← Gone Away
A World Called Travian
I have very little experience of online games. While I was still in England, my sons persuaded me into the online version of Halo, an excellent example of the move-quickly, shoot-to-kill, save-the-earth kind of game and I must admit that I became fairly hooked on it. But apart from that, I have tried no more than the occasional puzzle or word game.
My old reflexes cannot compete with the lightning fast reactions of teenagers playing intensely active games anyway. A large part of my enjoyment of Halo was in watching the amazing speed of my younger son, the Pootle, as he carved out a name for himself in the virtual world. Otherwise, I tended to hide in corners and bash anyone who came along.
My little village
Yesterday, however, I discovered something called Travian. And this one is right up my street; it's what used to be called a "god game".
The term came from one of the earliest of the genre, Populous, in which you assumed the role of a god with certain powers and you had to shepherd your people to take over a world in competition with other peoples. It was marvellously addictive to someone like me, since I was once deeply into chess and I love strategy games. I worked my way through all the levels and even wrote notes on the strategy required for each one.
Populous 2 saved me from my obsession. Typically for second stage game releases, the makers over-complicated the game with far too many new powers and unnecessary graphic advances. I rested on my laurels from the first iteration.
But now I have discovered Travian. For a start, it has the most important requirement of all online games: it's free. Without that, I would not have even looked at it.
That was my first mistake, of course. In looking at it, I became interested. It was fairly typical of this type of game; you start with an undeveloped village and then, by careful and strategic development of resources, you have to grow your little settlement until it can begin to compete with the villages around it. It is possible to slowly build an empire - but the operative word there is "slowly". Being an online game, everything takes time, so that you can leave the game for hours and it continues to build quietly in the background.
In fact, this makes it ideally suited to the net. Few people have hours to spare playing internet games and Travian asks only a few minutes of your time each day just to set new goals and start fresh improvements. Otherwise, it runs itself.
So the game was winning me over already. The master stroke came when I realized how simple it is. All of the other games in this genre that I have seen have included far too much complication; it is very obvious that one would have to spend days just learning how to get started in some of them. But not Travian - it is very straightforward and easy to begin and has the brilliant innovation of allowing new players a 14-day grace period in which they can develop their villages uninterrupted by attacks from other, older villages in the vicinity. Add to that a gentle learning curve and you have what I consider the perfect game.
Yes, I am hooked and already am balancing resources against usage, planning how best to develop rapidly. Less than 24 hours have passed but my little village progresses quite satisfactorily and the population grows. Of course, in two weeks' time the neighboring villages will probably gang up against me and wipe my budding settlement off the face of the earth but, for the moment, I'm happy.
Which brings me to an odd fact I noticed in playing the game: the vast majority of the players are obviously quite young. It's their chosen names that give them away - not many older people want to be known as Deathhead Slayer or Exterminator Extreme or some other bloodthirsty claim to greatness. And one gets the feeling that these youngsters have one goal in mind in the game - world conquest with as much blood spilled as possible.
It does not help that, when you have a look at the statistics for the game, you find an entry that lists the number of attacks and casualties in the game - and they're in the tens of thousands per day. Has no-one heard of peaceful co-existence at all?
Really, these young bloods ought to be off indulging in something more wholesome and active; some good old-fashioned blasting of aliens in Halo or Doom 3 would suit them far better. This business of plotting to build an empire and take over the world is for older and more sinister minds. Like mine.
Ah well, I shall just have to plan for solid defence and let them break themselves on my stone walls. And then, when they're exhausted, I shall take them over by stealth. Maybe I could get them to take out loans and mortgages from me and then foreclose before they can rebuild. There is more than one way to skin a cat, Horatio...
My old reflexes cannot compete with the lightning fast reactions of teenagers playing intensely active games anyway. A large part of my enjoyment of Halo was in watching the amazing speed of my younger son, the Pootle, as he carved out a name for himself in the virtual world. Otherwise, I tended to hide in corners and bash anyone who came along.
My little village
Yesterday, however, I discovered something called Travian. And this one is right up my street; it's what used to be called a "god game".
The term came from one of the earliest of the genre, Populous, in which you assumed the role of a god with certain powers and you had to shepherd your people to take over a world in competition with other peoples. It was marvellously addictive to someone like me, since I was once deeply into chess and I love strategy games. I worked my way through all the levels and even wrote notes on the strategy required for each one.
Populous 2 saved me from my obsession. Typically for second stage game releases, the makers over-complicated the game with far too many new powers and unnecessary graphic advances. I rested on my laurels from the first iteration.
But now I have discovered Travian. For a start, it has the most important requirement of all online games: it's free. Without that, I would not have even looked at it.
That was my first mistake, of course. In looking at it, I became interested. It was fairly typical of this type of game; you start with an undeveloped village and then, by careful and strategic development of resources, you have to grow your little settlement until it can begin to compete with the villages around it. It is possible to slowly build an empire - but the operative word there is "slowly". Being an online game, everything takes time, so that you can leave the game for hours and it continues to build quietly in the background.
In fact, this makes it ideally suited to the net. Few people have hours to spare playing internet games and Travian asks only a few minutes of your time each day just to set new goals and start fresh improvements. Otherwise, it runs itself.
So the game was winning me over already. The master stroke came when I realized how simple it is. All of the other games in this genre that I have seen have included far too much complication; it is very obvious that one would have to spend days just learning how to get started in some of them. But not Travian - it is very straightforward and easy to begin and has the brilliant innovation of allowing new players a 14-day grace period in which they can develop their villages uninterrupted by attacks from other, older villages in the vicinity. Add to that a gentle learning curve and you have what I consider the perfect game.
Yes, I am hooked and already am balancing resources against usage, planning how best to develop rapidly. Less than 24 hours have passed but my little village progresses quite satisfactorily and the population grows. Of course, in two weeks' time the neighboring villages will probably gang up against me and wipe my budding settlement off the face of the earth but, for the moment, I'm happy.
Which brings me to an odd fact I noticed in playing the game: the vast majority of the players are obviously quite young. It's their chosen names that give them away - not many older people want to be known as Deathhead Slayer or Exterminator Extreme or some other bloodthirsty claim to greatness. And one gets the feeling that these youngsters have one goal in mind in the game - world conquest with as much blood spilled as possible.
It does not help that, when you have a look at the statistics for the game, you find an entry that lists the number of attacks and casualties in the game - and they're in the tens of thousands per day. Has no-one heard of peaceful co-existence at all?
Really, these young bloods ought to be off indulging in something more wholesome and active; some good old-fashioned blasting of aliens in Halo or Doom 3 would suit them far better. This business of plotting to build an empire and take over the world is for older and more sinister minds. Like mine.
Ah well, I shall just have to plan for solid defence and let them break themselves on my stone walls. And then, when they're exhausted, I shall take them over by stealth. Maybe I could get them to take out loans and mortgages from me and then foreclose before they can rebuild. There is more than one way to skin a cat, Horatio...