Posts by Wheat Dragon

Good question, ZloDeySan. Yes, the game is developing in my opinion. Before I continue typing this out I think that I need to explain my motivations. So, I am a forum moderator, that just means I make sure that people are being polite and following the rules on the Forum. My relationship with Kingdoms and it's development does not go any further than that. I am a player first.

Onto my opinion on if I think the game is developing...
YES! Travian has always been a slow roll. I look at the development of Travian Legends. I started playing there in 2007. It was 2011 when they finally came out with the updated hero and the auction house. Looking backwards - it seems like those two events happened back-to-back, but there was at least 4 years between the two.
Kingdoms came out in 2015. It kind of feels like we've always had the Menhir feature, but there was over 3 years where we didn't have that feature. It wasn't available until October of 2018.
We like our x5 servers, but those are relatively new as well. I remember when they tested the first x5 server... it was less than enjoyable to play! That first day - nothing happened - nothing could happen. I remember my hero couldn't come home. It was a frustrating experience, but I look at the x5 servers today and they run very smoothly.

The app this year saw an update. Just a year ago, my first server playing King, Com2nx3, I couldn't use the app. It was impossible. I couldn't open the messages without it completely collapsing. This most recent update has made it so much easier to operate through the app. There are still some issues - like for me the app crashes every single time I set up a new trade route. A minor inconvenience when compared to how it used to work. They are even still updating these apps as new issues are found. This is great progress in my eyes.

The expanded warehouses on x3 and x5 are brand new! I was thrilled with it showing up on US and EU Birthday Bash servers. Right now the new changes that might come out of the Test round regarding Menhiring and Vacation Mode are promising. Vacation Mode genuinely benefits players that I've been around, but I'm happy to see an update that prevents the most recent exploitation of it that doesn't hurt governors who actually use it.

This doesn't include the changes to the achievement system (which is another main reason I enjoy Kingdoms over Legends in addition to the app).

The x3n servers are also new. Night truce has been around for awhile (2017, I think?), but the x3 tilt is new. I love the x3n servers. They're a lot of fun, but I don't think it's a fair assessment to say there is nothing new in the game because those don't run more than 1 time a year.

I love this game. I'm happy with how it has evolved over the years. As a player - there have been countless times that I've been frustrated with the functionality of the game. I've been in the Help Center writing up tickets more than just about anyone. On Com2nx3 when you merged Kingdoms, the Vice-King's treasury just stopped working. They lost all influence. That was another really frustrating day.

I'm glad to say that the issues that I've run into over the years have been resolved in future rounds. The Help Center at times has been slow when I report things, but ultimately a resolution is reached and the problems that I've encountered haven't reappeared on future rounds - and I consider that a win.

This isn't an exhaustive list about what all has changed in the game recently, but of the features that I as a player have been most excited about. As I said in my last post: Kingdoms today is also a lot different than it was when it first came out. It has continued to evolve since it was first launched - and I anticipate that the game will continue to be expanded and improved with time - I'm excited to see what the future brings.

Hey there, ZloDeySan!

This is something that has come up a few times over the years. Here are just a few areas where the conversation has really been discussed at length.

There is a very good discussion around new tribes here that was written up by Haji#EN(1). It’s about a tribe that isn’t included on Legends.

There aren’t any plans at the current moment to incorporate any new tribes. With Legends and Kingdoms being two separate games, they have two separate development paths.

Kingdoms is different than Legends in a lot of ways. Kingdoms today is also a lot different than it was when it first came out. It has continued to evolve since it was first launched - and I anticipate that the game will continue to be expanded and improved with time.

I'm glad that this idea has come back again. It's something that I've always thought would be interesting.

We talked about it here a long time ago (January ).
Troop count

I like that idea of a "personal" stats tab. Originally, I thought it would fit good into the World Statistics. I know that the question will come up about "total" or "by city" and I think that a "totals" tab, but with a breakdown of each troop type would be nice.

Quote from VIOLENCE 59

So this increases your losses and except for early game you can more often than not clear all the resources but not all the troops in the wave you raid.

This is an excellent point. I was thinking of it only through your point of "troops defending only resources".
You're absolutely right that this would increase losses and as we all know, as the waves get lower, the amount of reward diminishes.

Quote from VIOLENCE 59

Is the game capable of handling 5 active players attacking a 2 waves camp simultaneously ?

I'm not sure on the technical components of this. I am not a computer programmer, so I won't even dive into an opinion on this.

I can draw a parallel though (even though it's imperfect). If two people are trying to go for the same marketplace offer it seems the game is able to differentiate who went for it first. I've tried to take an offer before and it gives me the error message that it's no longer available.

Quote from VIOLENCE 59

Since you wouldn't have troops defending resources only and no Stolen Goods to be seen.

Have you run into this issue recently? Looking at the Changelog - 0.46, I run into this:

Quote from Changelog - 0.46

As requested by members of the community, a robber camp wave will be cleared as soon as all the stolen goods are taken from the wave. Remaining troops and resources will be added to the next wave. The last wave will be cleared as soon as all the stolen goods and resources have been taken."

So it appears that the last wave is the only one that could potentially have any resources leftover without stolen goods. Or at least that is what I take away from this.

Quote from lua

Yet another raw suggestion is limit one outgoing attack per village

That would encourage people to attack the nearest camp instead of the broad range of attacks that we see now with fast troops.

I like how it is tied to villages in general and not just "the capital" or something like that. A lot of players may change their village later on to a 15c and make it a capital, but their hammer is in another village. So I do like the generality.

Quote from lua

Anyway I think that's the goal of this topic, to find a better solution for robber camps.

Exactly, let's really look this subject and try to air out the pros and cons of each solution. Any change in the game will result in 'downstream' changes and I think those need to be considered. Ask questions such as: "Who will this affect? How will it affect them? If it heavily affects a group of players, are their any tweaks we could try to limit that affect?"

Quote from VIOLENCE 59

This thing is that if you limit the camps through the number of waves it's relatively easy for a spy to delay camps as he pleases. And if that was the case, the number of waves = number of attacks how would the speed of your army be affected.

That's a good question, if I understand it correctly. You're asking "who would land first? the fastest, or the first?"
I would still think the fastest would apply to not encourage people to attack further away.

Quote from Pinkguy#NL

The force-hero solution will prevent people from hoarding stolen resources all server "just in case".

I don't think this is necessarily true. I don't think using a force-hero solution would prevent people from hoarding stolen goods. I don't think those two correlate well.

Quote from Pinkguy#NL

You think so? You honestly think so? So you can pull an argument out of your... "magic hat" against the forced hero but fail to see the problems with this?

I specifically said in my post that this too could be abused. I didn't say "hey we should do this". It was brought up, I said that I liked it because it got to the root issue that I see most people having the largest issue with - which is the cutting. The examples you listed out were exactly what I thought as well. I'm not pulling arguments out of a "magic hat". I just didn't go as deep into the issues that would arrive with this example when I should have. I'm trying to have a conversation here. I understand that you are passionate about this, but I'm trying to engage with you to find a solution to this issue, let's have a conversation.

The force-hero solution proposed here doesn't do anything to solve cutting. That was the only reason I said that I liked it.

Quote from Pinkguy#NL

Stop trying to deceive the rest of us by pretending this is more complicated than it is.

No one is trying to deceive you. I'm just trying to get to a solution that is well thought out and tries to consider all of the implications and throw those out for discussion.

The whole point of this conversation around robber camps is to ensure that people have access to them. I pointed out an access issue with the force hero solution and your argument is "well we can just send them more resources". I didn't say I wanted specific players to have more resources. It was purely brought up as an access issue. People who are participating with their hero elsewhere will be completely cut out from robber camps.

This has been a very interesting conversation. I agree that there have been issues with people following rules inside of specific Kingdoms.

In a dream world - we would all be team players and support one another by only taking what we need.

When looking at players who have 200k troops and another that only has 35k troops it's really hard to make a good argument about why they both deserve the same number of robber camps. So I don't think you can build it into the game that would limit the number of camps a player can attack.

My immediate concerns from the conversation so far.

• Tying the hero to attacking a robber camp could make it to where certain players, active players who participate, get less robber camps.
  • On a x1 server, it's entirely possible that a catapult attack could cause a hero to be gone for 24+ hours. This would penalize players who regularly participate in offensive operations. These players are also the ones that probably need stolen goods for those long walks due to the lack of resource income from raiding and high negative counts having the full army at home.
• I don't really like the idea of the King being able to "allow" players to attack more or less through a formal feature in the game.
  • Don't get me wrong - this is essentially what we try to do. But formalizing it into a feature that the King can control and manage does not appeal to me. Really takes the idea of "strong king" to the next level.

Greenman suggested that the amount of attacks that can be sent on a robber camp = the number of waves to that robber camp.

I like this idea. It would solve about 85% of the frustration around robber camps. It's disappointing to miss robber camps, but when you get cut off on a robber camp and it's the last wave that's probably the most frustrating. This could be also be abused - but there are very few features in the game that can't be.

In general, rules that are typically seen as "Kingdom" rules (as in the specific kingdoms on a server, not the game) I don't like the idea of having them formalized into the game structure. They need to be able to be tweaked and adjusted as needed as the server progresses - but not through a click of a button, but through communication.

These rules, when enforced, are effective. Are there challenges? Absolutely.

But before we implement anything like requiring a hero to be present we need to address what the consequences of that would be.

Would people be less likely to participate in offensive operations if their hero needed to be involved? What about sending their hero for joint defense operations?

The way I see it, by requiring a hero, you hurt those who are most active in the Kingdom. Those who are sending their hero on offensive operations or defending villages. Leaving those who do not participate with easy access to camps because they perpetually have their hero home.

Black Scorpion#EN
The amount of experience that you receive from killing any troop is related back to the amount of "upkeep" that troop takes.
For the case of the hero - I believe that it is just one. If I run into a better answer I will edit this post!

I will also keep an eye on my hero score and see what happens the next time I kill a hero!

Quote from Buccaneer#EN

Also what is the quickest time you have gotten this done on a speed server?

As I mentioned, only three times for me and it entirely depends on the server.

Two servers took about 12 hours, very similar to Pinkguy#NL. It just depends on how your order your quests and how many bundles you can save over from your relocation.

On x3 servers they increased warehouse and granary speeds. On my most recent server I noticed it going a little faster, but I haven’t gotten to try it out to know if it was anecdotally faster, or actually faster. I was actually able there to open in “day one” of the server, which I’ve never been able to do before. That would put it under 10 hours.

I want to: echo some of the ideas shared here; mention a few additional thoughts; and try to flesh out this conversation some more.

The idea of 'provoking' a Robber Hideout is something that I've been thinking about recently - so it's nice to see that it is being explored more here.

Quote from Tiitana

Everybody will just provoke them to attack and boom half strength hideout that is clearable with less losses than normally.

I share the first reaction that Tiitana has. Yes - this would absolutely be useful to governors/dukes who are playing 'defensive'. However, this is something that would be exploited by offensive players who are trying to build up the largest hammer's possible.

Elijah_FR - that's a very interesting idea - increase the number of troops. I think that if something like this were to be implemented I would lean towards what VIOLENCE 59 suggested:

Quote from VIOLENCE 59

either you defend or you are not allowed to attack

So, to recap (it's sometimes hard to read when there are quotes involved) what has been suggested so far is this:
Creating a 'provoke' option for starting robber hideouts sooner than the 48 hour mark. To avoid hammers taking advantage of this - if you provoke a robber, you are no longer allowed to attack it.

I don't think I've seen it mentioned - but if you provoke - it would make sense that they would attack full force (especially if the provoker cannot attack the hideout after provoking).

I like this idea in theory. It would be beneficial for those defensive players. This is something that always get's brought up during the course of any server that I am on.
Unfortunately, I just see too many ways that this would be exploited.

Large offensive players could just get standing defense (or build it themselves from other villages). Now their armies are even bigger because they are getting the full benefit of robber hideouts without having to lose any of their own troops.

I guess you could make it to where if a player "provokes" all troops that do not belong to that city flee... but this would cause a lot of issues I think. Especially if a Duke were to provoke a hideout and it kicks out all defense and he cannot receive defense and an opposing Kingdom get's lucky to send an attack that lands somewhere between the provocation and the robbers landing.
^^Obviously this is a worst case scenario and I don't think it would happen often, but it's an issue that needs to be thought of.

I think overall, if this change were to be implemented in the described way, it would just lead to offensive players having a small defensive force... I think it would just reverse the roles that we currently have. Currently, we have defensive players who keep a small offensive force for clearing hideouts. I think with this you would just get offensive players who keep a small defensive force.
A side effect of this change would be larger hammers.

Just some thoughts. I'm curious what others think.

Best,

W.D.

Pinkguy#NL I think that it just depends on what you are going for. If you settle a 15c the resource quests (level 5 and level 7) really help get you the additional resources that can help you rush over 200 population fairly quick. If you've saved your settler and new village quest rewards that also helps. When I quick settle treasuries - I also try to save my bundles from my initial relocation if at all possible.

It also depends on the player. Experience speedsettling and opening up a treasury certainly help. I've only done it three times now, but I can say that each time has been much smoother and quicker than the previous times.

But yes, if you don't think you'll be able to do it quickly - it would make sense to join as a Duke and take on the 12 hour activation period and then once the King can abdicate - relocate them to the new position. It just takes a few extra steps, and in my opinion, a little better communication.

Buccaneer#EN as Pinkguy#NL mentioned, in order to be able to open a treasury quickly after speed settling you will have to reach 200 population and leave beginners protection. There is no other way to open a treasury faster. To clarify, this is 200 population total - not 200 population in that village.

Alexandruu I've actually tried this on a previous round. The original King had to reach 200 population in order to abdicate. Then the newly appointed King did not get the instant open. They had to wait 12 hours. This is still beneficial because it allows the Kingdom to merge sooner - which allows for an extra day of Victory Point accumulation.

I hope this helps answer your question.

Hello all,

I am very excited for this opportunity to step into the role of Moderator for Travian Kingdoms. I am fortunate enough to have played with, or against, most of you. Each player that I have come into contact with has made me a better player. Maybe that was through advice, or on the receiving end of hammer. Either way, that has helped shape me as a player.

I strongly believe in advancing the game through feedback from this amazing community. Within my role as forum moderator I will strive to:

• A conducive environment for constructive conversation
• Treat players equally and fairly
• Enforce forum rules appropriately

A little bit about my Travian journey.
I started playing in about 2007 It may have been sooner, but for sure 2007 at the latest. I've had the privilege to watch Travian evolve and morph into what we know today as Legends and Kingdoms.
I think what initially appealed to me about Kingdoms was the accessibility. Being able to play from an app on my phone was an absolute game changer for me. I'm glad that there has been renewed interest in updating the app over the last few months. I'm excited to see how the game continues to evolve. I look back from the time that I started playing Kingdoms to - and even further back to what would eventually become Legends - and it's amazing to see how both the game, and the community surrounding it, have continued to evolve.

Best,
W.D.

I’m leaning towards it being a large amount of fireworks going all at once.

Since the cap is 48 per village, it might not show up until later in the server when people have multiple villages.

But that’s just a guess.

I’m leaning towards it being a large amount of fireworks going all at once.

Since the cap is 48 per village, it might not show up until later in the game world when people have multiple villages.

But that’s just a guess.

Thanks everyone for your responses to this post and to those who participated in the voting. When working with new players, it seems that they think that the best robbers are Teutons. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed that as well?

The responses here also helped highlight that any tribe can be used to effectively raid - it just takes time.
You get out what you put in.

Quote from DasBärchen

Therefore, to any beginner; it does not really matter which tribe you pick. What you should do is gather data. Watch what happens around you. Check population increase. Scout. Being first in finding a new farm is key. Exploit it before others can.

Couldn't agree more! Just to add - never stop gathering data. Even on villages that are currently being raided. It's easy to fall into a the "complacency trap". This is where you are used to a player being an easy farm - but they are just dodging you attacks for now. So, be careful when raiding an active player. Good way to lose troops. They most likely won't dodge forever.

Quote from Lycan_COM

cheap fodder to build up those number with clubs

Teuton clubs are insanely cheap - and quick to build. However, as DasBärchen mentioned - they are slow. What I like about clubs is the efficiency at which they can raid. Thinking from a cost-benefit outlook: a club only has to have a full load ~4 times in order to completely pay for itself. This is lowest of all raiding troops.

Quote from Lycan_COM

teutons they have the best farmers namely palladins

I think that Paladins are an overlooked unit for raiding. They are extremely effective at raiding inactive players. I think their real downside however is that they die way too easy. So, you have to send more to overcome village effects that may kill a troop (i.e. residence, wall, etc). This makes running into spiked villages all the more expensive in the future. However, if playing Defensive Teuton - paladins are the way to go.

Alright Travian Community! I've got a question for you - what tribe do you think is best for raiding?
Yes - I know this is a bit of loaded question. If you look on any Top 10 Raiders list on any server you will most likely see one of each tribe.

This is something that I ask every round within my Kingdom. There are clearly benefits to each tribe - but which one do you think rules supreme? Why do you think that?

If you can't pick just one - feel free to explain the benefits of each!

Here are some questions that experienced players could answer that might help a new player understand raiding troops and the benefits of each:
1) Which tribe is your favorite for raiding? Why?

2) Which troop(s) are your favorite for raiding? Why?

3) Does the type of server impact which tribe/troop you think is best? (i.e. x1, x3, x5, Night Truce, etc)

I've scoured the forums - yet I cannot find a satisfactory forum discussion about the benefits of each tribe all in one spot. Be thoughtful with your answers. Imagine that you are trying to explain the questions listed above to a player that is brand new to the game and you are their mentor.
(Also, feel free to share other forum posts here that may be of help).

Hello all,

Chiefs Kingdom will be playing on USx3N tomorrow.
We are primarily US based players - so we are thrilled that there have been two night truce servers for US players this year!

If you have any interest in joining - feel free to message me here or in game.

Look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!

Thanks,

W.D.