Ramblings of a Travian-Obsessed Freak

Cora's Artifacts Prediction

2010-10-03T00:30:00.001-07:00

An unknown noob will arise one day and notice an artifact village a few squares away from his cluster in the boonies. Excited, said noob will send countless of his infantry troops from every village to their death in an attempt to gain the artifact. After a massive bloodshed, the noob will finally conquer the artifact.

A few hours later, a cry of ****strated anger can be heard throughout the s1 world as someone who had sent his hammer out for hours found his troops attacking an abandoned artifact village. After recovering from his fit of apoplexy, angry dude would run to leadership with cries of, “Omfg do something!!!”

Leadership will tell the noob to return the artifact.

Noob will get on forums and go emonerdrage, accusing leaders of favourtising big players.
Flaming occurs, dereps fly.

Finally, another noob will arise and join in the flaming thinking it’s the fastest way to be cool on the Travi-forums.

Forum veterans will not be impressed by this attempt at gaining Travian street cred and yell, “IGN or gtfo!”

After which some lone dissenter will yell, “Tits or gtfo!” in an attempt to be unique (I’m looking at you guys, Baron, El Che, itsme & elfuaso)

If original noob poster is female, this will be followed with enthusiastic cries of, “MOAR B00BZ!!!”, if male, there will be horrified cries of, “Hell no!!! If I want to see moobs, I can take of my shirt and look down.”

Somehow, someone will manage to link the current drama to palistus vs Luissss drama and more flaming ensues.

Aquias will eventually post in an attempt to be the sole voice of reason, only to discover forum goers prefer irrational, shrill drama *****s, and only tolerate him cuz he’s fun to sexually harass.

The report abuse button would once again be abused and the fury of the mods will descend upon the s1 forums.

Threads will be locked. Threads will be deleted. The forum is once again dead.

How to tell an alliance will collapse

2010-04-04T01:56:00.001-07:00

1. Teut heavy.

Most likely a few players who got to the top just because they are Teuts and can churn out cheap troops, not through any skill at all. And of course, this usually leads to...

2. Preferential treatment for a few big, offensive players.
Which means you have very few defense and a lot of unhappy smaller players. The few anvils they have will probably get few respect and are dying to jump ship. Usually, only the big, offensive players get any leadership position which means...

3. Clique-y leaders.
Who are probably out of touch with the dissatisfaction within their ranks and make mistakes such as asking for defense only for themselves. Rebellion otw. And of course the leaders thought they're doing great because they're...

4. Recruiting much too fast.
This is when all sorts of trash gets into the alliance. Farms, inactives, spies, etc. All you get is a bunch of accounts who do nothing but whine when they get attacked, waste precious defensive troops and add fuel to the flame when people get pissed. And obviously, there will be big players pissed over farms getting in.

And that's a shortcut to finding out if your alliance is about to collapse.

idx: This has got to be the most retarded strategy ever.

2010-03-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

So remember when I got pissed over being told to get rally point lvl 15 in every village? I got told why.

So. In idx, the limit is 10 attacks/rally point lvl. So their strategy is to send 100+ waves from every village (using a script, of course) until the player gets 5K+ attacks. At that point, the rally point won't be able to load.

I hate this server.

That's a retarded and unethical strategy.

idx: Here's some bad advice...

2010-03-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

So...I got MM-ed this:

Translation:

Those with support villages should have rally point lvl 15...A MUST...this is useful for the faker machine that will be controlled by our friend.

Remember...support village rally point lvl 15..

The more support villages, the more fake attacks that can be used...a necessity..

Tina

Holy crap this is so fucking stupid I can't believe this alliance is on top with leaders like this. Oh and this leader multiaccounts and bots. He told me. Wasn't even ashamed of it.

1. Why do we need a high level rally for fakes??? We're not hitting anything and our enemies certainly won't be able to see that our one cat fake is capable of hitting the marketplace or the wheat fields!!

2. Fakes from support villages? Any idiot can tell those are fakes!!

3. You're really going to waste resources training cats and building up rallies in support villages? WTF.

Damn I need to destroy this server.

Chiefing Questions

2010-03-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

Here's some answers to weirder chiefing questions that I have a harder time finding answers to:

Will the chief still work without the residence/palace? I have 3 chiefs already but the palace got catted down.

Yes. And it can still chief. But of course, if that chief dies and you want it back, you have to rebuild. I just lost my 3rd chief in my hammer because I overestimated how much loyalty the village I was chiefing has and the chief from my hammer ended up chiefing the village. Yes, I have to rebuild the palace from level 0 to 20 to get it back.

Does this mean I can have unlimited 3 chief forces?

Yes. But it's kinda expensive resource wise. I suggest just building a palace lvl 15 (since it's cheaper than res lvl 20), train 2 chiefs, demolish the palace and repeat in tons of villages.

What happens when you chief your own village?

Say Village A founded village B. You want to free up expansion slots in Village A so you chief Village B using chiefs from Village C. What happens is:

- Building levels stay the same
- Your wall disappears
- Building queues end (yeah...I was kinda annoyed since I was 1 min away from getting a warehouse upgrade and just spent resources for a lvl 10 TH)

idx: More cheating.

2010-03-28T05:07:00.000-07:00

So...today, I was MM-ed this conversation:

For non-Indonesian speakers, this is the translation:

I hate how people brag about cheating here.

Sent a letter to the MH...doubt anything will happen.

idx: Wow...people manage to still suck while cheating.

2010-03-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

In the alliance skype room. More confessions of multi-accounting and botting. Everyone's proud of it too. And guess what? They're still sucking at Travian.

idx: Omfg Travian on Twitter??

2010-03-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

Just part of the obsession with social networking sites in Indonesia imo.

Ok, I know people are obsessed with social networking sites but in Indonesia, (actually, Singapore's like that too...in Asia i guess?) people are OBSESSED.

idx: lol...and it's OVER

2010-03-25T16:25:00.001-07:00

The alliance leader sent this final MM before dismantling the entire alliance...basically bawwwing about how it's useless having an alliance since people went ahead and grabbed artifacts for themselves XD.

idx: Must. Think. Positive.

2010-03-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, I guess I'm sounding too negative so I should write down the pros of playing in a noob server...

1. No one ever attacks me at night.
2. I could chief someone over the phone. (yeah...I had a 5 sec lag and it still worked!)
3. I could play mostly solo.

Oh what the fuck. It's frustrating but I wanna destroy as many people as possible because this server has come to embody everything I absolutely loathe about Indonesia.

idx: Chiefing woes...

2010-03-24T08:17:00.001-07:00

Why is it that every time I chief a cropper, it turns out to be crap? This is the 3rd 15c I've chiefed that is pure crap.

Yes it has all the bonus buildings maxed out before I chiefed it...and no flour mill or bakery.

Sigh. I pick all these 200-300 pop croppers thinking they should have maxed out fields and noooo. I end up with a lot of lvl 4-7 wheat fields and maxed out iron, clay & wood fields. People here are pure noobs. This is how bad my villages were:

1st chiefed village:
Max wheat field level: 5
7 maxed out crannies. Flour mill was only at lvl 3.

2nd chiefed village:
Max wheat field level: 8 (only 1 though...most were at lvl 5
All the bonus buildings present...except bakery. Flour mill was again, only at lvl 3.

3rd chiefed village:
Max wheat field level: 10 (but just 1. Everything else was at lvl 3)
This is the village that pic above came from. It was a 315 pop 15c...

Again, every bonus building...except wheat ones. Flour mill and bakery were non existent.

Aaaauuughhh!!!

us4: Survivor's on!

2010-03-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

Playing the Survivor game...first challenge is to win the most spam XD

idx: Rawrrr. I hate this server.

2010-03-22T08:42:00.001-07:00

Ok. Haven't been able to buy gold for more than 2 days and my support emails has gone unanswered. Laziest, crappiest servers ever. Definitely the last time I will play on the Indonesian servers.

idx: I hate cheaters.

2010-03-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

Apparently a lot of my alliance members are botting. I hate cheaters.

idx: doomsday.

2010-03-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

That's right. 3 gold left. This is what I've done to get gold:

- Asked someone from the US to log in and buy gold

- Asked someone to create an account and buy me gold as sitter

- Tried setting up a bank transfer (but that takes at least 2 days)

- Signed up for a moneybooker's account, but when it came to verifying the transaction amount my bank (BCA..those fucktards rely on being a big Indonesian bank and fail at everything else.) screwed up. They gave me a guesstimate of "$2.50" when the transaction was $2.66. So my account is banned for a day.

Yes, I'm about to die.

So now I'm just building as much granaries as possible and hoping I can survive without the plus page.

us4 & idx: AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

2010-03-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

GOLD PURCHASE IS NOT WORKING!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

us4: Wrote another one...

2010-03-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

S&M Upgrades Investment Grade of Various Noob Alliances

Due to extremely poor returns and high chances of default, these alliances have always received extremely poor ratings. But recently based on baseless assumptions, that should be trusted (hey, it worked for subprime mortgages) S&M, the official s4 credit rating agency has upgraded various noob alliances from "so far below investment grade, it's off the charts" to just "way below investment grade".

However, investors who have shipped thousands of resources only to find them being used recklessly by alliance leaders disagree with the upgrade and insists S&M review their assessment. Investors who have left the alliance several thousand resources poorer compares the alliance to companies like Enron & Tyco, only with worse returns. Currently, there is a class action lawsuit against various noob alliances leaders, charging them with fraud.

"To be honest, our analyst just got annoyed seeing investments classified as "so far below investment grade, it's off the charts"," shares an S&M employee who wishes to remain annonymous, "It makes printing the chart a pain."

Given the Success of the Chaoses, Others Follow Suit

s4 is gripped by the trend of having over 9000 duals after observing the success of the Chaoses. However, many have found that success hard to replicate as accounts halt to a standstill while duals headlock due to extremely large egos. Most accounts end up with troops suicided on themselves to emo music playing on the background and queues started, cancelled, restarted and re-cancelled repeatedly.

An iPhone app has been released to help duals keep track of their allotted 1 minute on the account once every three days. The app has a "Get the **** OFF." function where users' iPhones will start playing any of the High School Musical movies should users go past their allotted time slot.

"We found that most people's knee jerk reaction to watching High School Musical movies is to smash something," explains one of the app creators, "A thousand of smashed phones later, people realize that this was the best way to get their 8999 duals off the account. There's a Twilight version beta out right now and we found that it's also as effective. You should check it out!"

Editor's Note:
To the app creator kind enough to grant us the interview, our reporter sincerely apologizes for smashing your face at this point of the interview. But to cut the crap, can you just give us your name since we forgot what it is and we apparently need it for one of those "journalistic integrity" bull****??

idx: Yes, I know....:)

2010-03-17T09:38:00.001-07:00

So, remember that preachy noob? Well, he started catting my smallest village. I'm sorry, I don't see the point of defending a 15 pop village against a solo wave of 1K swords and 10 cats over and over again.

It got hella annoying though, so guess what I did?

Yeap. Biggest loser of the day. I 0-ed his cap (which is also his hammer) and chiefed his cropper. Now he's left with his spawn and a wheatlocked village that's about to be 0-ed as soon as my cats land in an hour.

Thank you. I know. I am a bitch :)

EDIT: 0-ed that village. He now only has a 588 pop spawn. He's down to rank 4716. :P

idx: Stupid noobs :(

2010-03-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

Why is every village I chief in idx utterly crap??? That village is a 15c. Yes. It has bonus buildings for the clay, iron & wood. Oh and the wheatfields? Only 5 were built..and the maximum is 7 (so I guess they were at lvl 8 previously..still bad).

At least it's better than the 6 crannies I found in the previous village. F-ing noobs.

idx: How could I forget...

2010-03-16T03:29:00.001-07:00

....the sweet sound of my cats rolling to destroy an annoying asshole?

idx: Noobs trying to preach

2010-03-12T15:12:00.001-08:00

Omfg I just got preached at by a noob. So here's a summary of how the IGM thread went:

Noob:
Why are you attacking me when I have never attacked you? Why can't we be friends?

(nope..he attacked me before)

Me:
I just don't like people in my area, especially those with offensive troops.

Noob:
Why do you say that? Maybe I attacked you before but that was simply to show you how it feels like to be attacked. I'm sure you yourself have offensive troops so why won't you let anyone else have them, bro?

(are you fucking fucktarded, noob?)

Me:
I'll just use English because this language is too hard. This is a war game, I'm protecting my territory.

Ok, I'm proud of myself for staying patient.

idx: Operation Failsauce

2010-03-09T07:45:00.001-08:00

Due to being in a 3rd world country, everyone using my service provider lost internet browsing service on their mobile phones for more than 6h (and I'm using the largest service provider that practically monopolizes this market. Yeah. Don't you just love 3rd world countries?). This alliance immediately took the opportunity to try to take me out as my raiders started coming home.

Oh dear. I'm doooooomed.

So here's the results:

I shall not comment further.

idx: Are you noobs fucking shitting me????

2010-03-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

Ok. So a bunch of noobs decided to settle all around me and obviously I did to them what anyone would do to any noob...I farm and chief them. And every single fucking noob I farmed, I've gotten an IGM from my team-mates going, "Dude! They're my vassals!"

THEY'RE TROOPLESS, MORONS!!!

Oh, and even better. I chiefed a 200 pop 15c and guess what? The guy only had fields up to lvl 4 (so they were lvl 3 when I got it). I'm serious. Oh and he has 6 crannies. The pop was all from the marketplace (lvl 9), academy (lvl 16) and other useless buildings. The guy didn't even have much of an army! Like less than 500 troops. ON SPEED. It's been over a month!

idx: This is NOOOOBBBVIIILLLLEEEE!!!!!

2010-03-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

"Actual translation (with imitated crappy absence of punctuation):

to create battle Groups use your capital/mini hammer coordinates

do not ever leak or tell anyone your MAIN HAMMER coordinates

try to have 2 hammers (mini & main hammer)

as much as you can, use your mini hammer for war

regard"

Maybe it's just cuz I have a long day/I've been frustrated by my inability to understand (fine..."inability to find an interest in" is a more accurate description) financial markets..that's why I snapped when I got this.

Wow. No shit, Sherlock. Captain Obvious to the rescue. If you must teach noobs, this is a bad idea. Teach them what the fuck a hammer should be.

Tranlation:

"for those of you nearby" please send defensive troops to

(98|-25)

thx"

Two noob IGMs in a day. No, within half a day. I wanna smash someone's face.

idx: Hero Food! Yay!

2010-02-28T15:44:00.001-08:00

Noobs. Everyone in my area still defend against my attacks...not knowing that the point is to get hero food, not resources XD

It's so sad.

idx: omfg haaalllppp!!!!

2010-02-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

Oh my gods I'm under attack!!!!

Yes, this alliance called BRO PETE decided to attack me en masse. Looks like very bad coordination between a few players. And so far, I'm wiping out most of their troops XD

So now I'm sending them annoying IGMs just cuz it's sooo fun...which one do you think will get me more attacks?

a) Awww! Ran out of troops?

b) You're just too cute! I'm going to let your troops live <3

c) Wowww.....are you trying to convince me you can't play or do you actually suck this much?

Yes, I'm a bitch :P

us4: Dangers of Sleep Deprivation

2010-02-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

Gah. Ended up reining a farm instead of raiding. Never raid while I'm sleepy. Ever.

idx: Membership "Donations" wtf???

2010-02-27T02:25:00.000-08:00

Ok. So my alliance keeps asking for resource donations. At this stage. Whatever. I know it's because it's either:

a) A noob alliance with a few aggressive high-pop Tuets

or

b) A noob alliance controlled by a few aggressive high-pop Tuets who would suck the noobs dry and then pick up the best and leave.

or

c) It's sim-city idx culture.

I'm kinda hoping it's b.

Anyway, I just got an IGM asking for a minimum 200-1h worth of resources for "pembayaran kontrak selama tinggal" (contracted payment for your stay). WTF.

idx: i iz noob

2010-02-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

I slept through my alarm since I was sick and i couldn't get my raiding party to dodge.....lost 70 swords ._.

us4: Onion once again..and new plan

2010-02-22T16:21:00.001-08:00

Wrote another Onion article..

I think from now on, anytime someone asks if it's me on my avi, I'm just going to tell them it's just a pic of some girl I stalk constantly :P

Gods...I remember the first time I ever posted on a forum...saw tons of flaming and thought an RL avi would make people feel like they're not talking to a computer and behave more human....yeah I was a noob ._.

What happens when you're a girl is, people assume you're an attention whore and you get a shitload of flaming. And what happens when you're non-white is, you get tons of racial attacks too.

Well now it'a a "fuck you guys I'm not gonna change and hell yes, I'll photowhore more." XD

idx: Aannnddd...they can't attack

2010-02-20T17:41:00.001-08:00

Not that I'm surprised, but my top-pop, top-attacker & top-robber alliance can't attack. I just got an IGM that translates to:

"Dear GN Fam,

It's time we call for attack (CFA) on our enemies that tries to bother our friends. Here's the CFA:

1. CST004 [this is the alliance name, not a landing time btw.), without ETA, please send Catas to destroy the village (6 wheat fields, rally point, MB, barracks, marketplace). For those near the village, you must send an attack with cats. If you don't have enough cats, send an army to raid all his villages.

http://speed.travian.co.id/karte.php?d=347313&c=e4

(79,-33)"

Holy fucking shit I can't believe how nooby this alliance is. No fakes, no landing time...holy fucking shit.

idx: wow...indo server is full of noobs

2010-02-20T07:44:00.000-08:00

Possibly the saddest link ever:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30530016&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=312021179536&aid=-1&oid=312021179536&id=1399579664#!/photo.php?pid=30385823&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=312021179536&aid=-1&oid=312021179536&id=1399579664&fbid=1151906443392

The caption translated to English says: Insane, so many troops

Every comment goes on about how impressive that is. THAT'S FROM A SPEED SERVER!!!

This was my hammer when I played usx on the Seymour account:
http://travian-reports.net/us/raport.php?id=2312916c98b

idx: The Server is Full of Imbeciles

2010-02-18T16:05:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's 3 imbeciles around me...

idx: Random thought....

2010-02-16T07:22:00.000-08:00

You know...this thought has been gnawing at me for some time. With how cheap labour is in Indonesia, I wonder how many people get their maids to raid for them....

I mean, this is how cheap labour is in Indonesia: a 1h massage is $6. A live in maid will cost you less than $100/mth.

Since 600 gold is 1/4 the price of a live in maid for a month, I really wonder how many Travian players figured they could hire a night time sitter for the price of 600 gold...

idx: Happy Lunar New Year!

2010-02-14T04:53:00.000-08:00

Hehehe...so...it's Lunar New Year and idx decided to have a truce much like .us' Xmas truce. Yeah. So no raiding at all during early game. Pretty sucky, especially since hammers aren't big enough to really benefit from the no starvation bit. So guess what I've been doing?

Yeap....it's the perfect time to spy on my neighbours. Since there's no raiding, everyone's troops are at home and I get a pretty good view :P

No one seems to believe in scouts here...only one of my scouts died...everything else came back fine.

us4: More Onion Articles

2010-02-13T14:51:00.001-08:00

Same as what I wrote in the forums....

Noobs Learn From Dirty Old Men
Noob alliances have decided to employ a new strategy to boost their ailing numbers: recruiting everyone.

“We got the idea from looking at interactions at bars,” explained one alliance leader who wished to remain anonymous to avoid being farmed, “I’m sure all of us have noticed how there’s always an old dude who hits on every girl, no matter how obese, ugly or out of his league she is. Eventually, they hit a girl with the right amount of intoxication and low self-esteem and they finally score a hit!”

“This method works,” concurs another noob who wished to remain anonymous for the same reasons, “We’ve gotten lucky enough to find some people playing Travian drunk and convinced them to join our alliance. Sure they leave immediately once they’re sober enough to check their stats out but for a while, we get to see our rankings boosted up!”

Reactions to this new policy is mixed. Many players have started a support group for those who were traumatized by the blow to their self-esteem when they saw their noob alliance membership once they’re sober enough to check stroke their ego by refreshing the stats page every 5 minutes. Many more are too ashamed to report the incident.

Rumours has it that top players such as Entity and Knights Templar are beginning to crack under the pressure of having to deal with additional noob mail.

The Travian Moral Police, however, are pleased as more and more players swear off alcohol and/or decide to engage in some RL white knighting and defend women they hope they could score with from dirty old men.

RED Insist People Get Educated
RED alliance members are getting annoyed with people not understanding their alliance page.

“Really, it’s not that hard to learn a bit about history!” ranted an increasingly agitated Dusty Bottoms, “Red Menace refers to communism and has absolutely nothing to do with that time of the month!! And it’s Lenin!!! Not Linen!!!! And I really don’t want to know what happened to your linen whe-“

The interview got cut off when he attempted to strangle our reporter for pointing out that Lenin does look like a typo of Linen.

Featured Alliance Profile

idx: 2nd village!

2010-02-11T07:20:00.001-08:00

Finalement!

idx: It's a Gaming Forum. =/= Social Networking

2010-02-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

The idx forums are kinda annoying. It's like people use it as substitute facebook or something.

Percentage of people using RL pics, no matter how fugly they are: ~75%
Percentage of those people being able to play Travian: ~20%

Seriously people. It's a gaming forum!!!

Tons of people put personality quiz results on their signatures.
Shitload of threads going, "Hi!!! I'm [insert name of 16 yr old girl..or a dude who acts like a 16 yr old girl]!!!"
No one shares their IGN.
And there's a girl who can't play (who the hell ends up in the 6000s rank??) and claims to be from Italy but can't understand the simplest Italian questions, who just made someone do her homework for her. And someone is working on it right now.

Wtf is up with the forum...it's like facebook replacement >.<

idx: fucking hell ._.

2010-02-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

And my settlers bounced. Another 13h before I can relaunch them. Fucking hell ._.

idx: Good Gods!

2010-02-09T16:34:00.001-08:00

Remember a two days ago when I said this was too much?

Yeah. There's now 625 alliances.

I searched for a guy in rank 2500 and guess what?

Yeah...most people in that range are in alliances.

There's just way too much cooperation going on! I was looking at the top alliance and they already have 3 wings and 171 players...in the same quad. So today the server would be a week old. That's like 3 weeks in normal. I don't know but that seems too Sim City already...

Edit Feb 12:

Good gods! Looks like the alliances increase at a rate of 100/day!!

idx: Settlers Out

2010-02-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

My settlers are on their way to settling a new village! As you can see, they'll arrive tomorrow at 10:39am. I guess I know when I won't be working...:P

Funny I got my settlers out even though I'm in the 2000s...most people beyond the 140s don't have 2nd villages out. Hope they don't bounce back. >.<

So nervous!

us4 Forums are different....

2010-02-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's just the us4 forums but people seem to be doing what I do....FC released the parody paper "The Walrus" before I released the parody paper "The Onion"...after I prank IGM-ed people, another guy prank IGM-ed people.

Looks like it's going to be a tough gig >.<

But on the positive side...

ooOOoooHH shiny.....

Thanks everyone who nominated...you guys rock :)

idx: it's lonely at night....

2010-02-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

You know what's funny? No one raids at night in idx! I've never gotten attacked in the middle of the night.

With how cheap labour is here, I would think some travian-obsessed rich kid would've hired someone to help him/her raid at night....loll...move away Chinese gold farmers! Make way for the underpaid Indonesian farmers! XD

idx: slipppiinnnggggg!!!

2010-02-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

Ugh..not happy. I'm slipping down the ranks. Trying to raid as much as I could but I have not gotten a single resource today. Got the first settler out though!

I think my problem is my ego....ended up with tons of troops dying to prove my point (but I'd do it again...felt sooooo good), tons of troops trapped...so I'm stuck close to the 2000s in rankings :/

us4 The Onion, 1st Edition

2010-02-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

Just did a short Onion article just like I did in s5...

Studies Have Shown Top Alliance Members Become Farms in New Servers

A survey of farm IGMs have revealed a frightening trend: many former members of top alliances become farms in new servers. Experts are stunned by how this is possible and top robbers....frankly couldn't care less.

How could people who must have been great players, since, you know, they were in a top alliance in another server, have fallen so low? After all, they probably have demonstrated astounding WW feeding skills at a rate of one shipment per day in previous servers!

It doesn't help that top robbers could be largely unsympathetic to the plight of these former top alliance members. "This guy told us to watch out since he was going to have cats by the end of the month...well, aren't cats supposed to roll out this week?" reflects Lex Luther, "Another guy told us he was from RATAN and well, I hate RATAN so he's getting farmed extra hard."

us4 I wanna start a fan club!!!

2010-02-07T05:07:00.000-08:00

So as I wrote on the forums, I decided to send some prank IGMs to all the top 10 players for the day (it's the first few days, the top 10 changes fast). These are the IGMs I sent.

Now, I get how some people may take the first one seriously, there's a lot of weird people on the interwebs...

...but what I don't get is why 2 (out of about 15 people) people who received the 2nd IGM ask for my contact info. THERE ARE LOTS OF WEIRD PEOPLE ON THE INTERWEBS!!!

So here are my theories for why this may be the case:

1. The guy's really curious and is confident there's no way the writer has 1337 enough hacking skills to find out where he lives and do unimaginable things to him...

2. ...or he's looking forward to those unimaginable things.

3. The guy has not considered the possibility of said writer being male.

4. It's lonely at the top..and in Travian, it's even lonelier ._.

5. The guy is playing a prank on the writer and is hoping to create an amusing 4chan post. <--this is the theory I'd like to go with to preserve my faith in humanity...

idx: Alliance Overload

2010-02-07T00:12:00.000-08:00

What is up with all the alliances in the server?

Yes, that's right. 510 alliances. I've gotten 3 invites to join alliances already and, as egoistic as I am, I have to admit...I'm sucking at idx. Look. By just inviting someone, you've pretty much advertised that it's a farm alliance.

So maybe a couple of nooblets will fall for it and send you resources for "embassy donations" but for anyone who knows anything about Travian, this is what your IGMs actually advertise:

idx: Raiding Woes

2010-02-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

It really, really sux raiding as a Gaul when you're surrounded by Teuts. Dammit!

I should have gone with Teuts as usual. I already know that I'm impulsive, often irrational and have a shitload of pent up anger. That's why Teuts are perfect for me. Nice disposable army...yumm.

But given my limited playing time and the fact that I'm going solo...sigh. Gauls it is. Dammit dammit dammit.

For the love of God, why.

2010-02-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, so why create a blog dedicated to an online game?

Because I realized that, now that my obsession is back on and as strong as ever, 90% of my conversation revolves around...Travian.

So I really need an outlet for all my ramblings before I lose what remains of my social life (working for a bank in a 3rd world country ftw!)

Yes. I've been addicted to this game since I started it around June 2008. I managed to break out of the habit because:
a) I started working and my workplace has awesome firewalls
b) crappy internet in Indonesia = lags of glory
c) I'm stuck with a blackberry and it just sux for browsing. I'm sorry. I don't care what people say but the iPhone totally pwns BB's ass.

Well, I never stopped playing Travian. Just stopped being serious. But now I'm doing some Travian experiments and the addiction is back on. So here's what' I'm doing:

idx Challenge:
- Playing solo
- In a server where I know absolutely no one
- Pretending I'm a guy

I've had people tell me the only reason I get anywhere is because I'm a girl so people give me breaks, I have friends who help me out or I have awesome duals. So I want to see if that's true...

us4 Pranks:
- Just for pranks
- Proud member of MORONS ;)