OK, I'll bite! Newcal at -7, -270.

Regards

Mark

Yeah, a 25% boost is usually enormous in these kinds of games. Basically you won't be able to compete with someone else who has it, so unless you're willing to pay...

What should be our second-tier building objectives? I've got all my resources at level 1, some at level 2. I've got a rally point, barracks, cranny, embassy, granary. No troops.

What do you need to be able to defend yourself?

How do you expand & profit?

There is a forum built into the alliance in the game. We could use that instead of filling up the BBS (though keeping this topic up top may attract more people)

To access it:
Click "Profile" (on the left sidebar)
Click the "empeg" alliance
Click "Forum" just below the alliance name

I'll post my suggested building goals, but you can go for whatever you want to suit how you want to play.

Hmmm... I like it better here, but that's just personal. Esp. since I haven't built an embassy yet.

I think this thread will fade off eventually, and we can start using their forums then. There's aspects of the site design that annoy me a tad, anyway (and I have to assume that this is an English translation, otherwise someone has terrible editing skills - there's typos all over the place).

Alternatively, we could start using those forums once people start losing their protected status. That's when it's most important.

I can go for that.

I created a spreadsheet to tell me how long a stack of new buildings would take to get built. It's not perfect; it doesn't take into account the possibility that the construction time might take longer than the time to acquire the appropriate resources, and it doesn't take into account the production multipliers that some buildings give. But it's not awful.

I did it in OpenOffice, so if you actually need to use Excel for some reason, you might try the ODF plugin for it. (And let me know if that works.)

It's attached.

Oh, the red boxes are for data you need to fill in manually. Green boxes are output. Blue boxes are, well, blue.

Unfortunately, the drop down boxes don't work in excel, so I downloaded OOo.

I've attached my Travian Calculator as well. It still needs work, but it is helpful for early players. It contains only data for Romans, you could add other tribe data, but most of the buildings are the same for everyone.

I've left my most current data in there as a template so you can see how it works.

It has many worksheets:
All the game data are in the sheets Resources, Buildings, Troops, Research, and Upgrades.

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Calcs is the sheet where you input what you have and what you want (in the grey columns). For lands and troops, enter the quantity you have/want. For buildings and others, enter 1 if you have/want it.

Calcs will tell you how much each item will cost, the total for that group, and the total for your whole wish list. This will help you see what land to extend for your short term goals. ie: 20 Legions will require lots of Iron, so extend Iron Mines. You could even extend lands at the perfect ratio to meet your goals.

The trick with Calcs is, I used Excel's "Hide" function to hide rows that I don't care about. Look at the row numbers; where there's a discontinuity, there are hidden rows. To unhide, select the row above and below the discontinuity, then right click and choose Unhide. You can re-hide rows you don't care about by selecting them, right clicking and choosing Hide.

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The Output worksheet is where you get the info. It tells you your current production, and the production you'll have when you develop the lands that you want (on Calcs). Below that, it tells you the time (in hours) to produce what you want given your current resources, and given the resources that you want (on Calcs). Below that, it has two benchmarks - time to create an Imperian and a Cavalry.

Like Calcs, Output will tell you the weak link in your resource production. If your goals will take 100 hours of Iron, but 75 hours of the others, then build enough Iron Mines to balance out the distribution. I set weekly goals, so on Calcs, I "want" about ~168 hours of stuff. Go tweak the parameters on Calcs and see how they change on Output.

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It has a hard time calculating future "time to produce" for land extension that you want. Output's "Income" section assumes you already have the lands that you want, but Output's "Time to procuce" section assumes you still need to build them. To get more detailed, it should account for building time, etc.

So, you basically change the values in the "Now/Have" columns and watch the numbers shuffle around. It can be more useful, but I only work on it when I have free time above and beyond playing Travian.

I hope it helps someone.

So, is this a subtle declaration of peace...or war? Sorry for the top-posting, I just copied and pasted, so start from the bottom:


That's all

I looked at the map and he/she appears to be a neighbor

Dude- ASL and get the digits.
LOL

That's funny, I got my first random message from a stranger after you all started.

There are many people on here who speak broken/no English. Strange, considering there are Travian servers in every nation I can think of, why would they come to .com.

Well, maybe this person could be an ally, if they're good enough. I got a random message from "PFF", to which I replied, "you can be an ally if you grow more than 35 every week." Looks like he's trying it, so we'll see.

But since an alliance can only hold 60 people, selectivity is needed. Keep an eye on your neighbors, it's better that they're friends than enemies.

I've sent little messages to my 7x7 neighbors. Not a single reply. They all seems to be building quite slowly, however, so no big loss. I'll just be farming a few of them soon, as they seem stagnant.

How important are 15 croppers? I just found 1.

Going on the talk in the forums, very, as an army marches on it's stomach.

I See. It helps get a bigger army, since you may not be building buildings that fast, but each troop eats at LEAST 1 crop/hour.

15 croppers are a good find, but won't be of use until much later (~2 months, for me). They will be your "support villages" once you settle them. To settle one, build a Residence level 10 (not a Palace!!) and build three Settlers. I schedule this 2 months out because your resources are better spent early in the game.

A tip about settling: Don't start a new village within a seven block radius of your main village. If you do, they will have overlapping 7x7's. This is important because of Oasis; the little lake, mountain, tree, clay squares on the map. Each gives you a 25% boost in production, but you can only have three and they must be within your 7x7. So, if you have two villages who's 7x7 overlaps, they may share Oasis, preventing you from settling your maximum three for each village. Yes, you can overlap village 7x7's, but you should plan the Oasis layout for maximum gain (take note of the 25%+25% Oasis for maximum gain).

This being said, I recommend going for Oasis before new villages. Neighbors may take the Oasis in your 7x7 before you, then you'll have to fight/negotiate them for it. If you get them first, it's a good passively offensive move. I strongly recommend asking any neighbor who may be effected by your taking an Oasis if they're ok with it, pointing out other Oasis they can have to show you're not hurting them too much. Some people have in their profiles "All Oasis in my 7x7 are MINE; do not take them or I will attack" even before they've taken them.

My goal this week, week seven, is to get my first Oasis. This requires a Hero's Mansion level 10, which is super expensive. Hopefully my few large neighbors don't beat me to it.

And a suggestion about creating an army:

Create an even amount of buildings and army simultaneously. Buildings require tons of crop, which is expensive, so that will hold you up. But troop creation requires very little crop, leaving you with tons of excess which isn't even valuable in the Marketplace. Build even amounts of both at once to balance this out.

I avoided creating troops until necessary because I didn't want them draining my crop and I didn't want them sitting idle in case they were attacked and killed (all the resources they cost could be lost in a few attacks). I still feel this is a solid plan, spending all week creating only troops now that I want to attack.

I was saved from the overabundance of crop by the Grain Mill; once you have a Cropland 5, you can build it to get 5% bonus on Crop. But, it costs a TON of crop. No problem, because crop will build up while you create troops. A Grain Mill is a cost effective way to burn up this excess crop and allow you to support more troops!

So, either create even amount of buildings and troops simultaneously, or prepare to micromanage trades for crop during building-only creation and micromanage crop surplus during troop-only creation.

So, they are starting a new game on server 2. I signed up as TigerJimmy there. It begins in 25 hours. I'll continue to play on our existing game, but if anyone wants to join me, sign up on server 2 and start in the SW.

Jim

Is that kosher?

You can have 1 account per server, so yes. I signed up as well, but picked a random starting position. I'll let you know where I end up.

Cool.. All signed up. SW, so we'll see.

Trying to decide if I have more time to waste

Wow, considering that I "play" Travian for hours every day, I can't start on another server. I'm trying to back off, actually, and am looking forward to the day Server 6 shuts down so I'm forced to not play anymore. And I always said "I'd never play an MMORPG" (and now weakly try to deny that Travian is one).

If you're starting on a new server, I recommend you raid and repress everything in sight. The players around you will be bloodthirsty experts who'd do the same to you. Gain the advantage, keep the advantage, and take no prisoners. Good luck.

Well, it's a little slow for me. I spend plenty of time just staring at the screen waiting for units to return. It will definitely be a casual game for me, s6 will be infinitely more important.

Um, so, yeah, I think I'm going to be attacked...

*edit* Wait a minute, what does Reinf mean? Is that short for reinforcements? If so, that's great...

Yup, Reinf is reinforcements, it is either some of your troops returning for raiding / fighting or some one sending you troops. Not certain about the second one. Either way, click on the shield to find more information.

Dude.... you upgrade weird. It's much faster to upgrade the lower end on each type of resource.


Ok... how do we attach files now? My attach button is missing.

NVM

Well for S2 I did end up in the SW. -87 -37

Has anyone bough Gold?