a small village as a Roman, Gaul or Teuton with two people in their village. The village has only one building, known as the Main Building. Around the Main Building are spaces for further buildings to be constructed. Around the outside of the village there are 18 resource fields that are level 0. Each resource field is either a Woodcutter (produces Wood/Lumber), Clay Pit (produces Clay), Iron Mine (produces Iron) or Wheat Field/Cropland (produces Wheat/Crop). These fields produce a certain amount of resources per hour, depending on their levels. At level 0, each resource field produces two units per hour. Resources are required to construct buildings, to sustain the population and to train and feed troops (see below). A player can increase the production rate by upgrading the fields.

At the start of the game, the selection of buildings a player can construct is very limited. As the village is developed, a wider range of buildings become available for construction.

A greater aspect for the game is its troops. Troops are produced in the Barracks. They allow a player to raid other villages and steal their resources, which will benefit the attacker. When the Barracks have been upgraded to a level three, the player may build an Academy, which allows them to research new types of troops; the player may also construct new types of buildings (such as the Armoury and Blacksmith ) once the Academy has been upgraded to a sufficient level. A Stable allows cavalry to be trained. These units are faster and more expensive than infantry.

Goal

The goal of Travian is to construct and upgrade a World Wonder to level 100 and achieve a high population. The World Wonder requires millions of resources and takes a large amount of time to complete. Once a World Wonder is upgraded to level 100, the game ends and the winner and his/her alliance is announced. In order to construct a World Wonder, a player must steal an artifact from the Natars.

An appropriate ranking system has been created that determines the players' rank from raiding, attacking, defending and building. Players can earn medals for their profile page by taking a certain place in the ranks. If a player gets themselves into the ranks, and earns a medal, it will contain information about the category, the position they came and of what week in since the start of the server they earned it.

Factions

There are three tribes available to be played, the Romans, the Gauls, and the Teutons. Each has their own characteristics. The Romans complete upgrades faster than other tribes, the Gauls defend better than the others, and the Teutons are geared towards an aggressive style of play.

However, the actual style always comes down to the player, and his/her style of play. The fourth tribe, known as the "Natars", are an NPC tribe who were — according to the game — the enslavers of the Gauls and the Teutons before the Romans invaded Travian. The Natars enjoy many benefits normal tribes do not, but only come into the game as part of the end game sequence, more specifically, 300 days after the start of the server (except if the player is on a speed server, in which case they appear after 100 days).

Villages

A player is able to found additional villages. These increase total resource production, causes population growth and help support larger armies. To found a second village the player must first create and extend a Residence or Palace to level 10, and also have 2,000 (500 for Speed server) Culture points. Culture points are automatically produced daily and accumulated, based on the buildings in the village(s).

To found another village after the second, progressively more culture points are needed. Almost all buildings made in Travian give the village Culture points. After the amount of culture points are achieved, the player may train 3 Settlers to go and found a new village at any vacant area chosen. Settlers must be given 750 of each resource before they start their journey. A player may also create an Administrator (Senator, Chief or Chieftain) instead. These units need a level 20 Academy first. They allow the player to conquer another player's village and make it their own, but a player's last or only village (i.e. the capital) cannot be conquered this way.

Alliances

The game is heavily geared towards cooperative play. In fact the only likely way to win the game is through cooperation with an alliance. It's nearly impossible for single players to win, but an alliance can win together.

Resources can be traded between players, and towns can be reinforced with another player's troops. An in-game alliance feature is also available, providing the main catalyst for strategic play within Travian; players join and fight together from mutual benefit. Within an alliance, players can view attack and defense information for all alliance members, and also benefit from improved communication tools such as mass alliance-wide in-game messages.

Since the maximum number of members in an alliance is 60, 'wings' tend to form as an alliance develops. Splitting into wings entitles having multiple sub-alliances, often with similar names, acting as one alliance but in different areas of the game. Wings may not fight and destroy each other due to the friendly fire rules. Players in the same alliance may attack each other, but this would be considered treason. Towards the end of a round, different alliances often join together, resulting in larger coalitions (meta alliances); other diplomatic agreements include non-aggression pacts (NAP) and confederations.

End game

Each Travian server ends with the "end game" sequence. For normal servers it ends after about 300 days, and for speed (3x) servers, it ends after about 100 days. After this time has elapsed the Natars, a vicious tribe controlled by the computer, are released. As the players on the server begin to build the Wonder of the World that they had captured the plans from the Natars, they meet resistance. The Natars will, every 5 levels of the Wonder being built, attack the villages with wonders until level 95 when they will then attack every new level. The first alliance that builds their World Wonder to level 100 wins the server, which stops and restarts after some time. Then a new game begins.

Version history

Version 3 featured oases which could be annexed, and would supplement the player's hourly resource production, as opposed to the oases in version 2, which were only present for visual appeal. Version 3 also introduced 'heroes', units which gain experience in battles. In version 3, the maximum level buildings can be extended to have been increased; moreover, the resource fields in the player's capital village can be upgraded infinitely, at least theoretically. An edition of this version where events take place three times faster, known as Travian Speed3x, was released later.

On March 16, 2007, an announcement was made about the release of Travian Classic, known as Travian 2.5, which was based on version 3 but had certain features disabled in order to emulate version 2. Version 3.5 will be an update to the current version and will first be implemented on the original .org server (German) in early February, and will be implemented on every following server starting in 2009, until version 4 is released.

Forums

Travian forums serve the purpose to have players ask questions, recruit, find out about server restarts and much more. The forums use different user names and passwords to the game which means that each member has to register to use them.

There are also forums which are only accessible by alliance members. These are used by alliance members to communicate with each other, and are accessed by players using in-game hyperlinks. However, these forums tend to be replaced by external forums if the alliance splits into wings, or becomes a wing of another alliance.

Financing

Travian was initially financed through players upgrading accounts with Travian Plus and web banners. Later, an option for purchasing 'Gold' replaced the one for buying 'Plus' on most servers. The introduction of 'Gold' allowed players to directly influence the game mechanics: for instance, by increasing resource production, instant completion of building and researches or applying a strength bonus to troops. Travian has also expanded to include a "Travian Shop" which includes Travian-related items like clothing and mugs.

Criticism

Travian has been criticized for the in game purchase of ‘Gold’. The selling of Gold pays for the some of the staff (most Travian staff are volunteers), server and bandwidth costs for the game but gives the purchaser an advantage over players who have not purchased Gold, an advantage some feel is unfair.

However, many of the functional abilities (attack, defense and resource production bonuses are not functional abilities) the Plus options give can be easily replicated with the use of browser-based scripts. These scripts are easily found online. However, use of any scripts to play the game, whether browser-based or otherwise, is against Travian's terms of use, and can result in the player being banned from the server and possibly, a full multi-server ban.

Controversies

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (October 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In October 2008, staff response to gameplay corruption caused by software bugs sparked controversy on one of the Lithuanian Travian servers. In the endgame stage of the game in the 3 Lithuanian server, players were unable to attain the World Wonder plans despite having broken down the Natarian defense, losing most of their troops in the process. After 12 hours the bug was corrected and players who logged on were notified. Since the Natarian defense had already been broken down, players who had no involvement in prior attacks were able to capture the plans from the Natars, even if they did not have an army. The gamers community's requests to restore correct gameplay were ignored, and therefore, a petition was started. Messages containing protests were deleted from the Travian forum. This conflict was not the first  — several months earlier in the 4 server, one of the "multihunters" (Travian personnel) was suspected of using his privileges to block users who attacked him in-game. This story was shown in local mass media and blogs.

References

1. ^ "Travian - Traviangames GmbH". Travian Games GmbH. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
2. "Travian website" (bar at the top of the page)
3. http://travian.macaputo.de/ constantly updating stats. As of February 2008, >3 million players
4. ^ "CDTM GROW - Die Start-Up Messe: Travian Games GmbH" (in German). CDTM GROW. Retrieved 2008-12-22. Template:De icon
5. "\travian\faq". Travian FAQ. Travian Games GmbH. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
6. "Special: Die Wahl zum Superbrowsergame 2006 hat gewonnen ..." (in German). Gamesdynamite. 2006-10-04. Retrieved 2008-12-12. Template:De icon
7. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/72430 Travian goes mobile Template:De icon
8. "The tribes - Travian website" Retrieved on 2009-01-06.
9. "Travian FAQ - Clay pits"
10. "Travian FAQ - Academy"
11. "Travian FAQ - Armoury"
12. "Travian FAQ Blacksmith"
13. Speed server"
14. "Welt3 mit Travian Classic" (in German). Travian Games GmbH. 2007-03-16. Retrieved 2009-01-13. Template:De icon
15. "Neue Travian Version: T3.5" (in German). Travian Games GmbH. 2009-01-12. Retrieved 2009-01-13. Template:De icon
16. "Travian T3.5". Travian international forum. Travian Games GmbH. 2009-15-01. Retrieved 2009-01-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
17. "Travian T3.5 Release Details". Travian US Forums. Travian Games GmbH. 2009-15-01. Retrieved 2009-01-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
18. "T3.5 update 15/01/2009". Travian UK forum. Travian Games GmbH. 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2009-01-26.
19. Soman, Ebey. "WebSite Review: Travian.com". Helium.com. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
20. http://rokiskis.livejournal.com/27430.html
21. http://blog.delfi.lt/zenklai/1345/ Template:Lt icon

External links

• Travian.com international servers
• Travian.org original server Template:De icon
• Official FAQ

• Misplaced Pages articles needing copy edit from October 2008
• Browser-based games
• Massively multiplayer online games
• Multiplayer browser-based games
• Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games
• Video games developed in Germany
• 2004 video games