Travian

Overview

Travian is a 2D, Browser-Based MMORTS that takes place in ancient Rome, with a heavy focus on resource and village management.

Travian offers 3 distinct civilization options: The Romans, Gauls and Teutons, each with a variety of specialized unit, construction and gameplay bonuses. Additionally, Player-vs-Player (PvP) combat is a constant threat; protect your borders from assaulting armies, or lose your empire forever.

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Features

• 3 Distinct Civilization Options -- The Romans, Gauls and Teutons.
• Huge Population -- Hundreds of Thousands of Players!
• Dynamic Player-vs-Player Combat -- Can You Handle it?

Review

Travian is a 2D, Browser-Based MMORTS that takes place in ancient Rome, with a heavy focus on resource and village management. New players begin by selecting one of the three available civilizations; The Romans, Gauls and Teutons. Each civilization has a variety of unique units and special civilization bonuses. For example, the Romans have the upper hand in Infantry units and gain higher defense bonuses near walls but suffer higher development expenses than the Gauls and the Teutons.

This offers a new dynamic to the world of the MMORTS, as your choice in civilization determines your style of play forever. Once you’ve selected your civilization, you’ll be given your own starting land and the opportunity to learn Travian’s fundamental game and construction mechanics through a simple-to-follow tutorial.

Though, many of the concepts here are quite simple and appeal to the casual audience, as you progress further you’ll unlock powerful new upgrades, units and construction options that change the dynamic of the game entirely.

New players will have to focus on quickly building up their village to deter neighbouring factions from raiding their newly created towns. The goal is to spend all your resources on upgrading buildings that will reduce your construction timer, so you can expand at a faster rate. The first time you play Travian, you'll have to play for a good 2 hours or so in one sitting in order to get your village up and running with the basic upgrades. After that, you can easily check up on your village for a few minutes a couple of times a day, as upgrades will begin to take hours before they're completed.

Again, this isn’t a new feature in the MMORTS, but more, a staple tradition: unlike MMORPG titles, you won’t be required to play for hours at a time; instead, simply long on once or twice a day, continue your production, protect your village, and when you’re ready, begin the war to obtain new land for your empire.

You'll also have to make sure you keep up with your diplomacy, as alliances are a huge part of Travian. If you attack a player that's in a strong alliance, odds are their allies will team up and destroy you, unless of course you talk your way out of it by lying and claiming that you're simply counter attacking, as that particular played attacked you before. Lying may very well be the difference between life and death in the dangerous world of Travian; learn this skill well and you’ll go far.

This ‘constant PvP’ style of play is rather uncommon in MMORTS titles; normally, you can choose whether to play in a PvP environment, but in Travian this is compulsory. While this may deter many casual players from playing, it offers those with a lust for PvP combat a unique world where only the strong survive.

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