EPTI won't link the site, because that would be the first step toward an addiction that would slowly, but surely, consume the entirety of your soul, but it is of course easily Googleable. The following series of blog posts will just be me reminiscing and being all nostalgic about my Travian playthrough about 2.5 years ago, an experience that consumed uncountable hours of my life and caused many (MANY) a sleepless night.
I was introduced to Travian in my freshman year of highschool by a friend of mine. Intrigued, my friend and I as well as several others in our group of nerds started accounts on the same server. I selected Romans because they reminded me of the Protoss, slow to build up, but extremely powerful in the end game (Romans have the strongest infantry and calvary in the game). Things started off somewhat well for a noobie, I was only ever raided by another more powerful Roman every other day or so, but my 3 maxed crannies EASILY took care of that.
Eventually I managed to accrue enough resources (via resource fields, my regular raider ensured I had no troops) to expand, to found another village. I had misty-eyed dreams of founding a great ring of villages, with which I could declare the space within my kingdom. On the first step of this great dream, I founded my second village roughly 7 squares north of my starter village, in an unremarkable plot that had 5 clay pits.
The one who regularly raided saw this, and promptly catapulted that village into oblivion on its second night. Ah, such was the life of a noobie in Travian. I promptly ragequit the server, leaving my classmates and friends to dry in the harsh world of virtual vikings and legionnares. I vowed never to return to the stupid pointless world of Travian.
If you've never played before, Travian is a completely real-time game. Resources build up by the second, troops arrive at their destinations in minutes, hours, sometimes even days. Travian is always on, there is no break (other than a Christmas truce, which has to voted for by the entire server, lawl), you can be raided and catapulted and destroyed while you sleep or while your at class or while you're out having a life. It is truly a game for the hardcore.
Keeping to its real-time element, it is very, very difficult to join a server partway through its playtime (a server lasts for roughly a year) for the obvious reason that the more established, powerful players will simply raid you to death, taking all your money and never letting you get off the ground. This is one of the main reasons my first Travian venture ended in the smoldering ashes of the my first founded village (the other being my simple noobiness, not knowing where to found my second village, what to upgrade first, etc.).
I vowed revenge (I had of course, forgotten of my oath to never play again by this time). I would join a server that was just beginning, during a time where I had plenty of free time (whee summer vacation). I would have my virtual victory.
bad memories 
