GUIDE TO ALLIANCE
Alliance Overview
The main page of an alliance is called the 'overview'. On the left side are the alliance statistics - rank in the server, total population points, and number of members. On both sides are blank boxes left for alliance leaders to fill in with the alliance description, list of allies/naps/enemies, and sometimes a set of alliance "rules" and a motto. Below all of this is a 3rd section showing the list of members belonging to that alliance, their population, how many villages they own, and - if it is your own alliance - you can see their activity.
>> Overview | Forum | Chat | Attacks | News | Options <<
This guide aims to look at what the other tabs on the alliance overview do, and expand on all the different functions that are available to you when you create your own alliance. In February 2008 there was a complete overhaul of in-game alliance forums giving more flexibility to the existing structure.
Alliance Activity
The activity of your fellow members is recorded by Travian in the form of coloured dots. To understand what the dots mean, refer to the simple key below. Although Travian only considers the grey dot to mean Inactivity, someone who is yellow, red or grey is considered 'inactive' by other gamers. This is because any player who does not log onto their account within 24 hours cannot defend themselves against incoming attacks and is much more likely to receive them, thus becoming a liability to the alliance.
Because the game runs in Real Time (around the clock, 24 hours every day), activity plays an important part in how well your alliance functions. Alliance Activity can be solved by Sitter Policies and regular Mass Messages to keep players interested and involved. Players who are regularly inactive and do nothing to improve their situation are usually kicked and farmed by the rest of the alliance.
Alliance Chat
The third tab on your alliance overview takes you to the alliance chat. This feature allows members of the alliance to communicate with one another if they are online at the same time. It works the same as a simple instant messaging system like IRC, and allows players to open separate chat windows with specific players (you can do this by clicking on their green name). The chat history is not recorded and there can be a slight delay receiving a message after it has been sent. Alliance chat is probably the least used feature in-game when it comes to alliances. The more experienced players start alliance 'group chats' on instant messaging programs such as IRC, Skype and MSN.
NB: if you are logged in as 'sitter' for another player, you will not be able to view or access the alliance chat. The tab 'Options' will also be greyed out to stop you from leaving the alliance without the account owner's permission. You can however see the alliance forum, attack logs and news page.
Alliance Attacks
The fourth tab on the alliance overview shows all the attacks that have happened in connection to the alliance. This means it will show friendly attacks sent by the members of the alliance and also enemy attacks which have hit members of the alliance. You can tell the difference between these attacks by the accompanying icon.
The attack page is updated by the second and shows a minimum of 20 alliance attacks at any time. If you are a Plus user, you will see up to 60 attacks shown on this page at any time. Depending on how frequent the attacks are, some alliances have an attack page turnover rate of 30 minutes. Whereas other alliances might have attack reports from the last 2 days.
Alliance News
Alliance news is the 5th tab on the overview, showing important information that has happened within your alliance. This includes players joining/leaving/deleting, new confederation pacts/naps/declarations of war being sent/received/accepted/rejected, and invitations being sent/cancelled to players not already in your alliance and hoping to join. Nothing significant can happen within the alliance without it appearing on the News page.
NB: A member of the alliance who deletes from the server will not be named on the news page, but it will state that a player who no longer exists in the game world has left the alliance.
In-Game Forums
The forum tab is the 2nd one along on the alliance overview. Alliance forums in-game can be difficult to understand when you start your own alliance if you haven't had experience with forums before. The forum allows you to communicate with players both in your alliance and across the server without needing to be online at the same time.
NB: your sitter can see all the in-game forums that your username has permissions to view if they are logged in as you. Permissions are based on username or alliance, not IP address. So make sure your sitter is someone you trust.
Setting up your in-game forum can become complex when you are faced with 4 different types of forum and don't know which type does what. This guide will talk you through the difference between Public, Alliance, Confederation, and Closed forums.
Public Forums
Public forums allow any player within that game world/server to post and view the threads made inside it. This means it is in no way specific to your alliance, apart from the location of the forum on your Alliance Overview. Anyone wishing to access the public forum will have to click on your Alliance Overview and click the link "To The Forum" to find it. Once you have filled in the forum name and description, the forum can be created. The most common use of public forums is alliance application or regular chat.
Alliance Forums
The alliance forum is used alliance members to communicate with each other. It is the most used forum in-game and often the most popular. Common sub-forums include "Introductions", "Attack/Defense Plans", "Fun & Games", "Ask for a Sitter", "Helpful Links", and so on. Once you have filled in the forum name and description, the forum can be created.
Confederation Forums
This forum is most commonly used for multi-wing alliances who want to gather all of their members together in one place. It can only be viewed by your alliance members until you add other alliances to the permission list. For convenience, you are given an automated list of any Confeds already linked to your alliance, but the alliances you add do not actually need to be your Confeds - you can add any alliances you like from the server. Anyone wishing to access the confed forum will have to click on your Alliance Overview and click the link "To The Forum" to find it.
To add alliances to the permission list, you can either use their AID or their Tag - you don't need both - then press (
. The AID means Alliance Identification, and the number can be found at the end of the alliance overview URL, as shown: //s1.travian.co.uk/allianz.php?aid=232. When you have finished entering alliances, click OK. You can edit these permissions at any time.
Closed Forums
A closed forum is used as a private forum; it can only be viewed and posted in by you until you add the usernames of other players to the list. Most commonly, closed forums are used as Leadership Forums and Battle Group Forums, where only a select few players need to see the information. Anyone can be added to the username permission list, they do not need to be in your alliance. However in order to access the Closed Forum, a user who is not in your alliance will have to click on your Alliance Overview and click the link "To The Forum" to find it.
To add players to the permission list, you can either use their UID or their username - you don't need both - then press (. The UID means User Identification, and the number can be found at the end of their profile URL, as shown: //s1.travian.co.uk/spieler.php?uid=21348. When you have finished entering usernames, click OK. You can edit these permissions at any time.
NB: If a player leaves the alliance, they are not automatically removed from the list. This must be done manually by you via the Edit function.
NB: anyone who has permissions to "Administer forums" can also see the Closed Forums, whether you have added their username to the Closed Forum list or not.
Sub-Forums & Threads
Once you have created the forums and decided who can view them, you can start making sub-forums and threads. A sub-forum is an area title, for example "Fun & Games" might be a sub-forum, whereby all the threads inside are game related. A thread refers to all posts within a certain line of conversation. The beginning post sets the thread title and the thread topic. For example, a thread called Alliance Applications might detail what is needed for players to join the alliance, and anyone interested in joining posts within this thread on the same conversation matter. Here is an image of what your sub-forums will look like:
Threads also have a set of buttons and functions which can be seen below. If the button is green, there has been a new post added to this thread which you haven't viewed yet. If the button is grey, nothing new has been added since you last looked. NB: posts which are edited do not show up as 'new information' but they will have a time and date stating when they were edited and by whom.
In-Game Forum BB Codes
The in-game forums offer a modest select of BB codes for your everyday needs, ranging from coloured text, images, text alterations and even some in-game working HTML links. However the in-game BB code is case-sensitive, so you must be completely accurate when typing the code to ensure it will work. If done correctly, everything will appear as it does in the formats below.
BB Codes for Troops
If you wish to add pictures of troops to your in-game forum, use the correct spelling of that troop type, including capitalization, and wrap square brackets around the name. Codes for Roman Rams and Teuton Rams will not work but can be substituted for an image of the Gaul Ram. The same goes for codes needed to show images of Gaul, Roman or Teuton Settlers - these will all appear as a gold hat, which is the image for a Natarian Settler. Note that the spellings and capitalizations for Macemen, Birds Of Prey and Warelephants are different in the BB code than they are in the Manual.
BB Codes for Font
These codes allow you to change the colour of your text. You can also use hexadecimal codes like "#0000FF" for blue. This code would be written like this: [color=#0000FF] instead of [color=blue]. Don't forget to add the number hash sign # when writing the hexadecimal or it will not work. To find the hexadecimal numbers of a colour, use this table [link], or search online. Note that the spelling of "color" is American, and will not work if you use the English spelling "colour".
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Originally Posted by Bram Stoker Draco
