Trapping Guide

I wrote this a couple months ago as I began with Gaul, to convince the trapping skeptics and the poorly used trappers. You know the guys who piss the hell out of you by trapping 20 axes and having no troops to stop your other 100 axes from walking away with thousands of resources? Yeah, don't be one of them. And now for the calculations:

Let's say you have no wall, no residence, and equal village sizes, for simplicity, and Teutons clubbies are attacking Gaul phalanxes. Note that the second and third lines show what happens when 100 or 200 clubs are trapped.

1000 clubs vs 1500 phalanx: 827 phalanx die. (cost: 260505) 900 clubs vs 1500 phalanx: 708 phalanx die. (cost: 223020) Cost difference: 37,485 800 clubs vs 1500 phalanx: 595 phalanx die. (cost: 187425) Cost difference: 73,080.

Cost of rebuilding 50 traps: 4,000 (half of 100 repair when you release). Cost of rebuilding 100 traps: 8,000 (half of 200 repair when you release).
Cost of building trapper to level 10: 15,460. Cost of building trapper to level 20: 197,680.

Just three attacks like this will pay off a level 20 trapper's cost. Attack strengths will vary, but we're talking about dozens of attacks over many months. Resource advantages are even better at lower levels: just one attack pays back the cost of a level 10 trapper, the cost of rebuilding half your 100 traps (4k), and leaves you an additional 18k. The advantage in resources is clear. In early game, you make a profit in a single attack, and in late game, you make a profit after a few attacks.

You also paying about 130 less crop than you would if you had 200 more phalanx defending, and --- more importantly for late-game when resources are plentiful and time is money more than ever --- you can rebuild traps at the same time as your phalanx, temporarily doubling your defensive output.

Overwhelming force case:
If your enemy sends more troops than you have, you still have an advantage over them, though you're losing either way:

1500 clubs vs 1000 phalanx: 828 clubs die. (cost: 207000) 1400 clubs vs 1000 phalanx: 855 clubs die. (cost: 213750)

Cost difference: 6,750.
Cost of rebuilding half of 100 traps: 4k

Costs them more than it costs you.

Even in defending against an overwhelming force, you have the resource and time advantage on them.

Key Moral:

Traps are only useful if you have more troops than traps. The strategy I use is to have about five times as many defensive units as traps.

If you have very few troops, someone's just going to come along with 500 axes and stop the crap out of you and your traps, and traps are just going to annoy the piss out of them. This is especially true in the early game. Holding troops makes you a target.

Always release troops from traps. You cannot rebuild until they're released. You gain no significant advantage from keeping 200 troops sitting around in traps.

Exceptions for holding troops in traps:

1. Early game: hold troops until a second attack heads your way, then release and rebuild.
   
2. If the player attacking you is being overwhelmed by your alliance and you plan on zeroing him out soon.
   

Other good trapping tips:

Late-game, you may need that building slot. Consider it carefully.

You can keep your settlers and chiefs safe by sending them to a friend's Gallic village with traps.

When there's a trap set up for you
In every corner of this your village
And so you learn the only way to go outside from Travian
When there's a trap set up for you
In every corner of your alliance
And so you learn the only way to go outside from Travian

Ooohoohoooh through the outside,from Travian
Ooohoohoooh through the outside, from Travian

adaptation from Gogol Bordello

<3 gogol

Quote :

1500 clubs vs 1000 phalanx: 828 clubs die. (cost: 207000) 1400 clubs vs 1000 phalanx: 855 clubs die. (cost: 213750)

Cost difference: 6,750.
Cost of rebuilding half of 100 traps: 4k

Costs them more than it costs you.

Even in defending against an overwhelming force, you have the resource and time advantage on them.

when trap is release by troop we lost 2/3 of trap so we need to rebuild 133 of them.

yunari wrote:

when trap is release by troop we lost 2/3 of trap so we need to rebuild 133 of them.

This is why you release them yourself. In any case, the difference is 1/6 between 1/2 and 2/3, which isn't much at all.

I mean when enemy is more than your and people usually use attack command to gaul so those troop usually freed immediatly by their force.
Since you wrote every to precious accurate so I comment abou thtis.

yunari wrote:

I mean when enemy is more than your and people usually use attack command to gaul so those troop usually freed immediatly by their force.
Since you wrote every to precious accurate so I comment abou thtis.

Ah, this is a good point. Thank you.

Question:

It's possible to open multiple tabs in travian (go firefox) and set up multiple attacks, so all you have to do is click ok and attacks go out with in 1 second of each other.

It's pretty much virtually impossible to defend against an attack that's coming within a second of another attack.

If you send 200 troops to fill up the traps, are they immediately trapped before facing defense, or do they face defense and traps at same time?

If they just face traps first, then 200 troops fill traps before gaul can release them (has to at least refresh his RP page) and then the second attack hits with clearing wave that doesn't have to face traps, frees troops in the trap and hits the gaul.

Is that correct? or would those 200 troops just be slaughtered? does it make a difference with the 200 if you raid or normal attack?

Troops are trapped before dealing with defense. One great technique with traps that I learned recently is that you can protect your chief or settlers by raiding a village with traps. (Preferably this village is friendly so you can ask them to release when you want.) Your chief will be trapped, and thus he is safe from anything other than starvation. Even a catapult won't hurt your chief --- he'll just return to the village that trained him (yes, I tested this too!).

One good thing that fakes do is fill the traps before the real attack hits.

If you send a normal attack with the 200, and the target does not have 200 traps, then you run the risk of having your extra troops end up releasing the trapped troops. But typically the village is defended anyway, so your extra troops will die either way and so raid and attack will be the same.

Yeah. a mistake i made was sending 200 to a gaul... I suppose now that i know that troops are indeed trapped first, i can accurately tell what happened.

200 legos to fill traps... guy only had 100

100 legos to the slaughter. I thought somehow that only 100 were trapped and there were still 100 traps left... sigh oh well. Now i know!

Hrair