Travian Anti-Farming Guide
Travian Anti-Farming Guide by Stargate
There are a lot of you who do not know what farming is…this guide is to help you understand what it is, and how to deal with it.
Farming is being attacked by a player or players repeatedly , normally for resources or hero points.
When I say for hero points, I mean that when they attack you and you have troops, their hero kills them. When the hero kills them he gets points or experience for those kills. The resource part is slightly more obvious, as they just take your resources preventing you from building anything or at least slowing you down.
Here is your savior, the Players Guide to Farming!
This is being written from a few sources, most notably a previous “Anti-Farming Guide” that had to be removed for certain reasons that shall remain unknown. I am in no way copying, nor plagiarizing upon that authors work, just using it as a guide.
What is Travian, it is a game, it is a war game, not Sim City. It is a game that is about building troops and your city at the same time, it is about farming, it is about attacking, it is about coordination. Travian is a game that has many aspects to it. Yes, it is confusing at first, it was to me and to every other player who is currently playing and that has played. Everyone starts somewhere, they were all new just like you are now.
When you first start out you are given a beginners protection period, that is for your safety to get a foothold in the game. Depending on how long the server has lasted (so far), the protection period will vary. (Each server starts out at 3 days, with the exception of speed which starts at 1 day.)
Part 1: Better Safe Than Sorry
Part 2: The Attacks Begin
Part 3: Beat Those Farmers
Part 4: Pesky Little Catapults
Part 1: Better safe than sorry
In this game, you need a good spawn location to get anywhere. Let’s start with that…
Firstly, the quadrants of a server are very important. Usually the South quadrants are the most tranquil, but it varies from server to server. You might want to remember that when choosing your quadrant. If you don’t care, then choose random and pray.
Once you get your location, take a look at your 7 x 7, if there are a lot of higher population players near you, please consider deleting and restarting somewhere else. If there are not, then take a look at your 13 x 13, see what it looks like there. If you see a lot of players that you feel could be a danger to you, delete and restart. If players around you are roughly the same size, or if it’s a new server and there are not many players, then you will probably want to stay there. Your neighbors are potential allies or farms.
This all depends on the age of the server; if it is newer you will get near a lot of new players, if it is a few months in there will not be a ‘perfect spawn’ location. Now, the game has a built in system that tries to make sure you get near new players, though it is not a for sure thing.
For more information on how this works, please see this thread.
Another thing to remember is to make sure you will have some farms if not a lot by the time you are ready to farm. At least make sure there are some villages that are in yout 13 x 13 that will be farmable for you when you are ready.
If you are new: whether the server is one week old or several months make sure you have at least one cranny (Level 10) at the end of your Beginner’s Protection period. It doesn’t matter what server you play on; you will probably want to do this.
A level 10 cranny can hold 1000 resources, that is 1000 of each!.
(Also, when being raided by a Teuton, they can steal 1/3 of the resources hidden in your cranny, meaning if it held 3000 they could steal 1000…)
Part 2: The Attacks Begin
Raiding in Travian is very important, you need to make a profit from your raids or they are pointless…
If people are raiding you and you give up a lot of resources and/or hero experience, they will keep doing it. As long as they are profiting from you it is worth it. Which is why you need to make it pointless for them to attack you. If people get nothing, they will stop (most will anyway).
- If you notice a raid or attack coming your way here is what you want to do:
- Check what race your attacker is.
- Check your cranny level(s), get your resource levels below those numbers; if your attacker is a Teuton multiply your cranny capacity by 2/3 and get to the resource level you get.
Crannies will always cover the amount required to upgrade, so upgrading your cranny should not be a problem. One cranny is allowed per village until it gets to level 10, after that you can build as many as you have spaces available. As a rule, make sure your cranny level covers at least your warehouse and granary levels, if not more.
When you are attacked the first few times, move all of your troops out of the village. Send them on a raid to someone far enough away that they will not return until after the raid has hit. You can also reinforce a someone you know, or someone you don’t know. If you want you can send them to someone, so that they are gone when the attack/raid hits then cancel the troop movement. You have 90 seconds after sending to do so. You will want to wait until about 20 seconds before the attack hits, then send them out. Recall them immediately after the attack lands via your rally point.
All attacks, when you are small, should be dodged. If the attacker sees troops, they will most likely come back with catapults. As I said, many attackers will constantly attack you for his hero experience if they see soldiers. I have used this tactic many times to get a high offensive rank, don’t be a victim of this.
Part 3: How to beat those farmers
Before you do anything else, take a look at reports from when the person in question attacks/raids you. If they have profited and continue to do so, you may want to read the earlier parts of this guide again. Anyway, if they are still profiting from raiding you, they will probably not want to stop. It is worth more to attack you and get resources than to be your friend. If they have not profited, send them a message (these will be covered in a bit).
Sending messages to a farmer is one of the best ways to get them to stop, though this does not always go as planned.
Sorry if this seems repetitive, but it is far easier to get farmers to give you a return trip than it is to get them to stop. Taunting your attackers after you cranny up is never a wise thing. Most larger players have catapults and you can go from 80 population to 0 population within a day. So this is never the way to go.
When you are going to message someone, make sure you are in a good mood, or at least are calm. This is the internet, hardly anyone takes threats seriously, and most just laugh at insulting curse word ridden messages. Sending one of these to your attacker will just make them want to attack more. Remember, Travian is a game; this should have no effect on your real life, don’t let it. (Restart if you have to.)
Now to the messages part!
Here is a message that someone sent me. This is another of my 0 population victims.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farm lol you can’t distroy cranny’s so it doesn;t matter how much you attack me i’m now on 4 lvl 10 and one lvl 5 and building so keep wasting your time |
With this message, there are several things wrong. First of all, he said I cannot destroy his crannies; it is very possible to destroy crannies (which I did do to him). It may have taken a while longer, but it got done. His language usage was another problem that I had with him, while I do use “chatspeak” a lot, I usually type properly. If farms send me complaingt in “chatspeak” or “1337” they get destroyed. To really seal his doom, he said that I was wasting my time. Thanks, but I’ll determine what wastes my time, thank you. My catapults had no other targets, swordsmen are too slow to raid with, and it’s hard to resist the temptation to catapult someone after a message like this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taxed Farm I was wondering if there was any way I could pay you to not attack me…I’d gladly pay any reasonable tax for as long as you want to stop the raids. I understand if you would rather farm, but I can help you out if you want. Nice army, by the way. |
This is a message, this is not some crap that a 3 year old typed. I respect people (more) when they type like this when they are asking me to do something. He paid me a certain amount of resources for a few weeks and I let him be on his way. (Note: This will not always work…)
Anyway, repeated farming is a common problem. Just ensure that they don’t get hero experience, resources, or fun out of attacking. Try offering tribute, but in all cases, send civil messages only.
Part 4: Pesky Little Catapults
If you were successful in stopping the farmers attacks or at least not giving him any resources, there may come a time when he decides to get rid of you completely. He will need catapults for this.
If he is still getting resources and you have not stopped him AND have not messaged him; you may want to look into that when you restart.
The way battles are calculated, catapults are counted as infantry. The normal format for a catapult attack is:
- Clear wave. (Consists of Large Army and either 1 catapult or a number of them.)
- Catault Wave (Consists of an escourt (smaller than clear) and as many catapults as needed.)
- Catault Wave (Consists of an escourt (smaller than clear) and as many catapults as needed.)
- Catault Wave (Consists of an escourt (smaller than clear) and as many catapults as needed.)
- Continuing with as many waves of catapults as they can.
Sometimes they will send a larger attack force with a catapult wave, just to clear any defenders you squeeze in between the waves.
If you see this format of attack, and you have defensive troops, your best bet would be to dodge the initial wave and try and defend against the catapult waves as they usually have less of an army with them. Because catapults are calculated as infantry, try to use Praetorians or Druidriders as the units that hit the attacking catapults. Catapults are expensive enough that farmers will lose profits most of the time, and when the farmer sees that his target is knowledgeable, he/she may think twice before hitting again.
However, if it is clear that the farmer is bent on destruction of your village, and no-one can or is willing to help you, you will want to think about deleting your account and restarting elsewhere. If you play a server that has been around for a while, you may want to consider restarting on a newer one.
This concludes the tutorial on how to deal with farmers! If you see any problems, or would like me to add something, just send me a PM and I will get it in (if it is needed).
I would also like to thank Theo (yes, he is still here…somewhere ) for helping me with this guide!
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