Travian

A comrade in arms posted his blog about Travian, a real time on-line strategy game that we have finally finished playing.  I can honestly say it took more out of us than we could have ever imagined, and personally, it has given me a great lesson in humanity.

Travian was my first on-line game.  I have always been a lone wolf when it comes to games.  I am after all, a person more comfortable with solitary existence, and the only time I spent many hours online was during my university years on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) on ’97.  I thought it would put my rusty Indonesian to good practice, but as we all know, nothing really happens as planned.  I gained new friendships there through listening to people’s problems, handling channels and bots, and in those days, our wars only consisted of one against injustice.  Considering real political turmoils in those days, tyranny was absolutely intorelable; freedom of speech was defended tooth to nails in its purest and most absolute, and we had fun reminding ingrates that power isn’t everything if it is not put to good use.  The channel I belonged in was after all the craziest, if not the most laid back (and feared) throughout undernet in those days.

I began playing Travian when I got bored waiting for my animations to render.  It was around June 2008 when I saw the ad on Facebook and thought to give it a go.  I had no idea what the game is all about (I hate reading FAQs, seriously).  I remember happily building my village, learning quickly as I go along (having played Age of Empires with my college friends on LAN, I was known as a good defender and had a knack of controlling important resources and artifacts before everyone else gets to blink twice – and no, I did not cheat), and expanded at a rapid pace. fos_jack was the first to kill my rat (stupid, stupid rat), but he got nothing from me, LOL!

In so, I joined an alliance called YAKUZA with sapigokil as its founding father.  I knew no other persons than fos_jack and him and I was obliviously happy within the alliance.  I simply sent resources to those who got raided, hardly chatted within its forums, and I was completely unaware of its political movements (I can’t recall any information regarding our merge and collapse with IT alliance).  When I became aware of its forums, sapigokil had launch his plans on approaching the F alliance with mixed_boy as its leader.  I thought the nickname was familiar but I kept my suspicion to myself.

One quiet morning, all hell broke loose.  sapigokil was leaving us for F. he left YAKUZA in the hands of three players: Balamiere, opa369, and myself.  I think it took us around a week to settle our affairs – breaking off from IT – becoming fully independent again, and having our beloved Oyabun (leader) away from us.  We continued on with what knowledge we had; we shared information – we held several battle practices – sapigokil even made a YAKUZA Academy (YAKUZA~A).  It was basically made to re-train our members, recruite new ones, and cleanse ourselves from spies (seriously – we never really could).

A more detailed account can be found on Balamiere‘s site.  I recommend reading that instead of mine as my memories often fail me.

Not too long after, mixed_boy was proven to be BURAIAN’s brother, an old dear friend of mine from those IRC days.  He held on to the same nickname I recognized years ago and based on that alone, our friendship was quickly forged.

YAKUZA didn’t stay long with the [F] Family.  It quickly became independent again.  We closed our Academy, recruited what little worthy players we could get our hands on from there, and trudged along Travian’s muddy political waters.  With Balamiere’s recruitment into LW – the largest and reigning alliance on server one – it was not long before we proved our worth as an ally.  We weren’t offensively powerful and self-sufficiently defended.  In all honesty, our only virtue was that we cared for one another.

Being Ojou (leading female title) and a newbie was a tough combination.  Worse, I was the only established female player in the group.  Despite the changes we put our alliance through, I personally held on to sapigokil’s old beliefs: “respect thy enemies as thou respect thy own friends“.  I destroyed players, yes.  We all have.  I raided mercilessly and I raided mercifully.  Raiding was only to boost morale; defending my own villages using my own troops was to boost morale.  One thing I learned from Chrono Trigger (if you’ve played SNES, you’ll know), one of the Magi stated: “If you think your enemies are weak, you’re weak.  If you think your enemies are strong, you’re strong.”

At the end of the day though, despite the odds and the facts, I retreated from my appointed position and went into the shadows to stand within the abyss of our adversaries.  Darkness, after all is not evil, it is simply the absence of Light.

A person once asked for a good game showmanship.  I, who stood in the shadows, quietly complied.

And in those maddening days only did I learn what had not been told to us, the other side of the story, and a game play none of us at YAKUZA could never have, in their right minds, dared to imagine.  Yes, almost 7 weeks of sleepless nights playing with my tail on fire; details came pouring in, orders to make and orders to mend, villages to salvage as I pillaged, dispatching armies by the hour to run for dear life, 60.000 defense troops dispersed all over Travian’s borders; bloodshed and destruction in the end, was inevitable.

And fun.

Active members of YAKUZA dispersed the moment its Ojou stepped off for the last time.  We had fun destroying our own leftovers.

At the end of the evening, I had 22.000 defensive troops left in my name, running wild pillaging a fellow friend.  18.000 of them survived.  Yes.  18.000 phalanx with maximum weapon and shield level.  Ain’t half bad for a Gaul (^.^)  I still had my Rams,  Trebuchets, my Swordsmen, Theutates Thunders and Haeduans somewhere, some odd 13.000 in total – they survived too, hardly sweating tears and blood, and boredom was quick to follow.

My ID was milkteagirl.  My name is Natasha.  These are my villages and the server is done.  Sleep is on the menu for many days to come.