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| 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. | 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. | ||
| === Troops === | |||
| {{Anchor|Troops}}A greater aspect for the game is its troops. Troops are produced in the Barracks, Great Barracks, Stable, Great Stable and Workshop. They allow a player to raid other villages and steal their resources, which will benefit the attacker. When the Barracks have been upgraded to level three, the player may build an Academy, which allows them to research new types of troops;<ref>""</ref> the player may also construct new types of buildings (such as the Armoury <ref>""</ref> and Blacksmith <ref>""</ref>) 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. The Workshop allows siege engines—rams which destroy walls and catapults which destroy buildings—to be manufactured. These units are slower and more expensive than infantry and cavalry. Administrators, known more commonly as chiefs, are units which persuade enemy villages to join the attacker's realm. Units which gain experience in battle, known as Heroes, can be trained from an existing unit in the Hero's mansion. | |||
| The ultimate goal of ''Travian'' is to construct and upgrade a Wonder of the World (see ]) to level 100. 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 their alliance is announced. A player needs a construction plan in order to be able to construct a World Wonder; these plans are obtained from Natarian villages (see ]). | |||
| A 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 top 10 place in the ranks. If a player gets themselves into the top 10 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. | |||
| === Player Accounts === | === Player Accounts === | ||
Revision as of 15:06, 20 December 2012
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| Travian | |
|---|---|
| File:Travian Logo.png | |
| Developer(s) | Travian Games |
| Platform(s) | Web-based application |
| Release | 1 / 5 September 2004 (2004-09-05) 2 / 12 March 2005 3 / 30 June 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time military strategy City-building |
| Mode(s) | multiplayer |
Travian is a massively multiplayer online persistent browser-based strategy game developed by the German software company Travian Games.
The game's developers drew roughly from classical antiquity and particularly from the Roman Empire to create a predominantly militaristic real-time strategy. It has been suggested that Travian's creators may have drawn from an earlier German board game, The Settlers of Catan, for layout; there are similarities in resource development and theme as well.
Along with three English versions, and the original German version, Travian has been translated into over 40 other languages, and has over 5 million players and over 300 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. Travian was also the first game of its type to be playable on mobile phones. When played on a mobile phone, it used Java. However, the Java application is no longer developed or supported.
Gameplay
Travian is set in classical antiquity. Each player starts the game as the leader of a small, undeveloped village, surrounded by undeveloped resource fields. The player can develop these mines to increase their resource output. The village can be developed by constructing new buildings and upgrading existing ones. Recruiting military units allows players to attack other villages to plunder its resources, and defend from enemy attacks. Villages may trade their resources with other villages if both villages have a marketplace. The player may expand their realm by founding new villages, or by conquering other players' villages. Players can communicate with each other using in-game messages, and may join alliances for military and economic co-operation with other players.
Starting a game
Players must register on the Travian website to start a game, providing an e-mail address, and creating a username and a password. The player chooses a tribe to start the game with, and may also choose in which quadrant of the map their initial village should spawn.
Players must also select a World, commonly known as a server, to play in. Entities in one World can only interact with other entities in the same World. Events that take place in one World do not affect other Worlds. Players may create accounts in multiple Worlds, but creating more than one account in the same World is prohibited by the rules. Worlds close for new players after a certain number of players have signed up.
Tribes
There are three playable tribes and two non-playable tribes in Travian. The playable tribes are the Romans, the Gauls and the Teutons. The player selects one of these three tribes during registration. Each tribe has different specialities. Romans can upgrade buildings and resource fields simultaneously, and have powerful troops which are expensive to train. Gauls have fast-moving troops with good defensive capabilities. Teutons are geared towards an aggressive style of play, and offer weak but cheap troops. Once a tribe is chosen it cannot be changed, and all villages founded or conquered by the player will be of that tribe.
The two NPC tribes are the Natars and Nature. Natarian villages randomly spawn all over the map, and will gradually develop. Villages of players who have deleted their accounts will also have a chance of turning into Natarian villages. These villages can be attacked and conquered by players. Natars also occupy the central area of the map, and will attack players' villages in that area. Natarian villages may hold ancient artifacts which give bonuses to those who possess them.
Nature is the tribe to which animals occupying abandoned oases on the map belong to. Unlike the other four tribes, Natural troops do not attack other villages but can be attacked. It is possible to capture animals from oases and use them as defensive units.
Resources
Developing villages and training units consume resources. Resources are produced by the resource fields that surround each settlement, and their output can be increased by upgrading the fields. There are four kinds of resources in Travian: wood, clay, iron and crop. Each resource is required to develop a village, but clay is the most used resource for this. Additionally, consumption of resources will vary based on the player's tribe: Roman troops require iron for their armour, Teutonic troops require wood, and Gallic troops require clay. Military units and the village population consume crop, so the net crop production is lowered whenever the population grows or a new military unit is present in the village.
Troops can raid other villages to plunder their resources. Resources can also be transferred to other villages unilaterally if the source village has a marketplace. Bilateral trade can take place when both villages have a marketplace, and one village accepts a trading deal offered by another.
Villages
Along with the village a player starts out with, one can also found or conquer additional villages. These additional villages increase total resource production, cause population growth and help support larger armies. To found a second village, certain preconditions must be met. These include creating and leveling up certain types of buildings, along with earning a certain amount of culture points. Culture points are automatically produced daily and accumulated, based on the amount and type of buildings in the village(s). Almost all buildings made in Travian give the village culture points. Production of culture points can be sped up by hosting parties in the village Town Hall. After the required amount of culture points are achieved, and the player has built the required buildings to the required levels, 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 choose to 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.
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.
Troops
A greater aspect for the game is its troops. Troops are produced in the Barracks, Great Barracks, Stable, Great Stable and Workshop. They allow a player to raid other villages and steal their resources, which will benefit the attacker. When the Barracks have been upgraded to 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. The Workshop allows siege engines—rams which destroy walls and catapults which destroy buildings—to be manufactured. These units are slower and more expensive than infantry and cavalry. Administrators, known more commonly as chiefs, are units which persuade enemy villages to join the attacker's realm. Units which gain experience in battle, known as Heroes, can be trained from an existing unit in the Hero's mansion.
The ultimate goal of Travian is to construct and upgrade a Wonder of the World (see End game) to level 100. 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 their alliance is announced. A player needs a construction plan in order to be able to construct a World Wonder; these plans are obtained from Natarian villages (see End game).
A 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 top 10 place in the ranks. If a player gets themselves into the top 10 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.
Player Accounts
Each account in the game is known as a Player and is ranked against other players. No person may play more than one account on a given server (or game). However a player account may either be played by a single person or a group of people. If played by a group it is referred to as a dual account. People playing on a dual account are called "duals" or "co-players". This sharing of a single account allows for people to share the time burden and costs associated with playing. They must follow the same rules as if they were a single person playing the account and they may not play other accounts at the same time on the same server.
Alliances
The game is heavily geared towards cooperative play. To be successful, players often need to work with others in an alliance and with allies. It is impossible for any single player to win alone.
Resources can be traded between players, and towns can be reinforced with another player's troops. An in-game alliance feature is 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. 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 (known as meta alliances); other diplomatic agreements include non-aggression pacts (NAP) and confederations.
A ranking system determines alliances' rank from attacking, defending, raiding and growth. Alliance earn medals for their profile page by ranking in the top 10 for a category. The medal will contain information about the category, the position they came and when they earned it.
End game
Each Travian server ends with the "end game" sequence. For normal servers the sequence begins after about 260 days, and for Speed3x servers, it starts 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, the plans of which they have captured from the Natars, they meet resistance from both enemy players and alliances and the Natars. With every five levels that the Wonder is upgraded, the Natars attack the villages containing the Wonders until level 95, when they will then attack upon the completion of every new level. The first player to build their World Wonder to level 100 wins the server, which stops and restarts after a period of time (generally about 3 weeks). Then a new game begins, and the cycle repeats.
Synopsis
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2012) |
Development
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2012) |
Version history
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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. In practice, crop fields and clay pits can reach level 19 and woodcutters and iron mines can reach level 18, if the player does not have the Great Warehouse or Great Granary artifact. This requires the village centre to have 12 warehouses and 7 granaries. An edition of this version where events take place three times faster, known as Travian Speed3x, was released later. Update 3.1 introduced "quests", which players can complete to receive rewards in the form of resources and game Gold from the Questmaster.
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 make it similar to version 2. Version 3.5 was first implemented on the original .org server (German) in early February, and was implemented on other servers with the game restarting in mid-2009. It reintroduced artifacts—items which give the players bonuses once captured, e.g. more storage space—into the game. It was followed by version 3.6, which made several Plus! account-only features available to non-paying users, along with newly added features.
In July 2010, an announcement was made saying that developers were working on a Version 4, which was released in February 2011.
The change log of Travian versions can be found on Travian FAQ. It has not been updated since 2008 to reflect changes made since.
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. At one point gold could purchase attack and defense bonuses of 10%, but this has been revoked in latter servers. Accounts upgraded with Plus allowed building queues, larger maps and other functional abilities. These effects can be replicated with user scripts, but implementing these can result in a banning of the offending account as they are against the general terms and conditions of Travian. The Gold club, available since version 3.6, features attack lists and valley searches. Travian has also included a "Travian Shop" which includes Travian-related items like clothing and mugs.
Bots and scripts
In Travian, there has been widespread usage of so-called "bots" and "scripts", automating actions for the player. This led to Travian Games GmbH implementing a system against users of these, which is still active in the game. The system was made to detect users of bots and scripts, and then prompting them to fill in a CAPTCHA, later this was enhanced to give immediate punishment.
Reception
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2012) |
References
- ^ "Travian - Traviangames GmbH". Travian Games GmbH. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
- Review of Travian: A Slick Little Massive Web Game (archive)
- "Travian website" (bar at the top of the page)
- http://cry.travianteam.com/ constantly updating stats. As of February 2008, >3 million players (archive - October 2009)
- ^ "CDTM GROW - Die Start-Up Messe: Travian Games GmbH" (in German). CDTM. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
- Müller, Siegfried (2006-05-15). "Travian Games GmbH" (in German). CDTM. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-08-27. Retrieved 2009-08-27.
- "\travian\faq". Travian FAQ. Travian Games GmbH. Archived from the original on 2008-05-03. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
- "Special: Die Wahl zum Superbrowsergame 2006 hat gewonnen ..." (in German). Gamesdynamite. 2006-10-04. Archived from the original on 2009-11-02. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
- "Travian goes mobile" (in German). 2006-04-27. Archived from the original on 2008-01-15.
- "Travian FAQ - Academy"
- "Travian FAQ - Armoury"
- "Travian FAQ Blacksmith"
- "Travian Rules"
- "Travian Answers - Dual"
- Speed server"
- ^ "Statistiken - Travian.org" (in German). Travian Games GmbH. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
- ^ http://forum.travian.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1271915#post1271915
- "Welt3 mit Travian Classic" (in German). Travian Games GmbH. 2007-03-16. Archived from the original on 2007-03-28. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
- "Neue Travian Version: T3.5" (in German). Travian Games GmbH. 2009-01-12. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
- "Travian T3.5". Travian international forum. Travian Games GmbH. 2009-01-15. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2009-01-17.
- "Travian T3.5 Release Details". Travian US Forums. Travian Games GmbH. 2009-01-15. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2009-01-17.
- "T3.5 update 15/01/2009". Travian UK forum. Travian Games GmbH. 2009-01-15. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2009-01-26.
- Implemented on Travian.org c.2009-10-22.
- "Neues Featureset für Welt 7" (in German). Travian Games GmbH. 2009-10-23. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
- http://forum.travian.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1158944&postcount=1
- Archived on 2009-10-27
- Fair Play - Bot Detection, Travian Games GmbH, 2011-02-26
Further reading
- Christoph Klimmt, Hannah Schmid, Julia Orthmann. Motivations of browser gamers: The case of Travian players, 2008
- Christoph Klimmt, Hannah Schmid, Julia Orthmann. Exploring the enjoyment of playing browser games, CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2009 - liebertonline.com
- Ingo Thon, Niels Landwehr, Luc De Raedt. Travian Meta Alliances, ingothon.de
- Giannis Milolidakis, Chris Kimble, Demosthenes Akoumianakis. A Practice-Based Analysis of an Online Strategy Game
- Jakob J. Assmann, Philipp Sandner, Sophie Ahrens; Users' Influence on the Success of Online Communities, Institute for Information Systems and New Media, LMU München, Munich (DE)
- Jakob J. Assmann, Marcus A. Drescher, Julia V. Gallenkamp, Arnold O. Picot, Isabell M. Welpe, Rolf T. Wigand, MMOGs as Emerging Opportunities for Research on Virtual Organizations and Teams, AMCIS 2010 Proceedings, Paper 335 http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2010/335
External links
Template:Massively multiplayer online strategy video games
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- 2004 video games
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