How this one started?
The 1st server i played of travian was a learning experience for me. I learned the basics of travian. But you might be surprised that i wasn't very keen to play new server. I found travian to be a game where its very restless. I had the chance to run away. I didnt join any other servers even though i knew of some who were started. But i did keep on reading about Travian a lot, about Catas, about different Hammer compositions, battle plans, etc.
My friendship with Driveshaft was going good. We were chatting on yahoo messenger (the only messenger he used apart from Travian messenger). We became close buddies. One day he invited me to play his account which he will start. I said i dont want to create an account, instead i will just assist him. So, he created the account name Driveshaft with his email id and shared with me the password.
Another reason i joined this server was because of Flocks Team. Flocks touted themselves as professional alliance and challenged all the indian players to play against them by joining ts2.travian.in , i wanted to do something about it, my patriotism got at peaked. Also it would be great to fight a world class alliance. Many of the UK players were part of the Flocks team and some Indian players too were veterans in Flocks team.
We decided that the account should be a NonGold Gaul Anvil. Now, i was and is a very active dual, hardly leave anything for driveshaft to work upon. I really got too much involved in that account. I named all my villages with names of Asterix Villas. In those days, travian had too much graphics which look like taken from Asterix comics. In those days playing travian without buying gold was very much possible if your planning is correct and you are willing to put the hardwork.
There was another player also who had joined from mobile. His account name was MostWanted (probably taken from the Game NeedForSpeed MostWanted). He was our PD (personal defender). While driveshaft account, i was busy in estabishing a firm base, our defense needs were met by MostWanted. So here was our plan, we will take our 7x7. (7 squares from all sides should be ours) but to achieve that kind of superiority we obviously needed to make a few offensive troops.
So, here me and driveshaft had our first dispute, i was probably too busy with my own plan of clearing our 7x7 and driveshaft just wanted to have some fun and sit with some phalanx. One account two plans never goes well. So, we decided to split our villas, some villas we will make defense, and the capital villa we will make some small hammer to clear the 7x7 of all potential threats.
If today i was told to replan this, i would first of all never choose the same location where i have spawned, this server most of the problems we had was because we establish our base in the center. There were 2 15c nearby and obviously we were so delighted! The problem in establishing a base so close to the center is , you are near to the center of action. You can never sim peacefully. Its very much like holding a WW, and attack can come from any direction and at any time. Also, when clearing our 7x7 we had problems in dealing with our neighbours, who too wanted to settle on that same 2 15cs.
Here i am discussing about Driveshaft account, the Urman account will come into picture later in this story. And yes, its an interesting story.
Clearing the 7x7 and securing Driveshaft account of any threats.
There was this player Jagdish, now as many of them told , he was a pro player and he too wanted that same 7x7 as we wanted. So, driveshaft handling defenses with phalanx and also the mostwanted account phalanx, we had enough defenses to counter any threat if Jagdish pose any problems.
I had already developed Catas and swordsmen and TTs. Now i knew that Jagdish only had clubs as i scouted him periodically and he had no scouts with him, he also didnt had the defense, so we had some advantage here. Also, our account Driveshaft was probably the 1st account to have catas.
So, here was what i did to counter Jagdish. I was looking at pop of Jagdish if it didnt move for a long time he probably is not online, many of the attacks i made were like 1am attacks where people are not online (atleast in 2011 this was true for most players). first wave i sent was of TTs, which cleared all his clubs, i must say jagdish was a pro-raider but not a pro-player here. He used to make a large number of clubs per day, and at night i used to send TTs to clear them, as soon as TTs clear them, the 2nd wave (no, those were not same second attacks, i had to still learn that) consisted of Swordsmen and Catas. 1000 swordsmen and around 20 catas in each wave. First the catas were less then we started sending even more. Jagdish account was in seige with no friends to help him.
Although, we were not part of ally yet, it made more sense to join INN ally. I dont remember what INN stands for.
Till now we had no ally. I suggested Driveshaft to get an ally and choose sides quickly but he wanted to keep an air of mystery though we had our connections with INN. So, we expected they wont allow Jagdish to join the ally.
But, we were wrong, Jagdish got joined in INN. We were told by the INN chief to stop attacking jagdish as he is our ally friend. But i persisted in keeping the seige, i played a gamble here, you need to choose either me or Jagdish. Also, no one in INN had catas to punish me. INN finally decided in my favour and kicked out Jagdish. In the meanwhile some days were passed, and jagdish did raised his club count. And one fine night, when he got kicked i charged at Jagdish and he lost the 15c he had taken and also other villas, his only villa was left with 2 pop. Jagdish account was pounded with heavy artillery fire. He refused to quit, as soon as he make 10 pop , i again attacked him.
There were other small players also, but those were not a threat to us, we could kill them at any moment, and they were farms for us. Sorry, i dont remember the names, and very sorry if i have forgotten your name to mention here! 😃
A Knight of Hell for MostWanted and Jagz
Jagz was the person in chief or thats how we knew him since initial days of the server. Now, day and night we were developing most wanted account so he might be sending messages to MostWanted but Mostwanted didnt replied any of those messages maybe because driveshaft didnt wanted to reveal his PD. jagz came to the wrong conclusion that he can be a ghost hammer trying to ghost nearby INN players. (Ghosting means sending your fastest cavalry to clear some clubbies or hammer sitting there, the way i cleared Jagdish clubbies was an example of Ghosting).
So, at night, MostWanted got pounded in the same way as Jagdish got pounded but Jagz attacks were more better timed than mine. And i was impressed about that fact. Those following attacks hardly had any gaps. It was a new thing for me, i immediately searched on internet, there was this trick in firefox which he used to send same second attacks.
If anyone is interested, he can refer here. https://travianmanual.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/how-to-land-multiple-attacks-at-the-same-second/
Driveshaft now have to expose his PD mostwanted. And matter was sorted out peacefully. Mostwanted joined INN ally and Driveshaft account too joined the ally. Jagdish too deleted his account and wrote a note saying that its just because of me, he is deleting his account. He too wanted to play. I am sorry Jagdish, we couldnt allow that 15c to go away.
A small ally attacking driveshaft
One more fun thing did happened here. Most probably some friends of Jagdish decided to attack driveshaft, we got like say 40 incomings from one ally and that too from another Quad. Most probably they were some kids who were having a good time, and suddenly they were forced into a war. Now, it was like 20 players against Driveshaft account. Now, i had some trappers in Driveshaft account. We had probably 2 or 3 trappers which i had kept. And without touching our defenses, all their troops were in the trapper. Their ally total troop count was less than 600-700 only. Someone sent a note from their ally, that our whole ally troops are in your trapper, please release them!
Why do i make trappers?
I dont make trappers to trap the enemy, i make it to evade the attack, i just release the troops immediately, and increase my trapper levels. This allows me some time to repair my trapper. One trapper can hold 400 troops. And thats a lot considering the early stage of the game, plus your phalanx count remains intact and 24x7 you are churning more phalanx. This approach had benefited me a lot to use the trapper that way. Once i reach that stage where i have shortage of slots, i would remove those trappers and make something useful.
Driveshaft planning sessions at Oberoi Mall
So far, without gold in our account, we had managed to clear our 7x7, be the guys who were the earlier guys in our quad to get catas, we had cata many players and we were sitting on 10000 phalanx. Every Sunday i would go to Oberoi Mall Crossword store to meet Driveshaft, as he was working there. We used to have a McDonalds (he loved MacD more than me) meal together as lunch and used to discuss various strategies on what we should do next week. Life was going great, but not for too long.
Urman Episode (Dante Hammer Gone!)
All the other episodes i have marked with a normal ink, the Urman episode i would mark with a Red Ink because it does deserve it. So far, there was not a stone being thrown from either USE or INN on each other. The border was at peace, and we from Driveshaft account lived right next to that border. We were the 1st line of defense against any enemy attack. And that day came, Urman was one of our good player who had good amount of clubs and he was attacked by Dante (Dante was Rank 1 player at that time)or probably he attacked Dante first? i dont remember now. He pinged me as i am his nearest neighbour and a well known Anvil of the server.
Here, me and Driveshaft had a difference of opinion
Driveshaft view: We should preserve our phalanx and should not be concerned. Instead we should aim for 20k phalanx in the coming weeks. Urman is a 3-4 villa player.
My view: We should stop this attack so that USE doesn't dare to attack us. If Urman is finished, we could be next. If we defend this attack, this would make USE scare about our anvils. USE had lots of hammers and if they got confidence against INN, they can use those hammers to plan something more to wipe our players out. So, the best way is to psychologically demotivate them by denting their hammer so that they cannot even think of doing it again.
Its you the reader now who has to decide on which player was right in this case?
We decided to defend Urman!
We came to know from our sources (lots of spies are there in travian always) that Dante has sent his full hammer along with Catas. We had very less time to arrange a defense, i made some calculation, if we acted now 100% of our defenses could reach urman and some were arranged by our ally. As soon as the attack landed, we lost 10000 of our phalanx and Dante hammer got killed. Dante, the Rank 1 player lost his hammer before an Arti from a nongold player called Driveshaft attacking a 3-4 villa player!
That was the trick, the whole act was unpredictable due to which Dante lost his hammer. Dante could never have imagined in all the probabilities that he can loose his hammer in this way. How can an ally defend a 3-4 villa player with so much defense forces and severe crop issues? I woke up till 3am to manage all the crop issues in that small cap of Urman and many ally players had sent us the reinforcements and crops with around 80% coming from Driveshaft account.
Once the attack was finished and we successfully defended i sent 1 clubbie to Dante in reinforcement mode. Indicating that let's have peace.
That blow was too much for Dante, he switched to Anvil mode most probably. Urman became inactive and shared his account details with me and driveshaft took our Urman account as its own account. Now, that we had one more account, i can make more offense troops in Urman and Defense troops in Driveshaft and Mostwanted. Now me and driveshaft no longer need to fight in one account!
Why send one soldier as a reinforcement to the enemy?
This is my old trick, its psychological and it says hey, i am here as your friend. Sometimes words are not needed, one should try it, its beautiful!
Aftermatch of Urman
Here, Driveshaft was not happy to loose 10k phalanx on a 3 villa player. He wanted to up his count to 20k but now he had to redo everything again.
I can understand the issue, but i was adamant at that point that
1) we had to stop the first steps of our enemies and give a severe blow to them.
2) The border was very peace and quiet for the coming months only because the first attack of their failed miserably. A well earned peace in exchange of 10k phalanx!
3) one of their top player now lost his hammer before Artis.
One more 15c , one more trouble
When you are in center, you will have lots of 15c and also lots of trouble with that, because many people are around and so all want your 15c, 15c are very dangerous villas, an enemy can take that 15c and can make a ghost hammer with lots of EI or TTs and can anytime attack us with surprise.
There was this 15c, if you see the Driveshaft account all our villas are mostly in (-,-) co-ordinates, one villa is in (+,-). 03 Celtica (2,-31) this is the villa. This was just 6 tiles away from our capital, god forbid, it was in +,- quad so our enemy has full rights to settle there. And it was in our 7x7!
So, our 7x7 was not only filled with lots of noobs whom we catapulted but also some squares were of a different quad, cant think of a better place!
So, after taking one 15c, 02 Lutetia (the capital), we straight away took the 2nd 15c 03. Celtica. and atleast secured that 15c. for our use.
Now, USE was right in believing that it was their Quad, and we were right in believing that it was our 7x7! So, now or tomorrow the struggle was going to happen.
Meanwhile, i was having problem with crops, because we were a non gold account and we took 2 15c, which means there was inequality.
Only Crops 9k per hour generated in 10 level 15c with 25% oasis bonus. so, we had lots of crop and very few other resources.
But still we had to take this pain, because if we dont take this square, USE will definitely plant something there.
AngelBabe (deadlyhunter)
