Roman guide

Why Romans

Romans are supposedly the tribe for beginners, so why would you want to use some amateur tribe? Romans actually have more special features than the simultaneous construction of resource fields and buildings. Romans enjoy powerful infantry offense, infantry defense, catapults, and senators. Romans have decent cavalry offense, cavalry defense, and rams. However, Romans lack in speed, cheap troops, troop production rate, and merchants. Of course, no tribe is the best, therefore if you're willing to accept Roman's disadvantages for their advantages, then the Romans is the tribe for you.

Getting Started

Before you get serious with Travian, you should get familiar with the concept of the game, and other features. Most somewhat experienced players will register between day 1-3 of a new server. Don't make that mistake. You don't want to waste your time dealing with them and sharing your farms with them, which will eventually cost you more than a week. Instead, register your account 7-14 days after the start of the server. You'll have little or no competition within your area. If there are too many Guals or experienced Teutons, don't hesitate to delete. Once you find your ideal place, you can begin your career (this includes decent 15 croppers in your area).

Your First Week

Begin with the quests. Follow all the steps, and choose the military path. Once you have trained 2 Legionnaires, stop with the quests. Look around your area and raid the closest person that's less than 9 population and out of beginner's protection. Use the resources from your raids to obtain more troops. When you get around 10 Legionnaires, build a warehouse, granary, and eventually a marketplace. Use your marketplace to set up 1:2 ratio trades for iron. There should be excessive amounts of iron on the market, and demands for wood/clay will be very high. Use the marketplace to your advantage. Continue to train more Legionnaires until you hit 30. At this point, your next goal would be to research Imperians. You should be able to tell who's inactive and be able to kill 1-3 defenders at minimum expense. Imperians should be researched no later than a week. Once researched, start producing Imperians and raid with them. Increase your warehouse and granary to store your loots. During this whole time, you should spend all your resources when you're going to be away from your computer for a while, and send your troops out on a round trip equal to the time being away. If there's anyone raiding you (which will be quite rarely), dodge their attacks or calculate the time that their troops will return home and send an attack a second after their troops return home (this will require you to be quite active). You can also, strike them when you assume they're inactive. The earlier you kill them, the better it is; you don't want them eating out of your plates. Keep farming them until they quit. Everyone in your 7x7 should receive at least 3 attacks a day to completely hinder their growth. In other words, don't let anyone become a threat to you.

Moving Forward

Keep making more Imperians and raid with them. Upgrade your wheat fields when you need to (when your farms can't support as much wheat as you need). Once you get to 50 Imperians, start splitting your resources into 3 goals. Spend 1/3 of it on Imperians, 1/3 on resource fields, and 1/3 on researching Equites Imperatoris. While you're at it, research Equites Legati and make at least 3 of them. Use them to scout players in your 21x21 or more. You'll notice most of them will have overflowing warehouses and granaries. Calculate how many troops you need to clean them and send that many to farm them. Once you research Equites Imperatoris, keep 15 of them handy and make 1 hero. Their purpose for now is to clear Teuton armies. If you've been dodging Teuton attacks all this time (which I don't recommend) or preventing the recovery of them, you can now remove all their troops with only losing 1 or 2 Equites Imperatoris. Once you have completely dominate at least your 21x21, you can ease the troop production. Spend 3/4 of your resources into resource fields. Spend 1/4 of your resources on Imperians. You'll want to upgrade your main building because you'll almost be constantly upgrading your resource fields. If you receive attacks from outside your area of domination, then you can upgrade your city wall, and research Praetorians or offer a NAP/join their alliance. If you do stock up on defense, upgrade your wheat fields to 0 production per hour. Praetorians won't be able to raid enough wheat to help support itself. You'll find yourself low in wheat if you stock up on defense this early. If you must, keep Praetorians to Legionnaires in a 3:1 ratio.

Expansion

Once you've reached all level 8 resource fields and 1 level 10 resource field for the resource bonus buildings, you should have either completely dominate your 26x26 or allied most of the experienced players in your 26x26. An army upkeep: 150% of your population is advised. Start building your residence up to level 10. This will take almost no effort and you should be stocking up on defensive troops if you have not already joined a top 20 alliance. Bring your marketplace and academy up to at least level 10 and build a town hall. Party everyday while you're getting ready for your second village. Your second village can be anything within your 26x26. Send supplies to fund your new village. When you have almost enough culture points for a 3rd village, start building a level 10 residence/palace in your second village and found a 3rd village. By your 3rd village, you should at least have 1 15 cropper with at least 100% wheat oasis bonus. Your 2nd and 3rd village should be next to each other. Your first village should slowly be fading into a defensive troop factory. Your 15 cropper should take the role as your main offensive village. Found 1-3 more villages (they'll act as feeders). Research senators and siege weapons. Party everyday, you can never have too much culture points.

Beyond

Start conquering villages to increase your power. Your 15 cropper should slowly be fading into a storage; main building, 7 warehouses, stonemason, marketplace, trade office, mill, bakery, and 7 granaries. The village next to your 15 cropper will become your main offensive army; main building, 3 warehouses, hero's mansion, barracks, stable, siege workshop, great barracks, great stable, tournament square, palace, town hall, and 7 granaries. You should have a 15 cropper or a 9 cropper for the purpose of raiding. All your other villages will serve as feeders or production of defensive troops. Increase your power.

Troop Review

Your main defensive army should have 35% Legionnaires and 65% Praetorians. Infantries will usually be favoured over cavalry in the early servers. If you can get a Teuton friend to supply you with Spearmen, then change the ratio to 5:4 (Praetorians:Spearmen). Eventually, you should have 1:1 (infantry:cavalry defense) when cavalries become more affodable to everyone.

Your main raiding force should be made of Equites Imperatoris. They're the Roman's best raiders. Have some Imperians if needed.

Your main offensive force should consist of Imperians, Equites Caesaris, and Battering Rams. Have the same/other villages send in Fire Catapults/Senators with escorts after your clearing wave.