The end game
What is end
game? What is it all about? Why take part?
End game is
the thing that many people on Travian work for all server - it is the final
race to win or a chance to beat up all the people who have been bothering you
all server - it's hard work but it is exciting.
End game
will arrive in the next few weeks with the appearance of some new Natar
villages - these are potential sites for wonders of the world that can only be
built at the end of the game.
There are two different ways that Travian use to notify players that the
endgame has started. Sometimes they send out a message that appears on screen
when you log in, sometimes they send Natar scouts to every capital. If they use
the scouting, then alliance leaders are inundated with messages from their
players all asking the same question I have been scouted by the Natars, Will
they attack me? The answer is no, the Natars will only attack WW villages.
The World
Wonder is the ultimate building that you can have in Travian and it takes at
least one alliance to build/defend one - on the larger servers it is not
unusual for 5 or more alliances to get together and build it between them. The
first player to get their World Wonder to level 100 wins and the server ends
(but this can take weeks)
To start
with the 13 Natar villages appear, 4 in
each quadrant and 1 close to the centre of the map, these have space for a WW (World Wonder), any
alliance that wants to hold one of these sends a "hammer" (large
attacking force) from one or more of their bigger players to conquer the
village. When they have a village they fill it with defence troops from the
whole alliance to keep it safe and they all send wheat to stop the troops
starving - but that needs buildings to keep the wheat in to feed the troops and
they will need to hold enough resources to build the world wonder later in the
game, so they have to build storage fast.
Usually the
person who has conquered the world wonder village moves out of the alliance
with one or two other players and starts their own alliance with a similar name
- this is so that if they are attacked only a few people will see the report
and that keeps it secret from any spies trying to see what defensive troops
they have in there.
So they have
the village, but they can't build the wonder without 2 sets of building plans -
these don't appear for a week usually (again they appear in new Natar villages)
so for the time in between they concentrate on getting the other buildings up
as high as possible in the village.
When the
plans are released (ready to be attacked) someone from the alliance will try to
take 2 sets of them. If, as often happens, you only get one set of plans, you
can start building a wonder of the world but you have to stop building at level
50 until you get the second set - this means that there is often a lot of
political negotiation between alliances that have only one set of plans trying
to find someone else to work with so that they are not out of the race!
From the
point the WW starts to be built onwards all the supporting players send as many
defensive troops as they can as reinforcement and lots of wheat to feed them -
this is very hard work and I have only ever seen one WW where no troops ever
starved (the one we ran last server in TMM).
Obviously
the best way to make sure your alliance wins the race is not only to defend
your WW village well but to try and knock down other peoples WWs or the
granaries feeding their troops.
Several
larger attacking players will have built huge attacking forces specifically to
knock down WW villages and they will send them when they think it will do most
harm so it's really important that only a very few people know how many troops
are there at any time. There can be around 500 000 troops in the village which
makes it very difficult to feed. This means we only put the most effective
soldiers in the village and the ones that cost least to feed - that would be phalanx,
praetorian and spearmen in the early stages but Druids, Paladins and EQ Caesaris
will probably be needed later to aid defence. Also we will need a lot of Teuton
Scouts (these only eat 1 wheat per hour compared with Roman and Gaul scouts
that eat 2)
You cannot
use gold to make anything in a WW village build faster or to NPC resources
there - so you have to get the right resources there all the time and have people
ready to build at all times of the day and night. There is usually a WW team
that looks after this - there might be 4 to 8 of them that log on in shifts and
"sit" the WW so that it is always watched and they can send more
wheat or resources or ask others for them if necessary.
The more
warning you get of attacks in advance the better so the alliance also tries to
get rid of any villages in the area of their WW village and they would
encourage their alliance members to settle villages near it so that it is easy
for them to supply wheat and resources very quickly. This means the villages
around a WW are usually storage villages ready to send things to the WW at
short notice.
There are
lots of other things I can tell you about WW to do with heros and Natarian
attacks and the politics and strategy of trying to win but for now I wanted
everyone to know what the end game is and start to think about whether or not
it is something you might like to do.
One of the
biggest mistakes made by players new to Travian is to attack a Natarian village.
Each Natarian village holds exactly the same number of troops, however the
defence value of those troops varies from server to server (It is a complicated
mathematical formula, based on the attack power of the top 100 armies of that
server)
Obviously to
make a Dent in that defence you would need a very large army, so keep your
troops and use them to raid other players, rather than getting them killed
attacking a WW village.
As well as
the 13 WW villages there is also the Natar capital usually situated at
400/400, this village cannot be conquered and has more troops than even the WW
villages.
The WW village itself is slightly different from other villages; the middle of
the village is one large hole where the WW itself is built. The picture below
is of a WW village where we have already started to build the Great Warehouses
and Great Granaries that will be needed to hold the resources to build the WW.
As the
building of the WW progresses the hole gets filled with foundations and a
bigger and bigger WW.
As soon as a
WW reaches level 100, then the server ends, you will still be able to log in
for a week or so, but will not be able to build, or send out attacks. That time
is used by many alliances to plan for the next server, as we can still send
messages, so expect things like When the next server starts please start in
the South West and send a message to XXX who will be forming the new alliance.
As you log in after the server ends you will get a message telling you who won
the WW race, who was the best defender and best attacker of the server and who
had the largest population.
Then we
start again, with a single village, 2 population and some new friends and even
more new enemies.
One thing that I only covered briefly above is the incoming attacks on a WW
village. I mentioned that other alliances will try to destroy the village to
give them a better chance of winning (it is a race after all) and I said that
the Natars will only attack WW villages.
Any other
alliances that hold a WW village will start to build the infrastructure (Great
warehouses and Granaries) as soon as they take the village and then start to
build the Wonder itself either when the infrastructure is in place, or when
they have obtained the first set of plans, but they should also be thinking of
slowing down their rivals in the race, so will try to attack rival WW villages.
Once the WW
is building the Natars send frequent attacks as well. The Natar attacks always
consist of two waves of attacks, a few seconds apart. The first attack will be
troops to kill as much defence as possible and rams to try to demolish the
wall, closely followed by a wave of catapults, aimed at the WW. The aim of a
defending alliance is to defeat all attacks, whether coming from rival
alliances or the Natars. The Natar attacks come every 5 levels of the WW, so
the first two attacks will be launched when it gets to level 5, then 10 and so
on up to level 95. Once the WW is at level 95, then the Natars will start to
attack as each level completes.
So what can
we expect to be attacked with? Again this will be different each server and
even different between WW villages on the same server but here are some attacks
that I have seen on a previous server (Malaysia server 3)
Some translations
Pagar Kubu tidak dirosakkan Wall was not damaged
Dunia Keajaiban World Wonder was not damaged
Tiada askar anda kembali None of your soldiers have returned
Level 5 Attack
Level 10
attack
Level 25
attack
Level 50
Attack (Note that as the attacks are getting a lot bigger, the WW is no being defended
by ANY available troop type, We now have Macemen, Swordsmen, Imperians, as well
as attack horse troops and even Chiefs and Catapults (All will offer some
defence and provided we can feed them are useful But do not send these until
asked by your alliance leaders)
Level 75
Attack Notice that the first attack lowered the wall by 1 level
Level 97 Attack Notice the wall is now badly damaged!
That was the
final attack that landed as another player managed to get their WW up to 100.
Bear in mind that the attacks above are only the Natar attacks, not those sent
by rival alliances.
Also note the total crop consumption just before the final attack was a massive
798636 per hour, which is why the alliance leaders are constantly asking you to
send wheat to the WW village.