10 (and counting) misconceptions of new players

[Macalista]

1) Defensive players don’t raid.
All players should raid, to a varying degree. In early game, wheatear you play defensive or not you should be raiding. You’re not going to produce massive defense from one undeveloped village; instead, focus on raiding and developing multiple villages and your capital. After you get a handful of villages, then you can focus on defense. But even when you do become a defensive feeder you should raid. 600 TTs with a good sized farm list can raid a few million a week which are invaluable resources. Also, raiding can allow you to build hero levels to add to % defense; something not many defensive players have at a high level.
To add to this, the idea that an offensive player only builds offensive troops is not true. Any hammer builder should have a handful of small feeders that have upgraded their infantry to level 20 in the Forge/Armory. There are many uses for these troops.
• To use to snipe
• To mass produce troops to defend the WW when the hammer is lost
• Small-time local defense

2) Troops mean safety
Troops are a liability. If you build troops, build them. I have scouted people who build 300 phalanx and 50 scouts in the first week and never build anything for months. Those troops will not protect you for long, and may even bring on attacks from aggressive players who fear you might become a turtle in the future. Building troops should be progressive and as necessary, not linear.
To add to this, if you do not want to build many troops, build tons of scouts. While I would recommend against the scout only approach always build twice as many scouts as you think necessary. If you are not a big fish, build more. Scouts not only save you from attacking any enemy who can kill your army they can also prevent people from bothering you.

3) Being aggressive means I am safe
When someone is raiding you, dodge the attacks and hide your resources. IGM them player with the report the moment the attack lands and mention that you will not give up resources. Be polite and very friendly. Many times I have had farms become rude or act ‘tough’. Do you think I stop? No, I just scout and wait for an opportunity to catapult them or kill off their troops. I also don’t speak highly of them to my alliance mates.

4) Gauls are defensive, Teutons are offensive and Romans are both
This is the biggest joke I have ever heard. Any tribe can play any style. Tuetons can be very effective defenders. The spearmen has marvelous cavalry defense and the paladin is a good raider and infantry defender, a useful combination. Gauls can make very large hammers, and (if I recall correctly as I am writing this) they have the best rams. Likewise, Romans aren’t good defenders except for when WWs come out. Praetorians are almost as slow as catapults and very expensive. Romans have no defensive calvary and no defense against calvary, which is a huge flaw. Troops have many abilities and drawbacks, and they are not as simple as defensive or offensive.

5) Lying about past experience
Good players don’t need to tell anyone about their top 10 account or the biggest hammer in the world of Travian they made. Don’t brag, even if you are good. Skill shows through.

6) Lazy attempts at fakes
Fake attacks are just as important as the real attack. Don’t send them with big holes in the time, don’t send them randomly and (in T4) don’t send less than 20 troops. If you’re going to fake, fake correctly. This requires some thought, and possibly coordination with other people, but is very important. Also, don’t change your hero equipment when you are faking someone . Players will watch attackers and if they notice a change In equipment they will alert allies.

7) Population is worthless
Population is not completely worthless. If you’re not going to throw parties 24/7 building marketplaces, hero mansions and MBs can help make CP production easy. Obviously you shouldn’t sim buildings up all day, but they are important and troops are NOT everything. I will admit though that often more experienced players think that population is not important.

8 ) Don’t tell your best friends about your villages/troops/plans
On my first server, this is what my best friend/teacher Big Steve and Mort told me. They basically made the point that anyone can be a spy, and why would you make their job any easier? Don’t tell anyone that doesn’t need to know and if they don’t know they likely don’t NEED to know.
Also, don’t brag about your troop numbers. It’s just stupid.

9) Lying in your profile
Don’t say you’re playing 24/7. Don’t brag about raiding millions, or having hundreds of troop movements. No one cares, and people will still scout you regardless.

10) Top ten medals mean you’re good
They don’t. Some top raiders just have multiple villages that spam macemen. They are worthless for anything but raiding and MAYBE scouting a WW. If someone gets a top attacker medal that means they killed enemy troops and their own troops. If you catapult someone and don’t kill anything you don’t get points, even though you did damage and lost nothing. Top 10 defenders rarely contribute much of the defense to their village. And, some people get totally destroyed but still brag about getting that little piece of green ribbon. Napoleon Bonaparte said something about this. (“It is amazing how hard a solider will fight for a little piece of ribbon”)

More will be added as I can think of them. For recommendations, amendments or comments IGM me.
Thanks!
~Kris

[Lone Ranger_au]

skimmed over most and all looks fantastic.

regarding #1, gauls should be raiding within BP, phals might have low attack but even on T3 servers there were always enough tuets clearing oaisis and that allowed me to microraid oasis. This is how gauls can come out of bp with 100 (or more) phals. Now with T4, traps, hero and with the 'surrounding' reports tab, its even easier for gauls to be raiding from within BP.

another misconception is that most people think that confeds gives protection (it doesnt), alot of people who work on support actually believe that a confed member cant chieftain you until they have changed alliances for 48hours. This is actually a massive misconception, anyone from a confed can switch alliances or cancel the confed and can instantly chieftain your villages. Ive proven this on numerous servers and each time before i prove it i ask support if i can chieftain a confed and they always say that its a 48 hours wait, and they are always shocked when a few hours later i have taken the villages. Alliances = protection confeds = watch your back.

Another misconception that i see from players is that they assume that because someone is small that they are inexperienced and or would make an easy farm. totally not true. Sometimes myself or others play for fun, or to help out some friends and while we might not have 50+ vills, players assume that we are noobs and get their butt whooped if they are not careful. For example, on one server i played for fun(ukx last t3 server ever), i had 1 vill, 2 players took me on, and i captured 2 villages, 1 from a 14village, and 1 from a 5village player, and i zero popped 3 vills, and trashed several others -> quite frankly they grossly underestimated that a small player would make for an easy farm.

[Macalista]

Good points Lone Ranger.

As for the small population thing, that is why I put the population is important but not everything. You obviously need it in the long run to build any sizable force, but population alone doesn't win servers. I'll try and work those few points to it later on this week.

[holger77]

Good analysis. But you state at no. 1 that accounts should be flexible and then state that romans has no cavalry deffender and that all troops should raid.

They have the legionaire, which is a very good cavalry deffender, especially early on. As good as a phalanks and a much better raid troop. None of the other tribes has that flexible deffensive troop against cavalry. No other troops accomplishis that dual purpose.

[iii]

10) Top ten medals mean you’re good
They don’t.

usually they do - especially when you see few red ribbons and high attacker rang - it's a striker and this people could damage your acc. - this people who train ww hammers usually are simmers and can attract your attention only when you decide to kill their hammers

[gdazn]

usually they do - especially when you see few red ribbons and high attacker rang - it's a striker and this people could damage your acc. - this people who train ww hammers usually are simmers and can attract your attention only when you decide to kill their hammers

Agree, high offense rank means something. Robber's medal and attacker's medal means you are above average at the very least.

[Macalista]

Should I reword that statement to "top ten medals aren't necessarily a good thing"?

[kovpeti]

Well robber medals should mean something.
If not that, what else? I've seen noob people with huge population, but rarely see noobs as top robbers.
And I think population means something too(at least early in the game). More precisely: I've never seen a good player without robbing(at least if he cares about the acc)
Huge pop means you have raided much resources and you have so much that you can throw it out of the window(oups I mean you can build).
For example if a top teuton on the 6th day of the server has a barrack and a stable producing troops 24/7, but he has so many resources that he can't spend it, so he builds, and it's increases its population. So pop means something.
Of course later on who cares if you have 30 or 40 villages.

[Pallosalama]

That is not true, raiding is not necessary for good account. You can just sim your account up and then train army with your productions.

[Ziggity]

I would hardly call Romans poor defenders. They do have their cavalry defenders, the legs, they are a little averege but they do the job.

Pratorians may be expensive but they provide the highest defense against infantry per crop and overall almost the highest defence value per crop consumption (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

And about them being expensive, that is just a part of the romans being a late game faction. If you ask me, Pratorians and spearmen is the best defence out there.