Also on S2, -46|-72

Just joined. I'm at -192|-209.

Wow, that is pretty wild to upgrade a few lands all the way and keep others really low. I was going to do the math and see if that was more beneficial but never got to it.

One theory is: upgrade everything to 8, then bring one of each lands to 10. This lets you get the "bonus buildings" - Sawmill, Brickyard <?>, Iron Foundry, and Grain Mill. These buildings give you 5% bonus production per level, up to 25%. And they're CHEAP! Very much worth it.

Good luck everyone on S2. So there are already 18900+ people on a server that's 3 days old?! That's way too intense for me, I'll stick to S6. Fight hard!!!

Yeah, I had no idea how I was supposed to do it. Clearly it is NOT the better way to go, judging by my growth rate I'm now bringing my other lands up to speed, and another good indicator that I was doing it the wrong way is that after being at the bottom two of the list in the alliance for the entire time, I'm not moving up slightly. Who knows, maybe this tactic makes for a really slow start, but also a really steep growth rate later on...

I'm going to be staying on S6, for pretty much the same reasons as Firefox31, I already see myself totally hooked on this game, and starting up on another server would eat into my WoW time

Apparently, a lot of WoW players are on Travian. One of my friends started Travian to find many of the people he "pwnz0rd" on WoW were there. They immediately invited him to a powerful alliance because of his pull in WoW.

You might search Travian for the usernames of WoW players you know. Who knows what you'll find.

I'm quitting Travian. I have become more addicted to the point where it's effecting my life and work more than I'd like. For years, I promised myself that I'd never play Everquest or World of Warcraft because I knew how addictive they'd be. I never knew Travian could be the same way, but with my avarice for maximum utilization and Travian's constantly ticking clock, this may be worse than those other games ever could.

I offer my account to whomever among you would play it best (yes, account transfer is legal). Who could manage the alliance, reaching out to form new confederations, find new members, and excite the current members into taking positions? Who could maintain the raiding schedules presented by opportunity, develop the army that the groundwork has been laid for, and maintain the advantage (or facade of it) to keep the neighbors at bay?

Screen captures of my villages and troops are included (which doesn't do justice to the building levels).

I will keep playing until we decide, here, who will take it. Maybe you'll abandon your old village, or give it to a newer player like vesuvius. What do you all think?

But.....

Bwuh??

That's too bad! I'm sorry to hear that! I thought you've been doing a great job, by the way.

Couldn't you just alter your playing habits somehow? I mean, I'm sure that organizing everyone takes more time than the folks with villages my size are putting in, but how much time are you spending on this a day?? Again, maybe it's because I have a puny village, but I couldn't put more than 10 minutes a day into this game if I wanted to! I simply don't accrue resources fast enough to devote any more time than that...

Anyway, that said, I certainly don't want your account. I clearly don't know how to play this game very well, so that might be my issue in the first place

I've been doing a great job because:
The first thing I do after waking up and turning off my alarm clock is logging in to Travian. It really helps me wake up by activating my brain. But I wind up there for 45 minutes with another 15 minutes before leaving for work, late, after wolfing down breakfast and not packing a lunch because I have no time.

I log in once or twice at work. For over five years at my job, I spent essentially no personal time playing online or chatting on AIM. I deducted time on personal phone calls from my work day, making it up later. And I do that for Travian, but at 30 minutes a day, my deficit of time is adding up.

The first thing I do when I get home from work is log in to send out raids, build things and review raiding data. I try to make it quick so I can do work until my raids come in hours later for me to send out before bed, but I often get sucked in.


And I know this is a problem. Like an addict, my habit is making me short change other things (ie: time for breakfast). I'm covering up my habit, minimizing the window at work if someone comes by; and I'm guilty all along. This isn't me. I don't sneak around and hide stuff like this.


Maybe there is a way to play less. But I'm so addicted to production efficiency, raiding opportunity, maximizing troop potential, etc. And the clock is ticking: log in xyz hours from now or your storehouses will overflow, etc, etc.

Failing a way to moderate my involvement, I've got to give it up.


My current, and hopefully final, stats 2.4meg PDF

In that case, I'm sorry you have to leave, but I admire your self-awareness in quitting.

I agree completely about WOW. I never wanted to get into that because I knew I'd get addicted, and I just don't have the time and/or money to devote to it. I guess I started Travian because it requires less time investment, and is free if you want (I must admit, I bought some gold).

I can totally see it. When you get to multiple villages, juggling resources to build up as fast as you can can get time consuming. The nice thing about WoW is that you can just not log in for few days or more, and nothing is really lost. The BAD thing about WoW is that you can play for 8-12 hours straight without running out of things to do. Ever. In fact, for the larger raid dungeons, you are REQUIRED to play for 8-12 hours straight. I quit playing WoW because I was spending an inordinate amount of time on it. My wife doesn't mind, as I see her all day at work, but she didn't have to be so nice about it.

With Travian, it starts as 10 minutes a day, but it gradually grows to consuming more and more time, if you want to be near the top. The fact that if you slow down you get crushed makes it difficult to just ignore the fact that your resources are wasting away if you aren't managing them. I can easily spend 2-3 hours a day managing my villages and I'm not even that big.

So, It sucks to see you go, but I can certainly understand. I nearly failed out of college due to MUD's, so I need to keep tabs on my habits as well.

Hopefully I won't be gone - someone will take my account, so you'll still have that to help you in the game. If nobody here wants it, I'll offer it to my good friend who got me started on Travian (hm, maybe that makes him my enemy). He's been playing for 6 months though heavily farmed, I protected his settlers while he founded a new village, and now he's rebuilding. But with his leadership and love of the game, maybe he'll want to leave his half-farmed account and take over mine, leading you all to victory. But, to keep it in the family, let's see if anyone here wants it first.

Well, sad to see you go! I can understand also. During the week, I just don't have that much time to log in and manage even my one small "town". When my internet was lost at home and I couldn't log in from work (site blocked) it almost killed my village. The constant upkeep makes the game a bit of a PIA. I'll stick around for a bit though. In a couple of weeks my work load will go down so I'll have more time to waste!

P.S. thanks for the troops!

I just came across this. S6, -259, -36. Bealz is my neighbor. I thought empeg was a stange name for an alliance at first...

-=Wave=-

Hm, I don't see anyone at -259, -36. What's your username? I'll get you invited to the alliance in no time.

This'd be easier if I wasn't dyslexic. -295, -36 Klaus of Klausthal.

I was wondering how to join the alliance. I guess an invite is required... That'd be great!

Thanks!
Armin

Not sure of the legality of it, but HERE is a cropfinder, and it works.

I just wanted to post and mention that my crazy resource building method didn't end up hurting me too much. Over the past couple weeks I rose from second to last place in the alliance to about the top third. It helped that I bought some gold, of course, but the main impact was when I finally found out how to properly meet building requirements, and also finally finding that damn rally point!

So now I'm building pretty well, I think.

Coolness....

Firefox....

Sigh... Finally gave it up, I see. Sad to see you go, but I totally understand.

It is quite the time consuming game.

Firefox, where on the east coast are you?

Oh no!

Does this mean the alliance is falling apart before I got a chance to join?

I don't think it'll be falling apart anytime soon.

No, but we sure could benefit from someone taking over Firefox31's account. Preferably, someone in the alliance who's been playing for awhile and has a good familiarity with the game, but might not have built up their village as fast as they'd like. Also, someone who has some time to devote to the diplomacy stuff.

Sorry you couldn't find a good balance, FF31.

I thought about it (taking on the responsibility), but as I'm #2 in the rankings, I'd rather keep my current account. L0ser is I think the most obvious choice, but it would require someone fairly to very active.

I feel bad that I left all of you so suddenly. But now I see what life is like "on the outside." I've gotten so much done without the constant demand of the Travian clock. Play a little Zelda on the weekend and that's it for games - the only balance I could achieve.

The threads I left hanging: The United Travian confederation just barely got started, with only Firebird onboard and a few invitations pending. Ditch the whole idea. Merge with another local alliance or two of level headed people. Then, become a wing of a major alliance (FADA? Contact dustman. MoD? Contact glv999 (I think)).

Every now and then I think, "I sure hope my villages aren't being attacked. That would ruin my perfect record of no attacks." But there are more important things, like looking for a new job (yes, still employed). Heck, it would even be a better use of time to revive my Toyota Van.

Good luck out there.

Well, for those of us HERE, it wasn't that sudden. FYI, there was no complaining on the forum, just a lot of ppl wishing you well. Bitt and Tony have ,at least for now, been gracious enough to accept the burden of leadership that sort of fell on them by default. (No one else was willing to take it.)

You DID go yellow today though. Tsk tsk.

I'm being attacked! What the heck do I do???

*edit*

Oh, wait, I was already attacked. It looks like the attacker wasn't very good, though. He sent 280 of his lowest lever people after me, and stole about 3K in bounty from each resource, but none of my meager supply of troops were killed. Weird.

Well, I'll continue discussion of this on the Travian message board. Sorry to bother the empeg group with this