Cyp's beginners guide to endgame: part 1 before it starts and how to get ww

I have seen many guides... guides to offensive gauls, guides to defensive teutons, political guides, economical ones & military ones. But only guides to endgame I have found so far is few quite small ones explaining basics. With this guide i would like to encourage more medium/small sized alliances to run for WW - it is interesting adventure, defending it and offense planning to fight for victory will (hopefully, if you don’t kill each other :P) tighten your team and make you better player.


The basics of this guide was written in 2008 for inside use in alliance and as reference for future servers because yes you do forget things. Back then due to turn of fate I become part of leadership of not big alliance holding WW. And yes, that was my first server. We had to learn fast and furious, we made mistakes, we found new solutions, by trial&error path we solved challenges. And I decided to write down things that we did & things that we should have done. Now after 3 more endgames where one time we came second and one time our WW won and third time we were beaten in to bits and pieces :D, i have updated the guide and fine-tuned it from additional experience. Opinions are welcomed, forgive mistakes and point them out so they can be fixed.


The guide is meant for people with basic travian knowledge, so I use slang freely. Tried to not use purely it and call things in official names, but I don’t think I succeeded. If there is anything requiring clarification, please speak up, ill monitor the thread for some time.
And yes, its for t3. Still some ideas might be applied in t4 I guess too. And I have hope that t3 wont die out ;)

Before it starts...

for alliance running for WW the run for victory starts long before actual endgame. I won’t talk about quad dominationand diplomatical ties, youll need them too, but this is guide on WW and how tobuild it.

(read more after jump)

Month or two before natars come start to prepare infrastructure.

a) Choose WW holder. Choose backup. I strongly suggest to NOT take WW holder account with WW hammer with serious negative crop. Thologic says there will be many eyes on account, WW is fulltime thing, I grant you, people WILL forget to feed hammer. Also account owner must be ready that account wont be his anymore – the leadership will run the show, sitters will walk in and out, igms will be public domain etc. I must admit, least painful endgame I had was when WW was held by defense account.

Tune their accounts to WW holding -

• treasuries in as many cities as possible, hero mansions there and multiple granaries (that will be needed for plans - to hold them (treasuries) to move them from one city to another (hero mansions) and reinforcements hosting (granaries))
• Culture points. WW holder will need CP and many of them. I suggest to have them for 3-5 cities. Nothing would be more noobish than get "You don't have enough culture points" message when going after WW village

b) check offenses. You will need to clear natars defenses. They are not best defenders but cleaning them might sting ;) Choose wise armies to use for it - preferably ones where owners have issues with feeding them. Also dont pick alliances fanciest WW hammers - choose black or meat hammers. Remember you wont need rams or catas so keep those rammers and cataers at home. Natars is a chance to use that army that newbie built and offense coordinator forgot to whip him in to shape with more catas. Also, if you have here and there troops, like 10k tts, 20k clubbies – between scraps like that you can arrange natar clearing party quite easily.

Remember you will need to conquer this village so keep senators handy and CPs in offenses ready.

c) Guide overall alliance development to fit endgame needs -

• first and most important, educate people about endgame (I assume that alliance has certain level of newbies and noobs,all-elite small alliances usualy do not run for wws and definately dont need guide for that :P) Gather nice collection of videos and screenshots from different WWs so people will get an idea how it is and how essential regular supplies of crop and defense is.
• never forget to remind and check if defenders are upgraded. Def below level 20 in armory is just crop eaters waiting to become xp for enemy hero,
• run MMs and checkups on marketplaces and trade offices for WW supplies. You'll be surprised to find out how many players have limited ability to move resources around in large amounts.
• Remind to save CPs, make settlers for instant clustering around chosen WW spot. faster alliance settles & grows villages there, better it is - faster they will become full scale WW suppliers.(this more aplies to nonspeed server. I havent played ww at speed so cant tell exactly, but i suspect alliance wide settling around ww is less profitable and needed there).

d) talk through and make WW team - sitters and owners. It will greatly vary depending on ww owner you choosed, but ww account needs 24/7 coverage with people on skype. They need to talk same language, not be nuts or crazy and be totaly trusted. Also putting two enemies or players with personal issues between them on ww team is bad bad idea.

Few thoughts on WW holder and their race.

This issue has been discussed here and there, so i wont go in great depths. Just some thoughts :)

What I hear usually is that teuton tribe has strong but not so effective wall, romans has effective wall but paper thin and gauls are average on both. Also there is a concept that people slack on rammers - I wish so! All last servers i have played, there were decent rammers on picture,so dont rely on it.

Well...WW race is about using every advantage you have... And I dont see a single advantage gaul has in WW holder, so for me gaul as WW holder means that alliance leaders or some important player was just pushy and wanted to hold ww despite being a gaul. Or that none wanted it and poor gaul was only one who missed the time to scream NOOOOO and now ended with WW monster on his/her hands.

Now about advantages.

Teuton advantage, hands down, is durability of their wall. It will stand almost no matter what and that is handy bonuses if you expect to have loads of average sized attacks. Low level rammers will die in shame without scratching wall.Teuton is good choice if your oponents are closer to noobs/newbies, if you expect to get a lot of red sworded love. Real drawback of teuton account is the crop - you have to count in cropfields building time in overall infrastructure timeline.

Romana advantage is their ability to build resources and infra same time. It not just lets you to don't waste extra time on cropfield building, but those ironfields are handy to throw off balance enemy. your population will change in such chaotic fashion (especially if you dont build all fields at beggining but build them now and then) that they will beat their heads against keyboard trying to figure out what is going on there and in what state your infrastructure is.Another plus for roman is insane bonuses their wall provides - if you manage to remove rammers out of picture, hammers will die like flies on your wall. (look to how to defend ww offensively for info on how to remove rammers out of picture). Drawback - wall is paperthin... if its down, its down and your def is sitting there bonussless... With artchitects arty roman wall durability is quite higher (but so is teutons)

potential advanced technique.

I havent seen it used, but i have been playing with idea lately... WW needs cropfields too and time needed to get them in proper lvl can cost you victory... So I have been toying with idea to make first roman chief WW, get cropfields up along with infrastructure and then get teuton rechief it to maximize wall durability bonuss. Edited – I have seen it being done ;) there is lot of questions to ask yourself if you consider this technique:

- political layout (you will need ww undefended for some time)

-location of ww (same as above - will enemy be able to sneak in?)

-chiefting penalty – the roman who takes ww should be bigger then final holder – then youll avoid pop-loss when chiefting

-dont waste time on wall at first, it will be lost in rechiefting

etc

One account, two, three WWs.

Lately with artifacts playing such a role in WW race, having 2 and more WWs in one account seems to be new mainstream of travian. I'll be honest, never been on team like this so I cannot share how it is. Logic says that there is surely certain benefit, especially when (a) alliance wants maximize use of unique artifact (b)alliance is low on artifacts and simply don't have enough them to supply all WWholders. As for drawbacks - double all preparation, CP requirements and stress on WW team. Anyone having 2 WW holding experience first hand - please share :)

Natars are here but they cannot be attacked!!!!!

Its time to prepare battlefield.

a) Alliance wide - start immediate settling around desired spot if you choose this path.feed new cities with resources, make donation program to new villages if there is old&developed alliance villages close. Make system to reserve settlingspots.

b) potential WW holder - Its time to check travel times searching for fastest WW village conquering plan. Check WW holder- may be because of distance it need to be someone from backup, not original one. Also – maybe ww holder can chief allied village close to cut travel time.

c) oponents - watch your desired WW surroundings. cata away all potential danger. Last thing you want is enemy teuton with clubbies raiding your WW feeder villages like 2$ circus pony...

d) another thing to discuss if you need it -make raiders citadels around WW. preferably gauls close to WW make TTs ( other tribes- fastest raiders) as hammers are lost there will be many many capitals owerflowing with crop what merchants cannot carry away. in those villages make TS & TO as high as possible so you can raid crop and send to WW.

e) Depots... It is depots developing time. I would like to talk about depots in more depth.

What is depot? Depot is village belonging toWW holder located in next tile to WW (for fancy setup make some 3-5 depot villages in different distances) You NPC res to crop there and showel to WW.

Depots will serve you good and be your best friends when feeding WW. remember no NPC trades in WW village ;(. So you will ask for alliance to send resources to depots and gold them to crop to be sent to WW. Also depots will be primary source of res if you will lack some 100kiron for next ww level.

There is 2 options how to create depots, wich to choose depends on you

- Assigned ww holder settles AT LEAST 2 spots directly adjacent to WW.

- volunteer with high online rate, gold,knowledge and/or ability to follow orders settles there. Now with change of rules the unlimited push aplies just to WW village so you can choose who will own those villages - WW holder who will chief them once developed (benefit -sitter/acc owner has easy access to crop and can use donated gold to NPC) or someone from sitter team or just trusted player (preferably leadership) with high online time setles there and send crop to ww after WW team asks (benefits- skip the mess with chiefting village, maybe evens out gold usage among accounts)

no matter who settles it, the development is pretty the same. You need to turn those villages in black holes of NPC with maximum amount of resource&crop storage capability. My strong suggestion isto pass arty what lets build GWH and GG to player making depots. What to build there? I suggest nice mix of GHWs GGs and WHs and GGs. Aim for overall around 1mill storage of each resource. More to crop. Why mix of great storage buildings and normal ones? enemies will almost 100 % sure send you some cata greetings to those villas. So you want to maintain at least some storage even if all your GGGWH goes puff. Mandatory in those villages - MP and TO to 20. Ask for alliance push in preWW time to those villages so you can get infra ready.

WARNING!

Beware that offense holders & potential WW holder dont get too settling happy!

They will need culture points to get WW village ;)

WW conquering

There are some points to remember:

a) There is no residence in Natars village. There is also no wall at natars ww village.

b)Loyalty in Natars village is lowered same as in any other village. So count senators accordingly. Still... Add some extra, preferably with very small escorting force to arrive before WW holder arrives. That way even if one of them takes village, WW holder will overrun defense & retake it.

Note - dont worry about player from same wing/other wing taking WW - if loyalty is at 0 chiefs will work like charm.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE - none has cancelled chiefting penalty. So all chiefs who has a chance to chief WW need to be bigger then WW holder (should be like this biggest players chiefs-bigger players chiefs-big players chiefs-WW holders chiefs who is smallest of all in terms of pop)

c) timing... WW village conquering from natars should be timed very very precisely & conquering time have to be TOP SECRET. there is nothing more humiliating than rival galloping in 5 mins after you conquered ww village and reconquering it from you and trust me, if i knew time and would be able to run in time i would simply love to mess rival around like this. Keep it secret & make this conquering to happen fast. Real fast.

d) defending. WW needs to be defended minutes after conquering. but same time asking defenders in that exact time in mass message is bad idea because

• there definitely are spies and look at point above
• there will be definitely mistakes,reinforcements sent as attacks, reinforcements sent earlier and nicely sniping WWholders-to-be chiefs (btw reinforcements sent to natar village before conquering bounce back).

Take defensive battle group or group of defensive players that you trust most - they will be the ones reinforcing minutes after last chief. Then make alliance wide call for defenses some time after chiefting. You can even change defense arrival time to each alliance wing thus getting some insight in potential info leaks ;)

e)feeding. Remember you will get village that is empty from resources! I don't suggest call alliance wide for resources, it will simply overflow warehouses. Ask same players providing first line of defense & sending hammers to time in few merchants with resources. Call for crop to feed defenders alliance wide. But call small chunks, like >8k crop incoming constantly.

f) Deceit of WW race. There is great deal of PR & deceit in WW race... During WW conquering there is few things that can make your WW look weaker & your alliance more noobs so redirecting other alliances attention away. Cata res fields. Carefully carefully players that have proven that they can time & aim cata attacks include few small hammers with cata shoots to resource fields. DONT TOUCH CROP, you will need it, but rest can be cataed. don't take chances, better cata less then cata something neccessary. Then spread the rumor that you were total NOOBS & during conquering cataed MB, WH, G & cropfields ;)

g) security meassures. This is the point where wiews are polarized. So each time its different. If you have long travel time or due to some reasons come to conquer WW village late... You might want to time in small cata attack aimed to residence & palace. In case if someone just before you get in & kicked up one of those buildings. aim those catas right after cleaners but before senators & resource fields cataers. If there is no residence & palace catapults will take wild shoot &probably damage infrastructure. This is controversional point, so decision is up to you. Alternative - have close player locked and ready and cleaner (even without catas) also ready and ask potential WW holder to send another chief with small cleaner to land in time what those catas and cleaner will need to arrive there. So then if you see that siht has happened and someone snatched your WW -send cleaner and catas before last chiefs. If siht wont happen, chief will justdie on your timed defense.

In next part... what to do when you have ww, what to build and when