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.
Travian is programmed in PHP and runs in most modern browsers.
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. Developing these fields increases 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 join a game, providing an e-mail address, and creating a username and a password.
The player must also choose a tribe to play the game with, and 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 operate accounts in multiple Worlds, but operating more than one account in the same World is prohibited by the rules. However, multiple players may operate a single account.Worlds close registrations for new players after a certain number of players have signed up.
After logging in, the player can follow a tutorial that guides them through various aspects of the game and offers rewards for successful completion. At the start of the game, there is a seven-day "beginner's protection" period, in which the player cannot be attacked.
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, have powerful troops which are expensive to train, and have low-capacity merchants. Gauls have fast-moving troops with good defensive capabilities, and fast merchants. Teutons are geared towards an aggressive style of play, and offer weak but cheap troops, as well as slow but high-capacity merchants. 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 artefacts which give bonuses to those who possess them.
Nature is the tribe to which animals occupying abandoned oases on the map belong. Unlike the other four tribes, Natural troops cannot attack other villages but may 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; their output can be increased by upgrading the fields and by capturing nearby oases. There are four kinds of resources in Travian: wood, clay, iron and crop. Each resource is required to develop a village, with clay being the most demanded used resource for construction. 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 joins the village.
Troops can raid other villages to plunder 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.
Buildings
Villages
Instead of founding a new village, a player may choose to conquer another village. The player may train an administrator (a Roman senator, a Teutonic chief or a Gallic chieftain) instead of three settlers. Unlike settlers, these units must be researched in the academy before they can be trained. Administrators can be sent to another village, usually accompanied by other troops, where they will speak to the village's populace and reduce their loyalty to the defender. If the loyalty drops to zero, the village will join the attacker's realm. The defender will lose control of the village, and all troops originating from the village will cease to exist.
Villages are destroyed if its population drops to zero as a result of a siege. However, a village cannot be conquered or destroyed if it is the a player's capital, so a player will always have at least one village.
Troops
Troops are military units that allow the player to attack and defend villages. They can carry resources, so they can be used to raid other villages. There are mainly three classifications of troop: tribe, mount and function. There are forty different types of troop in Travian, ten for each tribe. Troops are either infantry or cavalry. Most troop types are regular units, but each tribe has troop types to represent scouts, two types of siege engine, administrators and settlers. Each troop type has attributes which determine its training cost, upkeep, offensive capability, defensive capability against infantry and cavalry, speed and resource carrying capacity. Infantry is trained in the barracks, and cavalry is trained in the stable. Scouts are espionage units that can be used to spy on enemy villages, or defend from espionage attacks. Siege engines, which are built in the workshop, allow players to destroy enemy buildings and defensive structures. Administrators and settlers are units that have the ability to conquer or found new villages, respectively. They are trained in the residence or the palace.
At first, players may only recruit the most basic troop type of their tribe. To train more advanced troops, the player must research them in the academy in the village there they are to be trained. Troops may also require military buildings to be upgraded to a certain level before they may be researched.
Troops' offensive and defensive attributes may be improved by constructing an armoury to enhance their weapons and armour. Upgrading the barracks, stable and workshop allow faster training of troops. There are also buildings known as the great barracks and the great stable, which simultaneous training of the same troop type but at three times the cost. Roman villages can build a horse drinking trough to speed up training of cavalry and reduce their upkeep. Teutons can build a brewery which improves the offensive attributes of troops from that village.
There is also a special unit known as a hero, which can gain experience from battle. Heroes can equip items, embark on adventures, capture oases and produce resources. They can also accompany an army. Depending on their attributes, a hero may give an offensive or defensive bonus to the army that it accompanies.
Items
There are two types of items in the game; the first are artefacts, which gives bonuses to the holder, depending on the type of artefact; the second are equipment and consumables for the hero.
Artefacts are items which are introduced mid-game, and give significant bonuses to those who possess them. Upon release, they are placed in heavily defended Natarian villages, and can be acquired either by conquering the village, or by destroying the treasury in the target village and sending an army accompanied by the hero to capture the artefacts. All players with a treasury can see the locations of the artefacts. Based on the bonus strength and area of effect, artefacts are split into four categories: village-wide artefacts provide the bonus to the village that the artefacts are currently in; realm-level artefacts generally have a weaker bonus, but affect all the villages in the player's realm; unique artefacts also affect all the villages in the realm, but they provide bonuses that are at least as strong as that of village-wide artefacts; the fourth type of artefact provides alliance-wide effects, which are only used for the construction plans for the Wonders of the World that are released near the end of the game.
Different artefacts provide bonuses to different attributes. There are nine types of artefacts; the bonuses of the first six are stronger buildings, faster troops, better spies, less hungry troops, faster troop training, and improved cranny capacity with less precision for enemy catapults. The bonus and its strength provided by the seventh type are randomised, and switch between the first six every 24 hours. The effect can also be positive or negative. The eighth artefact provides the player with the construction plans for the great warehouse and granary. The ninth provides the plans for the Wonders of the World.
Equipment and consumable items affect the hero and the army that he or she accompanies. Equipment consists of armour and weapons for the hero, mounts, and special items that increase the speed or carrying capacity of the troops. Consumable items include those that regenerate the hero's health, provide experience points, reduce battle losses, increase culture points, reset the hero's attributes, and provide the means to capture animals from oases.Items are obtained during a hero's adventures, and can be traded on the silver market.
Alliances
Travian players can create and join alliances whose members support each other economically and militarily. Once in an alliance, the player can make and accept alliance-only resource trading offers. There are also features which support military cooperation between members. Each alliance member can view combat reports for every other member of the alliance, and there is a forumand a web chat feature for talking to other members. Alliance leaders can delegate powers to other members of the alliance, including the ability to send mass alliance-wide in-game messages, invite new players into the alliance, remove existing members of the alliance and change the alliance name and description.
The maximum number of members in an alliance is 60, so when an alliance wants to expand further, it splits into multiple wings. Members in one wing cannot view the combat reports of members in another wing, benefit from alliance-only resource trading, or use the web chat to talk to each other, since the game considers the wings to be separate alliances. In order to solve this problem, many alliances use IRC or Skype, along with an externally hosted forum.
Travian also supports inter-alliance diplomacy. Two or more alliances may form a non-aggression pact or a military alliance pact. This is supported by features that prevent certain forms of aggression between members of the alliances in question. There is also a diplomatic feature to allow alliances to recognise a state of war. Towards the end of a game, different alliances often join together, resulting in large coalitions that fight each other to try to complete the victory conditions.
There is a ranking system determines alliances' rank from attacking, defending, raiding and growth. Alliances earn medals for their profile page by ranking in the top 10 for a category. The medal will contain information about the category, the rank and when it was earned.
End game
After the winner is declared, the game stops and players can no longer build, trade or engage in combat. After a period of time, the next round begins, and the game starts afresh.
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