I'm skipping s4, have a dual set up already for 5 and 6 ... assuming 5 goes well I suppose.

passing on S4 as well... keeping two going is already too time-consuming

Keeping just 1 server going when you have 15 villages is more than enough for me.

What's a good alliance to join in the NW? 2 villages, roughly 700+ pop. My old one merged with another, and then kind of lost its way so I left.

lost 2 months to travian. my honest recommendation is to never start.

probably not good enough to get into MoW. See if you can join CTL. That is kind of the the recruiting grounds for MoW. Otherwise, ONE has a decent presence in the NW but they don't have much in the way of balls. If you're near the CITADEL base of operations then they are really the only other option up there. Being in their base wil probably get you closer to endgame

Yeah MoW has a 2500 population requirement anyway right? Will check the others you mentioned.

yeah, i think by end of december it's gonna be 7 villages, 3k pop, 3:1 troopop ratio

Ok, joined up with CTL now. Let's see how this goes.

I might be willing to give this game another shot... is it easily played on an ipod touch/iphone?

not for major play, and certainly not for sending attacks. I use iphone to do misc tasks (build troops, keep res from overflowing, etc)

Hope to see you joining the MOW ranks soon

Well I'm sure you've heard by now that CTL 'merged' with a couple others like DrPharm to form DoW....we're MoW's little minions now lol.

My biggest attack so far: http://travilog.org.ua/en/9451193/b0...e383e0269e2bf4

He's pretty upset.

Repelled a CITADEL attack on my 15 cropper:

http://travilog.org.ua/en/4985118/f6...e27380920bbdae

Nice, a level 20 wall with level 20 prats are awesome.

Always nice when they lose a lot more than you. Makes them think twice about attacking again.

Hey guys, is anyone planning on joining up on the new server restart coming?

s1.travian.com will start on the 9th of January as a Travian Version 3.1 server.

Preregistration will be possible from the 7th of January.

I'm a newb (dont really know whats different about travian 3.1) but have had more fun playing this game now that I have an Ipod touch. Starting out at the beginning of a server would be a huge advantage imo, and would be fun if the veterans from 2+2 all grouped up in an alliance or some such.

I'd love to, but s7 is just taking up too much of my time and attention as it is already.

Incidentally, I've heard that waiting to join a new server 2-3 weeks after it starts can be better because by then there would be a bunch of juicy farms up and running, plus you'd have the beginner's protection thing to shield you from the raiders. Thoughts?

I've read that too, and although I would definetly consider myself an inexperienced player, I dont see how this makes any sense at all.

I can understand that resources may a bit more 'plentiful' a week or two after a new server starts, but to me the most important resource here is time.

Time to grow your first village, preparing troops, getting your field productivity going, etc. That way two or three weeks in, there's a good chance you'll be one of the biggest villages in your area, and already have a solid infrastructure to support yourself.

the idea is that you play as Teutons, which are heavy raiding civ. you join after a week, so you still have beginners protection but no one else around you does. they are all large and full or res, and you go around stealing res from their crannies without them being able to stop you.

Again, I admit to being inexperienced.. That point made no sense to me, but after looking at the FAQ for a quick bit, I see something that makes this seem somewhat more reasonable.

There is a beginner protection in Travian which means that one can not be attacked in a period of 3 to max. 14 days depending on the time between start of the world to the activation of one's account.

Your newbie protection is stated in an automessage you get from support when activating.

You can calculate the exact time by extracting the root from the running time of the world up to the point when you registered your account.
Meaning: √(running_time_of_server_when_you_registered) with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 14.


So it seems like the "later" you sign up for the server the longer your beginner's protection will last.

I still think it would be advantageous to be in earlier, as it shouldnt be hard to develop your first village to a point that you'd likely be stronger then those around you which would be equivalent to having the protection.

The only way you get ahead in this game is to steal resources from other players. If no one can steal resources from you (or kill your troops at home) and you can steal from them, then it's pretty good. The only other benefit you get from starting early is the extra culture, which an experienced player can easily make up for with resources anyways. If you are a goldwhore then it's all gravy.

One of the guys in my alliance will settle a new village and have it to 300 pop within 30 minutes.

I've thought about the difference between starting out right away and waiting a few days to a week. To be honest, if you can build a cranny and keep someone from stealing your resources once you're out of BP, you're far better off starting off at the beginning than someone waiting a week to join.

By the time they join, sure they can raid right away, but by that time so can you. Plus you'll have already built up a larger army than them (albeit not much, but every little bit counts)

I might sign up for s1 just to mess around and see what's new with 3.1 (brewery?) but I won't make that my main server.

I'm either gonna wait until s6 resets or s7 to make a good run. I just broke into the top 250 players on s6 the other day and that was without using gold except in the last 2 weeks.

EDIT: One major positive about starting out later, however, is that you're further out in the circle and further away from the main players. I got pretty lucky when I started 6 weeks in a was pretty far away. It makes it much easier to be able to "sim-city" if I want to, or send massive attacks if I want to as well. I don't really have to worry about major attacks every night because I'm far enough away from the big players that if they sent cats I'd have a ton of warning.

Is there a general way the map gets populated as people join?? IE earlier players are put more towards the middle and later players are sent further away from 0,0?

Generally that is exactly correct. Sometimes you get players who start further in or further out than normal but overall the circle fills outward as the server round goes.