Travian is an award-winning German massively multiplayer online browser-based game developed by Travian Games GmbH.[2]
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 30 other languages[3][4] and today has over 3 million players and over 250 servers worldwide.[5][6] In 2006, it won the Superbrowsergame Award, in the large games category.[1][6][7][8]
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.[9]
The game
Every player enters Travian as a leader of a small village as a Roman, Gaul or Teuton[10] with two people (or a population of two, as referred to in Travian) 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 Cropland (produces 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.[11]
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 certain level, the player may build an Academy, which allows them to research new types of troops;[12] the player may also construct new types of buildings (such as the Armoury [13] and Blacksmith [14]) once the Academy has been upgraded to a sufficient level.
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.
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 are—according to the game—the predecessors of the three playable tribes. 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 account activation (except if the player is on a speed server, in which case they appear after 100 days).
The Natars must be killed and an artifact stolen for a World Wonder to be built.
Villages
A player is able to found more than one village. Additional villages increase total resource production, causes population growth and help support larger armies. To found an additional 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 create 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 every 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 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 for 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. Being a wing 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. 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 (Confeds).
End game
Financing
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, this advantage some feel is unfair.[16]
However, many of the functional abilities (attack, defense and crop 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.
