Travian Detailed Romans Guide

Travian Detailed Romans Guide by Tinasilna

Before you start going through this guide, just be aware – I am not a top 5 player. I have never been. I have been a -good- player. I’ve been in top 10 alliances, I’ve been through wars with my alliances, and I’ve learned how to take attacks with a grain of salt and defend my villages against odds that used to seem overwhelming. I admit that I am still learning – and I still seek advice. I adjust my strategies, and I evolve. I’ve been asked to write this up since we didn’t have a good one, and I hope this fits the bill.

I have mentored new players, I’ve seen them grow to dominate their areas, and I’ve seen them surpass me – or not – depending on many factors. What I am hoping to do here, it to outline how I have evolved, give you the benefit of the experience I have had, and help you develop your own strategies that will work well for you – while at the same time showing the strategies that I have tried, or seen tried and that don’t work.

First Things First –

If you’re reading this guide you’re playing, or want to play a Roman. The first thing you need to be aware of, is you are NOT going to be in competition with the heavily aggressive Teutons in your area. You won’t shoot into the top 50 players, you won’t be the first to 2 villages, and you definitely won’t be the first one with a huge raiding party. In fact, you probably won’t be first at anything.

Let that sink in for a minute. Then I’ll tell you why you aren’t going to be any of those things.

Simply – You’re a Roman, that isn’t how you’re designed.

Not how you’re designed? Well thats just unfair isn’t it? Something needs to be done! — Wrong. It may seem unfair, it may even seem like you got the short end of the stick, but thats just how the game works. I’ve been told repeatedly, Romans are team players, they aren’t made to stand out, they’re made to make their alliance stand out.

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Things to Know before starting –

I can’t recommend a specific day to ‘start’ the server. It depends on how close to the center you want to be placed. I have started on day 1, day 3, day 6 and day 30 – I’ve discovered that the closer to the start of the server you begin, the harder your life is going to be. Mostly because by day 3 when all the really aggressive Teutons have been waiting to start if you spawn at the same time they do, you really won’t have much chance.
On s7 where I play currently, I started 4 days late, and it has worked out quite well for me.

Activity is a big key to a successful village. If you aren’t going to be active enough, you are going to suffer in time. Time is the most important resource in Travian, and one that many people seem to forget. Romans are -slow- therefore, you need -time- more than anyone else. Don’t neglect your 5th resource.

If you are planning on getting attacked, you are not going to succeed. Being attacked at a point where you can defend yourself and fight back is one thing, being attacked and not being able to do anything about it = failing. Don’t fool yourself, being farmed -is- the end of an aggressive and progressive style of game play. Crannys are a good way to waste resources, especially at the beginning of a server. If you are planning to play defensively and ‘save’ your resources, play a Gaul – they’re better at it.

LAST NOTE: IF you are attacked at any time (until cats start rolling), DODGE the fkn attacker. Your troops are too expensive to waste on defending your village. Spend down your resources, upgrade your cranny if it’s a Teuton. Do whatever you can to make sure they get absolutely nothing from your village. Don’t message them, don’t get ****ed off, you’re not built for a full scale war in the early stages of the game.

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New Village!

So you’ve just started a new village, you’ve got resources just sitting there waiting to be used, and you’re not sure what to do first/second/third or afterward. Perfect, you’re a clean slate and I’ll do what I can to help you out.

Start your MB upgrading to level 2. Yes, your MB. As surprising as it may sound, as a Roman you do have an option of what road to take at the very beginning of a server. Unlike your Teuton friends, you cannot start raiding within 2 hours, but you CAN start raiding within your first 13 hours. The MB is a key component, you’ll need it for everything, it takes time, and will let your resources stock while you do the next step.

LOOK AROUND YOUR AREA.

Look at every village in your 7×7. See what kind of tribe they are, see how big they are, see if they have that pretty dove in their profile telling you when BP will be running out for them. If they do, write it down! Keep track of it. There is NO reason that someone should be coming out of BP in your 7×7 and you aren’t hitting them within 20 minutes. When you’re done with that, look at your 13×13. Don’t be shy.

Check what you have for oasis, start thinking long term – yes, start thinking long term right out of the box. It’ll help you, trust me. Which oasis are good? Which are you going after first? Who is going to be competing with you for those oasis?

After you’ve had a look around your area, make a judgement call. How many people are under 9 pop? If they were there before you, that means you can start raiding them before you come out of BP. How many bigger players are there around you? Once you start raiding the smaller players how many more opportunities are you going to have?

— You CAN start raiding in 12 hours. To get MB 3, Rally point, Barracks, 2 Legos = 765wood, 615clay, 885iron, 330wheat. Yes, Iron is your big problem. At 8 iron/hour it’ll take 11 hours to get that extra 85 for your second troop. Ask yourself if it’s worth it. NOW ask yourself if you can wait 1 day and get in a better position, and have potentially more people out of BP for you to raid. I’d personally wait that day.

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Moving forward –

Assuming you’re waiting and will start raiding soon, but not ASAP. Follow the quests. I’ve noticed a lot of players poo poo the quests are being useless. They aren’t, especially for Romans. You get resources each time you accomplish them, you get free gold, and you work on essential parts of your city all at the same time.

There is no reason you should not have your rat incoming within your first few hours of the game. When the quest Master is telling you to wait for the rat before doing anything else, ignore him. Continue upgrading all your resource fields to level 1. The sooner you have all your resource fields up, the sooner you will be getting income from them. This is a small income, and it will not be on par with what you can get raiding, but at the moment it’s the best you’ve got.

NOTE: IF you’re going to buy gold, do it NOW. The 25% bonus to production will not hinder you at all – it will help. Don’t worry about auto building your fields, its pointless this early in the game, just get the bonus production.

— Sadly, you will run out of resources, and have to wait for more to finish upgrading your fields. This is a good time to take a break, read the forums and get some sleep – you’re going to need it.

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Later ( or Day 2 ) –

So your rat arrived, and now you’re ready to move on. Visit the ugly fellow to get your reward for waiting for the rat. Then read the report to get your supplies. Finish upgrading the rest of your fields, if you don’t have enough resources just yet you didn’t wait long enough and need to come back later.

Continue to follow the quest line. Yes, even build that cranny, its cheap and you get as much back in reward as you spend on it. When you start the cranny, start upgrade 1 of each resource field to level 2. You’re a roman, use that Double Build to your advantage. When the Cranny finishes, upgrade your MB to level 3 – same reason.

Chose the -Military- path, don’t be an idiot and go the other route, you don’t need that stuff yet as much as you need to start raiding. You’re still in BP so don’t get stressed that you aren’t raiding and don’t have troops yet, they’ll come.

Continue along the quest line until you get your 2 legos built. I haven’t timed this, so you may have to wait for some resources, or you may be able to do it immediately. It was a month ago, I don’t recall how long it took – But I know it was day 2.

After you have the 2 legos built STOP FOLLOWING THE QUEST LINE. He is going to try and make you waste your resources building more fields. Don’t.
NOTE: If you are a gold abuser, and have spare resources at this point, start working toward your marketplace (warehouse + grainary) – Legos are heavy on iron, if you aren’t NPCing your resources you will fall behind in production while you are waiting for that huge amount of iron.

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The Fun Begins –

2 legos. It may not seem like a big army, but it is – early on in the game, its a big deal. For you, it is the answer to all your problems. Remember when you were looking around your map earlier and memorizing everything? Now its time to put your recognition to the test. Go raid someone. Go raid someone close to you who is below 9 pop. If they’re all still in BP, look further. There will be at least one, likely many more than one. The reason you raid below 9 pop is because your troops are FKN EXPENSIVE. If you lose one to a rat, you are screwed. Don’t let it happen. Your troops are your lifeline, they will either make or break you.

At this point in the game you need to be active. If you aren’t active you’re going to fall behind again. Set a timer if you have to for when your legos will be back in the city. WHen they are, send them back out – immediately. The longer they sit in your city, the worse off you are. 2 Legos bring back 20 of each resource = 80 resouces. You need 440 resources for a new lego. That is 4 trips (if you can npc your resources). If you aren’t using gold, it’ll be 9 trips before you can build another lego (from scratch). Either way, as soon as you can build another one, build it. This may sound like common sense, but PAY ATTENTION. Your troops, while being expensive take A LONG TIME TO BUILD. Do it early.

Next step – Repeat raiding, build more legos.
Next Step – Repeat raiding, build more legos.

If you are still reading this guide and not building more legos, go build more legos.

Cool Factor: 11 Legos pay for a new one, each time they return with a full load. Fancy huh?

NOTES WHILE RAIDING:
1) Keep track of the resources you’re pulling from starter villages. They’ll have 800 of everything, if you’ve got that much from them, don’t send another raid.
2) Go to your profile and set your time zone so the server time shows what time it is for you. Now check EVERY village in your 7×7 to see when they are coming out of BP, you have soldiers now, you can do it. Write it down, keep it somewhere you’ll remember it. Refer to it. Use it. Hit those farms ( 3) If you’re tired – TOO BAD. This is why you slept earlier. If you haven’t cleaned out everyone closeby ASAP you aren’t allowed to sleep. Sleep is for farms, you’re a raider, you don’t have that luxury. Clean them out, then go to bed. When you get up, hit them all again! 4) It’s OK to run negative wheat. Again, this depends on your activity. If you’re online enough to keep your troops active, running negative wheat won’t trouble you. If you aren’t online that often, the negative wheat is just draining your resource pool. I wouldn’t recommend going past -15 wheat, you’re a Roman, not a Teuton. Eventually you’re going to have to support your village with your own wheat, and use wheat to upgrade buildings. Don’t fall TOO far behind. Wheat fields are cheap to upgrade at this point, don’t neglect them.
5) Raid in SMALL groups. No more than 5 legos per group on smaller inactive targets. 11 legos will kill a rat without losing any troops on small population cities. Over 9 pop, send 12 legos to be safe for the first raid. After that, split into groups of 5. IF you’re coming in with raids that aren’t quite full, adjust your groups, move to 4 legos per group. Do what you have to do to maximize how many resources you are pulling in without having to expand your raiding for exponentially.

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The 1 hour barrier –

I’m going to stop indicating how many days it’ll take for you to arrive at these next steps. It’ll vary, everyone has different placement and different requirements. The 1 hour barrier refers to the 7 squares (on regular server) in any direction around your village. Your legos move at spd 6, 7 squares is just over 1 hour one way. The 1 hour barrier is when you have enough legos to effectively clean out every village inside the 1 hour barrier every time you log into the game. For me, this was 20 legos. For you, it may be 40, you can’t know until you do it.

Make sure you are still keeping track of every village in your area when they come out of BP. By now you may have noticed some new villages popping up in your area, watch them, watch them close – they are your new best friends, and they will soon be adding to your production.

At the 1 hour barrier, its time to work on your fields again. If you haven’t built a warehouse, granary and marketplace (as noted earlier) do it now. Trade smart on the marketplace – no I won’t describe trading smart, figure it out yourself, its not hard. There are resources you’re always short of, you need to trade for those, there are ones you have lots of, get rid of them.

Your fields should NOT be upgraded evenly. Again, use some common sense. If you use gold to NPC, leave your iron fields in the dust, 1 or 2 levels below your other fields. You just don’t need that much iron – especially since we’re going to move into more building, and less troops. You need Clay and Wood, make Clay a priority. Keep raiding, and start moving your fields up to level 3.

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Fields at 3 –

This should not take you more than 1 day, or 2 days since you started raiding. If its taking longer you got a sucky position, or you’re not active enough to keep up with raiding. Either way, you’re behind. It’s ok to be behind, but don’t come on here blaming me or my guide because you couldn’t keep up. -TIME- your 5th resource is CRUTIAL.

Take another look around your area. How is the farming? Are there a bunch of Teutons growing rapidly in your area? Who is becoming a threat to you? Have you been attacked? Your BP probably just wore off and you’re worried. Relax. You are not a good target for a farm. You’re sitting at mid 60 population or higher and have 20 legos. They are actually defensive troops, you’re only using them to raid cause you’re stuck with them.

This is where things can branch off. If you are having trouble finding farms, or if there are Teutons in your area bleeding everyone dry, you should start thinking about rushing for EI’s. If you’re not having any trouble, you can keep doing what you’re doing. Personally, I rush for EI’s as soon as possible to stop people from becoming a threat, and to increase my ‘1 hour barrier’ to 14 squares. If you’re in good position, your farms are ok, and you aren’t troubled by anyone starting to look like a threat in your area, keep building legos. Move to a ‘2 hour barrier’ – as described above.

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Scouts –

Either way you are going to need scouts. They are your lifeblood early in the game to keep you from wasting time and troops. Academy, blacksmith, stables – you’re going to need all three, start building them. If you’re moving on to a 2 hour barrier with your legos, start queing up more of them as well. If you’re not, save your resources.

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Split – Moving for EI’s

You’re also going to need to upgrade your warehouse a few levels, and your granary 2 levels. Check the research requirements for EI’s on http://help.travian.com

Things get expensive here, you’ll spend less time growing, and more time building. Again, it’s an activity issue. If you’re on enough, start expanding your barrier to 1 1/2 hours with your legos. Don’t build more, just raid further out to make sure they are at full carrying capacity.

This will slow your growth, you will get discouraged. Don’t. Think of this like an investment in your future. The ROI will come, just not immediately.

If the reason you did this was because of teutons you were worried about, pick up scouts on your way to EI’s. You won’t need more than 3, and they’re cheap. Start scouting your threats as soon as possible, send all 3 scouts for the first trip to make sure they don’t have 1 of their own ready to kill yours.

COOL OPTION: 1 EI Hero can kill ~100 maces on his own if he is teched into ATK. Impressive isn’t it? EI’s are expensive, especially this early in the game. You don’t want to lose one just to kill some macemen. Build a hero mansion, and train an EI hero. Send him alone to catch maces that are left at home. Remember, at level 0 you can redistribute his points, train him in ATK to send him out, then reset it to REGEN for him to heal.

Finding that Teuton target: Scout him, every time your scout comes back, send it out again. Overnight is the best time to catch Teuton troops at home, they’re usually pretty arrogant thinking no one can take them out when they get enough of them. They’re wrong, you can take them out. Do it. DO NOT let that Teuton recover. Raid him silly. Put the fear of the FKN ROMAN EMPIRE into him. Don’t ease up on him. The minute you do, he’ll build more troops and you will be royally screwed. If you have to sleep, come back, and scout him first thing, keep scouting him till you see the troops he built, then smash them with your hero again.

After you’ve dealt with the threats in your area, start training EI’s. Use your scouts to your advantage. Check out bigger pop players you’ve been afraid of. Most often, they’ll be all fluff – and ripe for the picking. 2 EI’s can raid on their own, start sending them in groups of 2. 2 EI’s bring back 50 of each resource. Big improvement over your legos isn’t it? Don’t go crazy with them though, its still a little early for that. 8 or 10 is enough for now to keep you busy.

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The next barrier –

Either you’ve hit the 2 hour barrier with legos, or you’ve got your EI’s going. If you haven’t trained EI’s yet, start teching up to them as you move on to the next phase.

More fields.

Yes, thats right, more fields, man can’t live on raiding alone. Well, Romans can’t … not well, and not easily. Start moving your fields to level 5. Its ok to leave your iron 1 level behind. You’re going to be building EI’s which are Wood and Clay heavy. If you don’t have EI’s yet, start teching to them in the background, focus on your fields. You have double build, use it.

WATCH YOUR WHEAT.

You’re about to produce units that take up 3 wheat per unit. You’ll start running heavily negative wheat soon. This is not as big of a bonus as Teutons make it sound. You can’t dip into people’s crannies and get their excess. New players barely produce any wheat. Anyone under 20 pop will likely produce no wheat whatsoever. You need to produce your own. Upgrading fields takes a lot of wheat – don’t forget that.

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Fields 5 + EI’s – (Just as a note, this less than 1 week into the server for me)

Now you have another option. Rush a second village, or coast. This is going to completely depend on the raiding potential of your area, how active you are, and how much you are dominating your area. Either way, level your MB up to 5 and start a residence. Even if you aren’t rushing for a village, you don’t want to be last. Those CP don’t come cheap. If you want to rush to your second village, skip the next section and move on. Even if you’re going to wait, if you have resources sitting around build up your academy (it isn’t that expensive) and your residence. The more ranks you put in each of those, the faster things will go when you decide to settle.

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Coasting –

Now, you may not all agree with me here, but being -first- isn’t always best. Especially if you’re sacrificing to get there. You aren’t a top robber, you can’t keep up with them, don’t kill yourself trying. Coast. Keep up your raiding, it’s still your lifeline. Keep everyone out of your village at all times, and try to make sure they aren’t coming back empty handed. Start building EI’s and keep building EI’s. You want to hit a 1 hour EI barrier quickly, and it won’t take long.

Watch your fields, keep your wheat growing. Your fields might be 1 level higher than the rest to keep up with the production for your EI’s. It’s ok.

Throw your spare resources wherever you think they’ll do the best for you. Upgrade your fields if you still sleep, if you don’t sleep, work on your residence and academy. After you’ve hit the 1 hr EI barrier, check your CP’s, how are they doing? How soon is your second city going to be avaliable? If you want to keep waiting, move your resource fields up to level 7 or 8. Upgrade your marketplace. It’s cheap CP and you’ll need it to supply a new fledgeling village.

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2nd Village –

Either you’re tired of waiting, or its time to settle #2. Settlers are expensive, you’ll need to up your warehouse and granary even further. Get it done. If at this point it’ll be more than 3 days before your CP is ready, build a town hall and save your resources to throw a party. If not, start building settlers. You want those guys ready the minute your CP counter ticks over. At this stage of the game you may not see much growth in your city. It’s ok, you know you’re growing for your future, not immediate thrills.

2nd city recommendations:
1) Don’t build a 15C unless you are prepared to abuse gold to trade wheat for other resources. They are too much of a drain on your economy to be productive.
2) Don’t build far away from your initial city. Have a plan in mind, if there is a 15C you want nearby, build somewhere between your current village, and that spot. One day it’ll be yours, just not today.
3) Don’t build right next to your current village. There are only so many oasis to go around. Build a few squares out to take advantage of new oasis that will help your 2nd village with production.
4) I recommend settling a 4/4/4/6. Though if you want, a 5 clay will be helpful. Don’t settle a 5 iron, you don’t need it yet.

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Your new 2nd Village –

If you thought this was going to be fun, you’re in for a big surprise. Your second village’s usefulness is in the fact that it has 18 more resource fields. Constant shipments from your main village will see this little beauty grow -very- quickly.

Work on your resource fields as they become available. You should have 1 building at all times. Build up your main building to keep those construction times down. Level 5 minimum before moving on to anything else. Warehouse + granary. Ship bigger shipments from your mother village and store them here to be used up on more resource fields. Build a level 1 marketplace, it’ll help you track your shipments coming into the village and time when you can build new things.

Fields level 3 or 4, then hit a rally point, barracks, and academy. Start leveling up that academy ASAP. Don’t neglect your fields! The whole reason you have this village is to increase your base production. It’s cheaper to build up low level fields than increase your home fields from 7.

Send some scouts to your new village. Keep prying eyes away.

Your first goal should be resource fields to level 5. Then academy to level 10, then start building a second residence. This village is a crutial part of your infrastructure. The fast you get it producing, the faster the game will move from this point forward. Any resources not coming to this village should be used to build EI’s and expand your raiding radius. Oh yes. DONT STOP RAIDING BECAUSE YOU HAVE A SECOND VILLAGE. Ahem.

With your fields at level 5, move your academy to level 10, and build up that residence. While your residence is building, build more fields.

– Back to mother city. Your fledgling can survive on it’s own for a bit, throw parties. Throw parties as soon as you can and as often as you can. If you have spare resources from throwing parties, send them to your little village.

Once your fields at the fledgling city are close to the same as your Mother city, upgrade your marketplace and push your mother city to finish upgrading the fields.
NOTE: Once you have all fields at level 8 for a particular resource, built one to 9, then build that same one to 10. Build a bonus building immediately. The increase you get from it is much higher than if you built all fields to 9 then one to 10. It’s also much cheaper, your ROI will be seen immediately.

At any time, if you have resources waiting to be used, enhance your EI raiding force. Expand your radius, find new farms, hit the higher population players in your area you’ve been afraid of, and keep going. Never neglect your raiding duties.

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Both Cities (at least 1) 10 field –

Push for city 3, repeat – using both previous cities to grow it.

Your 4th city can be that coveted cropper. You’ll now have the production to support it.

If at this point you can’t pump out a village in

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From this point –

There is too much to go in to from this point on what you should build, how you should build it, and how to get there. I’m just not up to covering it. There are so many different strategies and guides I’m sure you’ll find something suitable.

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Ending notes –

Defence:
Yes, I did completely neglect building defensive troops. Why? Because if you’re being attacked and not dodging you’re wasting resources + time. You will of course have to modify the above if someone is hitting you with catapults. If thats happening, drop everything and build an armory, then build praets. Pump praets with everything you’re worth. The attacks will stop. Don’t retaliate if you don’t have to, you’ll just waste your raiding force. If its a teuton with clubs, you haven’t done your previous job and deserve to be catapulted.

Cats?
Yes, I skipped catapults .. why? Because you aren’t going to be building them in every village, at most you’ll be building them in one or two villages. Every time you want to build them you need to research them, look at the resource cost, then come back and tell me it’s worth doing that 5 times at the beginning of a server. Pick a village to build them from, then build them there.

Zero Popping Threats:
Don’t do it. Keep them from becoming threats with well done raids. Let them grow. If they’re behind you, and you’re building troops and they aren’t, when do you think they’ll become a big threat? The more they grow, the more resources they will eventually furnish you with. Never Zero pop someone unless they are using catapults on you, or are in an alliance that is using catapults on you.

Prioritizing Villages:
Don’t build your big attacking force, and your defence force in the same village. Get two 15C’s if you have to do it in a cropper. Otherwise, delegate. Defensive troops are the easiest to build, they can be built anywhere, and used in any one of your villages all at the same time. Don’t build your villages as ‘Jack of All Trades’ … its just not good sense. Your original village that you started raiding from should be your main raiding hub. I wouldn’t even train EI’s anywhere else, all they are good for is raiding. Delegate that village for raiding, and raid from it.

Early Teutons: (Thanks Burn)
In the early part of the game – if you see a Teuton in the area that might be raiding, check their BP. If you can stomach it, try raiding them. It may help you in the long run to get rid of them early, or at least set them back. Just be careful – if you set yourself back, they’ll recover faster. It’s a chancy thing, but some times it’ll pay off. Their troops will suck defending – 1 of yours will account for 2 of theirs. Which is almost equal in resources. Early aggressive Teutons seem to completely rely on their raiding, so if you can put a stop to it early, you’ll see the benefits in the long run.

Disclaimer:
This guide was made in an attempt to help people maximize their experience playing Romans. I have not touted it as the best guide in the world, nor as a way to make you a top player. I have outlined my strategies and given reasons for them. Take the pieces that will help you and develop your own strategies. Every time you start a new server things will be different, you have to be flexible and adjust. If the unexpected happens, don’t panic. Figure out a way to deal with it. If you’re not on the high score lists – don’t panic – you might never get there, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad player … you can be a good player without being the ‘best’ player.