Getting Started in Travian

Series Summary

What is Travian Online, really? The video gaming industry has continued to grow throughout the history of video games themselves. From the first version of pong, to 8-bit systems like Atari, all the way to intense and graphically advanced gaming systems like Xbox360 and Playstation 2, video games have fostered a major money-making industry and significant job market in the United States and the world. Smaller games, run from browsers online, can be equally as captivating and bring thousands of people together in a single game. Travian Online is one of these smaller games that runs in an internet browser, neatly fitting behind your other work for the day.

In this free tutorial video series, expert Travian Online strategists Justin Hoyland and John Cengel teach you how to play the hottest international browser game. Justin and John teach you the rules, show you the buttons, and give you basics for starting a town. Travian is much more than that, however, so Justin and John also give you tips on the tribes, strategy for building a strong military and formidable city, and ideas for raiding your enemies.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm John and I'm Justin and we are experts in the internet game, Travian. Travian is really cool. It's an internet-based browser strategy world building game. Say that five times fast. It is the most popular game of its genre. There's a reason why. You start with a small village, you rule it, you nurture it, you build up your military, and eventually you can lead your armies against your opponents or build peacefully and trade with your neighbors depending on what style you like. I'm going to teach you how to actually get started though. First thing you do is go to travian.com. That's T-R-A-V-I-A-N dot com. It's something German, I don't know what it means. The next thing you do is you pick your continent, America, pick your flag, US. That will take you to the actual United States server. Next thing you do is you hit the button Register. After that, it will take you to your server choices. This is kind of important. The first two servers are basic servers. They don't have all the bells and whistles of other ones. Then there's the difference between speed and regular. The speed server is designed for people who actually want to play the game. They're going to be checking in on it every so often throughout the day. They're going to be active, things go quickly, you quickly build up, destroy other nations, communicate lots of times. You get your nation destroyed by others and then build again. The other server is for people who are only going to be checking in on it once a day or week. It's for people that are checking in on it between classes, on a coffee break or something. Only a minute or two to devote. Moving forward- after we pick our server, we pick our on-line handle, put in our email address, and put in our password. Now the on-line handle is important. If you pick a bad on-line handle, people will judge you for it and you can't change it. If you pick something silly, like once I encountered the name Tainted Angel, I personally was offended by its angstiness and silliness. I immediately went about destroying the village. Moving forward- on the bottom left, you'll be seeing the three different tribes- Romans, Teutons, Gauls. Romans devoted to balance. They have good calvary, good defenders, good offenders, can build inside and outside the village. Teutons- swarm fighters. None of their troops are particularly great, but you have tons and tons of them to call upon. Gauls- Strong defense, with a good couple offenders. If you look to your right, you'll see the starting locations. These aren't important unless you know where other people are that you know are in the game. Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast. It is theorized though that more people choose the Northern quadrants and so if you want to be interacting with more people, the northern quadrants may be better and the southern ones, less preferable. I actually didn't know that. Yes, it's true. John's more of an expert than I am. I am."