Metas and players... Then vs Now...

    Hi guys, I've recently started playing again after a long break, similar to many of my old Travian buddies.
    I'm playing on a bit of a dead server at the moment, with not much going on and very few experienced players on either side.

    The last proper server I played was with CWL years ago, and an Infamous server before that.
    Are there any top tier metas still rolling around on the level Infamous and WILD were back in the day? Or any that have come up recently as household names? I'm talking mostly in respect to .com servers, but I'm open to ones that are dominating other domains as well.

    Just looking to start a general discussion about the contrast in levels of alliances and players back then (Early 2000s to 2013ish) compared to now. Has anyone noticed a decline in general commitment or ability in recent years?


    All that being said, I'm not trying to rile anyone up, and it's good to be back.
    Hope to see some of you out there in the future.

    Stay safe!
    ~Metal

    There are plenty of decent metas around these days. But they are nowhere near as dominant as e.g. Wild was. In part, I think that's mostly due to a much broader field of decent metas - i.e. it's hard for any single meta to dominate, since there are plenty of decent metas. For example, I'd say a lot of the teams on com2 would have an easy win 1v3 on a server with no pre-mades/low tier pre-mades, yet they're really scrapping it out on com2 instead, with no clear favorite and ever evolving diplomacy.


    Wild was so far above the peers back in the day (i.e. smashing IM in a 1v3½), the same is not the case for any team now. But metas now are playing about as good as Wild was - simply because the overall level of the game has increased (I do think that if Wild came back with same leadership, playerbase and commitment levels as back on the last server, they'd be the best .com meta again, because they would adapt to new tactics and circumstances).

    wishmaster3 wrote:

    There are plenty of decent metas around these days. But they are nowhere near as dominant as e.g. Wild was. In part, I think that's mostly due to a much broader field of decent metas - i.e. it's hard for any single meta to dominate, since there are plenty of decent metas. For example, I'd say a lot of the teams on com2 would have an easy win 1v3 on a server with no pre-mades/low tier pre-mades, yet they're really scrapping it out on com2 instead, with no clear favorite and ever evolving diplomacy.


    Wild was so far above the peers back in the day (i.e. smashing IM in a 1v3½), the same is not the case for any team now. But metas now are playing about as good as Wild was - simply because the overall level of the game has increased (I do think that if Wild came back with same leadership, playerbase and commitment levels as back on the last server, they'd be the best .com meta again, because they would adapt to new tactics and circumstances).

    That's an interesting point of view.

    I was baptised by fire against Infamous in a 3v1 server and haven't looked at any other meta the same since. Personally I never had the pleasure of playing with or against WILD, but have heard a lot of good stuff about how they used to play over the years.

    I'm looking forward to seeing what Travian has to offer now, and hopefully take part in some more "dramatic" servers, for lack of a better word. I know CWL are still active and playing, are there many other good pre-mades around on the com servers?


    Where are you playing at the moment, if anywhere?

    Metalcayoty wrote:

    I know CWL are still active and playing, are there many other good pre-mades around on the com servers?

    GOATS, along with most of the good ones, are playing com2 atm, as said ;) On com2 you have GOATS, TEN, Gunners, GoW and DnD (former Villains), who are all fairly decent .com metas (I'm leaving out Duat and Ikea, who are both good teams, only because they can't really be called .com metas per se).


    You also of course have SGR on com1 - who have been playing every single com1 for like... 12(?) years now. SGR is generally a decent team too - depending on what parts of leadership/playerbase happens to be playing each round or busy on other servers.


    That's about it for decent quality returning metas dedicated to .com I'd say. Of course .com is relatively often frequented by teams from local domains too.. And you have new metas forming from time to time too, out of old players from various teams.


    Metalcayoty wrote:

    Where are you playing at the moment, if anywhere?

    I'm not playing anywhere at the moment - if I was, I'd probably play with SGR on com1 (but I'm not, I'm a honorary spammer in the team chat instead :P)

    Thanks for the little guide, I haven't been here for a while, and will make sure that I follow your advice, as I've been pretty lost over the last couple days in a game I don't remember that well.

    Returning to playing after a little break, and wondering the same. I played heavily on US speed servers, with groups like NATO, IMP, IBM, NWA (those guys were THE most fun!). Played a few COM and AU servers, too.


    Playing com9 (New Year's 1x) and not seeing familiar names. The game seems smaller overall, and the forum much quieter. Or maybe everything's just harder to find (like the game interface itself - holy clutter, what were they thinking?).


    If anyone's playing and has a group that plays hard and has fun, hit me up.


    (BTW: it's really annoying to have my original forum account with thousands of posts just vanish. Rude.)