Travian Laboratory

I would hope that most of you by now are beginning to see that one large army is much more useful than multiple small armies. 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 5k hammer, you can clear 2k of defense from an idle player with ease, then go on to farm. With 5 x 1k 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 big. The question therefore arises, where do you build your hammer?

There are two answers to this question:

* The Capital Hammer
* The Non-Capital Hammer

It’s worth taking some time to consider which of these is more appropriate for you as the choice can’t 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 kick off, the primary targets of your enemies will be capitals and hammer villages. 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.

3) Feeding

In a capital hammer, feeding is easy. Most of the army will be fed from the capitals own crop production, with perhaps a supplement coming in from other villages. In a non-capital hammer the only word to describe the feeding process is nightmarish. 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. 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.

Those new to Travian might be considering that given the above, why would anyone build their hammer in a place other than their capital?

The answer is 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 a 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 can build:

In a capital Hammer: 12970 axe 5258 TKs and 2162 Cats

In non-capital Hammer: 25939 axe 10516 TKs and 2162 Cats

If you are only producing your hammer for 6 months, then your army from a capital will be maxed at (77820axe +31548 TKs). This can rightly be considered a World wonder army, especially if it has 10k+ cats, though it won’t be the largest army that the server sees. It will be consuming close to 170k of crop per hour, excluding siege and will need some serious management. This contrasts with over 150,000 axe and 60,000 TKs that you could build in the same time from a non-capital hammer, consuming upwards of 330k /hr. 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. 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, you’d do well to consider a capital hammer.

This ignores one major factor however, and that’s 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 – the catapults being little good without an escort of >100k – but 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.

As a rule of thumb, for those who are going to be constantly aggressive, 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 “OMFG! – 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 pros 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 pros with good duals, lots of gold, a friendly sitter pool and no RL (optional but useful), there is always the option of hosting both capital and non capital hammers.