[Nailzz]

Going Forward

When the server is about 25% complete you should have about 10 villages conservatively. By this time your first 5 villages should have maxed out fields at level 10 and the rest shouldn’t be far behind. You’re storage in your initial villages should be AT LEAST at 160k capacity depending on your needs. There still shouldn’t be many within your 13x13 with a second village in the area. Some of your neighbors may have second villages like 300 squares away in a place they plan on moving. If your neighbors do have second or third villages you should be working on chiefing their non captials immediately. After about village 7 or 8 I stop building settlers (but I always keep 3 around just in case an opportunity arises) if I’ve secured my local croppers. From that point on I stack as many chiefs as I can. The rest of my Kingdom will be gifts from my neighbors.

Conquereing
When you Chief someone, you want it done in a matter of seconds not minutes. From clear to cata to chiefs to 2nd clear to reins to resupply – the process should take less than 5 seconds. Here’s an example:

For biggun’ enemy croppers, first send a flurry of 5 or 6 fakes to all enemy villages and real attacks to oasis points to set up a smoke screen before and after the strike. If you’re in an alliance, get them to do it too with the same approximate land time.
scout (3000 scouts)
2. clear at 4:00:00 am
3. cata residence at 4:00:02 am (at the latest)
4. 2 chiefs from one village at 4:00:03am
5. 2 chiefs from 2nd village at 4:00:03am
6. 2nd clear at 4:00:03 am
7. 2 chiefs from 3rd village or 1 chief from 3rd and 1 from 4th village at 4:00:04am
(inhabitants now enjoy my rulership)
8. Wheat shipment of 80k at 4:00:05am
9. 30k accumulated reins from my own stash (and that of my alliance mates) between 4:00:10 and 4:01:00
10. 3k defensive scouts by 4:05:00am at the latest.
11. Incoming reins/scouts and wheat for the next 12 hours from friends and family to kill hammers and enemy chiefs if they retaliate and those of their alliance mates.
12. I'll spend the next 48 hours taking down wood/clay/iron bonus buildings and fields (because I know they've wasted resources on them) and erecting granaries.

Smaller scale conquers follow the same basic formula just on a well... smaller scale. There’s a little more margin for error as well.

Choosing Alliances

Joining an alliance is something that should be done when you’ve established yourself as the ruler of your 13x13. Any alliance that tries to recruit you too quickly (and doesn’t know you from another server) doesn’t deserve to have you. They’re an upstart alliance and they’re looking to gather a bunch of friends so they don’t have to play hard. In my experience, these alliances never last long or grow at a snails pace. Whenever you have an amalgamation of alliance and NAP mates in the same area you can stick a street sign on it because it’s definitely a sim city block. Preferably, you want your 13x13 (at least) free of friends. This is your life blood for most of the server.

Only join an alliance that is determined to win the Wonder race, preferably one that’s done it before. No one with sights set on disturbing others who want to win the Wonder race or who just “want to have fun.” If you want to win a server, picking the right alliance is crucial. It’s also important to make sure that you’re alliance does at least have a decent presence in your quadrant...not your immediate area necessarily.

And don’t be afraid to go it alone for a while. Be the belle of the ball. Allow the best alliances to court you. You just have to be taking care of business militarily and all good things will come.

Joining an Alliance

Once you join an alliance (preferably with a high offensive ranking), follow the rules. Do your best to be loyal and helpful where you can. If a call goes out for reins and resources then supply them when you can. If the destination is over 100 squares away – don’t bother sending them. Some people like to build villages hundreds of miles away so they can either Sim City or escape being farmed. I don’t support them. Especially on the slower normal servers.

Don’t be intimidated by leadership. Feel free to speak your mind and offer your opinion. Don’t let anyone talk down to you or give you rude orders or nonsensical duties or chores. Be more than a cog. Make a difference. Follow all reasonable requests and make your self available. Participate in group chats and voice chats if possible. Be invaluable.

Make sure your alliance mates don’t get comfortable enough to just settle in your 7x7 though.

Leaving an Alliance

If you feel like you have to leave an alliance, try to do so on the best terms. The last thing you want to do is have a competent veteran alliance focusing on you for a couple of days. Be sure to refrain from attacking former alliance mates, even if you join a rival alliance. Make it clear that you’ll only attack in retaliation but you will not attack a former alliance mate unprovoked. If you have far away villages in your alliances stronghold, as soon as you leave, send some resources from that village over to the largest player in the general area. When he asks why you did it, either offer the village to him outright or just state something about no hard feelings about leaving and how you still respect the alliance. That goes a long way with your former family and will be appreciated. If your new alliance wants you (which they will) they will respect this as well. It’s not tribute. It’s politics Travian-style.

Culture Points

Culture Points (CP) are as important as anything in Travian. They decide whether you can settle, conquer or help chief villages. Did you know that if you don’t have enough CP that you can’t even help an alliance mate chief a village? The fastest way to get CP is to throw parties and by mid-server you should be throwing the Big Parties non-stop in all of your villages replacing the small parties you’ve been doing where possible. Another way to get more CP is to keep expanding your kingdom through conquering already existing villages. Each structure you build within your Kingdom produces CP as well, some more than others. The best sources of CP are maxed lvl 20: Embassies, Markets, Trade Offices, Townhalls, Palaces, Academies and Workshops.

Of course I carry a market in each city but in my assault cities I do not carry unnecessary structures that would take away from my storage capacity or military flexibility. Be sure to include as many of the Infrastructure buildings in your supply villages though. Each of my supply villages has an Embassy, Market, Trade Office, Townhall and Academy. That’s 700+ CP in addition to the other structures in the village just for one day. Multiply that by 20-30 cities and add in your parties from 90% of those cities and you’ve got more than enough CP

Troops

Keep your troops on the move. Your hammer is your second most prized possession next to your raiding army. Your hammer should never be used until something needs to be ... hammered. Preferably you want to use it in conjunction with the chiefing of a cropper or the offensive against an alliance enemy. Don’t waste it on stupid stuff and don’t tip your hand by leaving it to be scouted. When you send it out at night, make sure the round trip will finish about an hour after you plan to wake up. Leaves some time for you to oversleep or take a dump in the morning. Also, only raid single, obviously abandoned villages with no alliance affiliation when you’re moving your hammer.

Carrying more than a -50k wheat capacity is just plain crazy in any village unless you’re attacking with the full strength of your hammer. If you carry 7 granaries at full capacity then that 560k of wheat storage. After 11 hours your starving. You’ve got to be able to go away for 11 hours before checking in. For the troops over the 50k limit, you’d be better served by taking 2-3k of the cavalry troops and reinforcing your own nearby villages with adequate wheat. The further away the reinforcement village the faster the troop. You don’t want to send your siege away. Nobody’s got time to wait for those to return. You want to be able to reassemble your hammer within less than a half hour if possible. Definitely no longer than 45 minutes to an hour – and that’s pushing it.

Quick Hits:
-Tournament Squares should be built in all villages that produce troops – defensive or offensive.
-I don’t even research, let alone start building Axe’s until my cropper is up and running. What’s the point before that? They’re not a raid unit for me and my hammer is made a bit in the future.
-I don’t care when troops die. Especially Maces on speed. They’re built every 41 seconds and only cost 250 resources. You can produce 2100+ per day with minimal effort. That’s what makes Macemen perfect for secondary assault. They’re trained to die – especially when the percentages stack.

Parties

Keep the parties going and make sure all of your villages (except your croppers) have trade offices for moving massive amounts of resources when needed. Nothing is more frustrating when a chiefing opportunity comes and you don’t have enough CP to pull it off.

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