[Any Player] Where Should I Build My Hammer

First Draft: C0unse1
Final Edit: Steve10

This Guide Uses Maths Based On A Normal Server. However the logic can be applied to Speed Servers.

It should be very clear to most people that having multiple small armies is much less useful than having one larger, much stronger army. That’s not to say multiple armies shouldn’t be built, but these smaller armies will usually be considered raiding armies and not hammers. By way of example, with a 25k hammer, you can clear 10k of defense from an idle player with ease, then go on to farm. However if you have 5 x 5k armies, you wouldn’t be able to clear the player. In short, your hammers are for clearing large levels of defense and to be useful your hammer must be as big as possible. The question therefore arises, where is the best place to build your hammer?

There are two possible answers to this problem.

• The Capital Hammer
• The Non-Capital Hammer 

It’s certainly worth taking some time to consider which of these is going to be the most appropriate choice for you as the decision you make cannot be easily undone and the differences between the two are huge.

There are certain factors to take into account when making your decision:

1) Vulnerability:

A non-capital hammer is vulnerable to a chiefing. A capital one isn’t. When a village gets chiefed, all the army units created from there vanish. A capital cannot be chiefed . As one who has spent a server defending a non-capital hammer as well as chiefing no small number myself, I can tell you this is a real, not purely theoretical risk. 

2) Ease of Defense

When the serious wars begin, the primary targets for your enemies will almost certainly be your capital and your hammer village/s. For those of you with non-capital hammers, this will mean having to defend two villages and not just one. That of itself may not appear so tricky, but when one considers that your non-cap hammer will most likely be -100k / hr in crop without any defense in there, you can imagine how much fun it is to also host 100k in defenders as well. Handling a village at -200k crop/hr for any period doesn’t improve your sleep patterns any. However having a capital based hammer will mean that your enemies will only have to target and cause damage to one village to be able to ruin your entire game and take you out as a threat.

3) Feeding
  

When dealing with a capital hammer, feeding is the easiest of the two. Most of the army will be fed from the capital's own crop production, with perhaps a decent supplement coming in from other supply villages. In a non-capital hammer the only word to describe the feeding process is nightmarish and extremely risky. For those without active sitters or duals, forget about it. Likewise if you don’t use gold and so are unable to NPC resources to crop, forget about it. The non-capital hammer is not for the part time Travian player, neither is a strong hammer for that matter. The concept behind feeding it is easy enough. The non-capital hammer receives constant shipments of crop from your capital, as well as all your other villages. When a non-capital army is on the march, it needs to be fed, when it’s at home, it simply reinforces your capital to make the feeding easier. It’s to allow for easier, quicker and constant feeding, that the non-capital hammer will normally be adjacent to your capital.

4) Size:

You may be thinking that there's no reason why you shouldn't build your hammer in a Capital after all I've said, but there is yet another major factor that must be considered when making a decision, and that's size. In almost all cases a non-capital hammer will be larger than a capital hammer. This is because in a non-capital hammer one can build a Great Barracks &Great Stable which effectively doubles your potential troop production (at around 3x cost). 


I use the phrase “almost all cases” advisedly as there are two resources which are King in Travian: Crop and Time. It is these which will ultimately limit the size of your army. Let us, by way of example examine Teutons. In one month a Teuton, with queues carrying on for 24 hours a day, should build:

In A Capital Hammer: 12970 Axemen 5258 TKs and 2162 Catapults

In Non-Capital Hammer: 25939 Axemen 10516 TKs and 2162 Catapults

Now if you are only producing your hammer for 6 months, then your army from a capital will find it self maxed (because of troops training times) at 77820 Axement & 31548 TKs. This on it's own can rightly be considered a World Wonder army on a normal speed server, especially if it consists of more than 10,000 catapults although it won’t be the largest army that the server will see. It will be consuming close to 170,000 of crop per hour, and that's excluding siege. Even this will need some serious crop and time management to deal with on a daily basis.

This contrasts with over 150,000 axe and 60,000 TKs that you could build in the same time period within a non-capital hammer,which would consume upwards of 330,000 Crop per hour. For most players who are able to build unimpeded for this length of time, it will be crop which ultimately limits your army. There comes a point when you simply can’t feed any more troops without a massive network of villages holding and feeding your troops. Given that the troop production is so much more expensive using a Great Barracks/Great Stable, for those who believe they can do 24/7 building for at least 6 months, if you can't afford to keep them all running then I suggest a Capital Hammer. If you can then you'll do well to choose a Non-Capital Hammer.

5) Losses Due To Usage:

So far I've ignored one major factor however, and that’s possible losses due to usage. Given the slow build time, losses from a capital hammer take a longer time to recoup and then they do so slowly. A major loss 3 months in might kill off your World Wonder army, since the catapults being little good without an escort of over 100,000. However that same loss to the escorting troops in a non-capital hammer can be rebuilt within a month, and make your world wonder army usable again.

Overview: 

As a general rule of thumb, for those who are going to be constantly aggressive, and are not seeking to build a monster army for world wonder time but rather, using it to bash enemies constantly then I would suggest a non-capital army. For those who want a monster army (and I mean “OMG! HOW DID HE BUILD THAT SIZE?”), again I’d suggest a non-capital hammer.

For the greater majority, a capital hammer is easier to manage, easier to defend and generally the safer, if smaller option. For the real professionals out there, and with sufficient advance planning, there is no reason why you couldn’t host a capital army of 100k axe and 50k TKs with 15k cats providing you with both size and safety. And finally for the real professionals with good duals, lots of gold, a friendly sitter pool and no real-life (I've never heard of the word.), there is always the option of hosting both capital and non capital hammers.