I play occasionally, but when I do I’m generally only interested in Real Time Strategy (RTS) titles such as Age of Empires III, Command and Conquer 3, Settlers, Rise of Nations etc

RPG’s are possibly my least favourite games and for this reason I have never got into any kind of MMORPG games like World of Warcraft finding them little more than a huge waste of time. Occasionally I do feel like playing some online games, but all too often what puts me off is the learning curve, the time necessary to become part of the community and the need to spend so much time on them to achieve anything.

Then I found Travian.

I love this game already even after only a few days of playing. It’s a little hard to describe because it’s really quite unique as far as online strategy games go.

Kind of a cross between Age of Empires, Risk and Diplomacy. It’s technically ‘real-time’, but plays so slow it’s more like a board-game or turn-based strategy. For example the building of one woodcutters house takes 20minutes or more.

It sounds bad, but this is one of the greatest things about Travian. It’s a game which is incredibly easy to get into and doesn’t absorb to much time at all. You can just check in for a few minutes a day and see how your village is going, construct a few more buildings and leave again.

The game is supported by ‘Plus’ and ‘Gold’ accounts which provide some really useful benefits if you play the game a lot, they’re also very cheap – just a few dollars for a Plus account for a week.

It’s fun, check it out!