Guide: Building a Hammer

This guide is written primarily for speed servers running Travian Version 3.6, but is compatible with Travian 4 and some aspects work with Travian Classic servers. This guide has been written by Skie of the Danish Domains and edited by Steve10 & Lala of .co.uk. 

Contents:

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2: If I’m building a hammer, can I do other things?

Section 3: Choosing a tribe

- Teutons

- Romans

- Gauls

Section 4: Rams or catapults?

Section 5: Capital or normal village

Section 6: How to hide a hammer

- Keep a low profile

- Choosing your hammer village

- ‘‘Fake hammer villages”

- Keep the pop low

Section 7: Trainer or no trainer

Section 8: The end, and a few final tips

Section 1: Introduction

So you have decided to build a true WW hammer? You want to have a direct influence on the outcome of the endgame, and to kill the World Wonder dreams of other players forever? Does it sound like fun? Yes?  Then you have come to right place.

The decision to build a WW hammer is something which divides opinion amongst players. There are the players who think it's the most boring aspect of the game and it is not something that deserves any special recognition.  On the other hand, we find players who consider it an art to build up an efficient account dedicated to a single attack, which can ensure (the) victory for their alliance. 

What characterizes a WW hammer differs widely from server to server. In principle every hammer that is able to slow down a world wonder is a WW hammer. On my own domain (Denmark, .dk) a decent hammer contains a minimum of 10000 catapults (rammers are a quite a bit more complicated).  However, for a first time hammer simmer or a more casual account the following would be reasonable targets;

Teuton: 120,000 Axes and 48,000 TKs or 200,000 Clubs and 48,000 TKs

Roman: 75,000 Imps, and 52,000 EC

Gauls: 100,000 Swords, and 46,000 Haeduans

For people who have never tried to make this type of hammer before, these goals can seem a bit ambitious. But there is no reason not to be when we are planning to attack a World Wonder village defended with millions of troops. If you are fairly dedicated and have plenty of time and patience, you will quickly realize your goals.

Section 2: If I’m building a hammer, can I do other things?

This is a yes and no answer. When I made this hammer: http://travian-reports.net/dk/report/885922a4ca8 (a large hammer by any standards), I found I didn't really have the resources for doing much else except for making a secondary army to take an artefact in midgame.

Also, in the end, it really depends on the size of your account and whether you are able to train other troops on top of your WW hammer. My experience though, is that quite a lot of players are able to find the both time and resources to either build extra smaller sweeps or train a decent amount of defence besides their main, large hammer. Just like many offensive players have been able to convert their active sweeps from the midgame to a WW hammer in the endgame simply by producing an excessive amount of troops in their sweep, so it is possible to fill the role of a WW hammer in the endgame even if you start late. The amount of troops listed in the previous section can be made in just 75 days, only using the standard barracks and stables and these queues can be supported by 10 feeder villages.

Section 3: Choosing a tribe:

Teutons: The Teutons are the first choice of many offensive players due to cheap troops which can be trained extremely fast. But keep in mind their somewhat low attack values means a relatively low attack per crop ratio compared to other tribes. This can result in quite a large upkeep later on, especially when building the more extreme hammers. If crop consumption is no problem for you then clubbies are the way to go as they are the most attack per hour efficient troop in the whole game. If you prefer a more mixed playing style or just like to have some extra troops or your own defensive reserve of spears, then (the) axes might be the best choice. Worst case scenario is that you have to stop producing troops because you aren't able to feed any more troops. If you are in doubt, or this is you first time building a large hammer, I would recommend the axes. If everything is going well you are always able to switch to clubs at the cost of an upgrade in the blacksmith.


Romans: My belief is that roman hammers are quite underestimated by most of the general population of Travian players, probably due to the fact they usually contain fewer troops and don't look as impressive. Remember though that roman troops are much stronger. Imperians and Equites Caesaris are second to none in regard of attack per crop consumption. The addition of the drinking trough allows for a greater production of horses for your hammer and also decreases the crop consumption of the mounted troops, which can really tip the balance when choosing which tribe to build your hammer with. For that reason, the drinking trough should be built in both the capital, where the troops typically will be stationed before use, and in the hammer village for a significantly faster production. Romans should always choose EC over EI simply due to higher attack per hour. The EIs are a bit cheaper though, and can be used if necessary. But there is a reason why most roman hammers contain EC and that is because the roman hammers gain a lot of their overall attack value from the horses, so no reason for shortcuts here.

Gauls: Gauls are the weakest of the three races in my opinion. Gauls are mostly considered to be a defensive tribe, but that doesn't mean they aren't able to build strong hammers. They are generally chosen by players who also wish to contribute defensively to their alliance's goals or who just like the easy access to cheap phalanxes. Haeduans should be chosen over Theutates Thunder for the same reasons that Romans prefer ECs over EIs. Even though the TTs are cheaper, they don't have much use besides as a farming unit or in ghost hammers, as their attacking power is minimal (at most).

Section 4: Rams or catapults?

A general mistake which I’ve seen a lot of players make is to underestimate the value of plenty of catapults or rams. It's one of the most important things, if not the most important, to consider when we want to damage a WW village. Through the servers I’ve played I’ve seen too many impressive hammers that do not fully utilize their potential due to the lack of catapults or rams.

Before even starting on your hammer, you should have decided whether you want to build a ram or catapult hammer - do you want to tear down the wall for other players or would you prefer to destroy some of the infrastructure and/or the WW itself? As Travian has evolved, all hammers have had to evolve as well, for two specific reasons. Firstly, the reason why most WW holders are usually Teutons is their wall. It’s very durable and with the addition of an architect artefact they are quite difficult to beat down, especially if your hammer is balanced between rams and catapults.

Speaking of architects; the unique architect artefact seems to have scared a lot of WW hammer builders into not (to) building rammers anymore, because no one wants to spend several months building up for a single attack just to see a level or two being taken from the wall. On the contrary the architect’s artefact has increased the demand for great rammers and if you choose to go in that direction you will probably find that your alliance leaders will give you a high priority. But keep in mind that rammer builders, most of the time, will have to be a bit more dedicated then the other hammer builders, because you have to reach a high amount of rams to make your hammer really useful.

The most important thing when considering building a rammer is this: they should always be built by Teutons!  This is simply because of the access to the ‘‘beer festival” which increases the total attack power of your hammer by up to 10%. For that reason the Teuton players should always be the ones tearing down the walls, especially when a WW has a architects artefact.

Section 5: Capital or normal village

In general, I really don’t like using the capital for hammer production. This is simply because you are unable to build a Great Barracks or Great Stable in a capital village. However, if you have no ambitions about using those, a hammer built in the capital could be your best choice to eliminate the threat of having your hammer village conquered. The example of hammers mentioned earlier can be achieved in a capital, but bear in mind you are going need quite a lot of room when building up the crop fields to higher levels (15 cropper). 

Whilst speaking of capitals, I would like to recommend the 15 croppers because of the impressive crop production that can feed your hammer, and even help pay for troop production, until the upkeep becomes too high. If you have no problem with spending a lot of gold, and have high amount of online time, your goal should be level 19 crop fields, and should be finished around the time of the artefacts being added to the game. If, for whatever reason, you are unable to accomplish that, then you just stop at level 17 or 18. It is possible to build a hammer on an account with only a 9 cropper, but be prepared that you are probably going to have to depend on crop hotels from other players to feed and store some of your hammer.

Section 6: How to hide a hammer

One of the most important steps in the process is protecting your hammer and hopefully your alliance will always give that high priority.  Ideally the need to defend the hammer will be kept to a minimum so that the defence can be used elsewhere. And you certainly wouldn’t want to risk losing your hammer before it has even been used, right?

Keep a low profile:

Especially on a small domain, like the one that I come from, where most of the top players know each other from earlier servers and speak with one another, keeping a low profile is important. The number of people who know about your project should be kept to a minimum, and preferably you should pick an alliance where the leaders are able to keep their mouths shut.

Choosing your hammer village:

Quite a lot of players choose the village settled after their capital for to be their hammer village. If you are a known player, then there’s a very good chance that your enemy will start looking there for your hammer. So if you’re not busy with starting the hammer production you could wait and choose a later settled village. Unless you are an avid farmer you will have probably already have settled several villages before starting on the hammer itself anyway. You could also pick a village which isn't placed next to the capital (or the oases of that capital) as these tend to attract attention as well.

‘‘Fake hammer villages”:

A really smart tactic is to have one or several support villages which seem like a hammer village. That you do by building stuff like barracks, stables and the Workshop. Why? Simply because when I and others are hunting down enemy hammers, we send a lot of fakes aiming at these buildings. Even though the lone catapult gets killed in the attack, you are able to see what building it tried shooting at. If they are not in the village, they switch to a random target. If they are able to see that you only have barracks etc. in one of your twenty villages but not in any of the rest, then your hammer village is pretty much located and known to all of your enemies. There is no reason to make it that easy for the enemy.  To make it even better you can also place X amount of every offensive troop types in these villages to make it look like offensive troops are being produced in that village if scouted (or if fake reports are being leaked by a spy in your alliance). Go for a random number, and change it every time a report is generated. If they see 1k clubs, 500 TK and 200 catapults 7 days in a row, then they will probably know it's a fake hammer village.

Keep the pop low:

But population is awesome right? No! Not really, and especially not when trying to keep a low profile. Don’t build any unnecessary buildings, and tear down the buildings you don’t need any more in all of your villages. That might even add some extra morale bonus if you are attacked by a larger player. The difference might not be huge, but a little can mean the difference between life or death – so to speak. Also being in the top of the population rankings tends to attract attention which you don’t want if you’re trying to keep a low profile on the server.

Keeping the pop low also applies to your hammer village. A lone 1000+ pop village on an account screams ‘‘Here is my hammer, come get it”. Make sure your fake hammer villages are quite big, and the real hammer village is low on pop. Have you ever considered catapulting your own resource fields in the hammer village? Give it a try; make it look like some crappy feeder village.

If you are so ‘‘lucky” that the enemy takes over one of you fake hammer villages, please give him the impression that you indeed lost your hammer with the hope that he will move on to his next target on his hunt for WW hammers. Then sit back and relax knowing that you are no longer on their target list and give them a nasty surprise in the endgame, mwhaha ;-)

Section 7: Trainer or no trainer

Aaha, those nice trainer artefacts! Don't we just love 'em? Reducing the training time of troops for up to 50% - who can say no to that? Be cautious though. Trainer artefacts in general tend to attract attention from enemies. It might be that they just want your trainer for themselves or they use them to track down enemy hammers. The large and unique trainer still offers the opportunity to hide your hammer village, but the small one doesn't. If you are using a small trainer, maybe even only borrowing one from time to time, then forget everything you just learned about hiding your hammer village. In the treasure chamber they can see where all the small trainers have been, and if you got almost no offensive point they are probably expecting you to build on something big – and you will be a magnet for their attacks. This disadvantage is offset with benefits, of course. They still allow you to build even bigger hammers and in a significantly shorter period of time. But please be cautious and analyze your situation. Do you even have the resources to fully utilize the benefits of the trainer, or is your hammer growing fine as it is? Is your area secure and how far away are you nearest enemies, and are you able to gather a massive def wall before they can reach you? It is a question you really should put into consideration before deciding to use a trainer artefact. Trainers have some benefits but are the increased risks worth it in your situation?

Section 8: The end and last small tips

Hopefully, by reading my ‘‘guide”, you now have gained some insight to the whole hammer building aspect of Travian and in particular WW hammers. There are a lot of methods to use which is also the reason I haven't made it in a step-by-step style. Because the situations you can be in vary widely. The most important thing is to keep the production of troops going 24/7, be well disciplined and arm yourself with a lot of patience. Remember why you started on this project in the first place; to make a difference in the endgame and help your alliance to achieve victory. Don't use the troops intended to be your WW hammer, and you're probably going to regret if you don’t start with the catapults or rams first – it's usually them you want more of later on. The sweep itself is going to grow in a steady pace.

Criticism is welcome, and please ask if you have any questions. I hope you can use my guide in some way :)