Tribal Wars, commonly referred to as TW, is a browser-based, massive multiplayer online real time strategy game, set in the middle ages. In it, each player takes control over a small village, grows it, and eventually begins taking over other villages.

History

TribalWars, or "Die Stämme" as it is known in German, is a browser based game and was released in 2003 as a text based game. It was developed and released by the German company Innogames. The international version of the game was released in 2006. The game is currently one of the most popular browser games in the world, ranking among the top ten in number of players. There are over 34 million registered users. It has been reviewed by Gamestar and Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

.

Overview of game mechanics

Each player controls their game from their village. From the main screen, they can "visit" buildings such as their headquarters to create buildings, the barracks or stable to train soldiers, and their rally point to control troops. Each screen can be accessed by clicking on a link, and the vast majority of the game is played through text based interaction, although the map and village overview screens provide some graphical interaction. The main screen has the only moving graphics.

Player Interaction

Players can interact with each other through in game mail, in tribal chat rooms, and on the external forums. A large number of TribalWars players also communicate through Skype

Skype

Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...

 or IRC.

Player Profile

A player's profile displays information about his/her villages, opponents defeated, points, rank and tribe. Profiles have two sections; personal information, and a text box for any additional information the player wishes to include. Some players choose to place information such as in-game personal allies, ASCII art

ASCII art

ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...

, or quotes.

Tribes

A large portion of the game revolves around the use of tribes, or semi-official groups of players. These players join together for mutual protection and guidance. The size of different tribes varies from world to world, depending on decisions of the tribal aristocracy and built-in limits on tribe size. Some worlds do not allow tribes of more than five members, while others have no limit on members. Tribes have the ability to set diplomacy with other tribes, and to create their own private tribal forum. Tribal diplomacy is non-binding, but any breach of diplomacy is generally frowned upon by other players.
Most tribes are created after the creation of the world. However, groups of players will occasionally get together before a world starts to coordinate the set-up of a tribe. These "premade" tribes generally have more experienced players, but are not notably more successful than other tribes.

Combat

Combat in the game is based on attacking villages.
A player can send their troops to another player's village, and depending on the number and type of troops sent,
and factors such as morale and luck, a winner is determined. In order for a player to conquer other villages and
bring them under his or her control, a unit called a nobleman must be sent to a village. This nobleman decreases
the village loyalty anywhere from 20 to 35 points (out of 100). When the village loyalty falls to zero, the
attacker takes control of the village. Units can be recruited for use in combat at the Barracks, Stable, Academy,
Statue and Workshop.

Real Time Interaction

All actions in the game, whether it be constructing the village's buildings, recruiting troops, or attacking other villages takes a pre-set amount of time. The time it takes a player's army to reach another village depends on the distance, as well as the predetermined "speed" of the attacking units. All units, e.g. axemen, light cavalry, nobles, etc, have their own speeds; the entire army moves at the speed of its slowest component. As for buildings, each level takes longer to complete. A higher level "Village Headquarters" causes the construction of other buildings to proceed more quickly. Higher level barracks or stables facilitate quicker recruitment of troops. It is not unusual for some actions to take hours, perhaps even days, to complete.

There are multiple "worlds" that can be played on, and each world has a unique set of rules to it, two of which are 'world speed' and 'troop speed'. Some world and troop speeds are set at 1 (the speed set for World 1, the original), which is ideal for people who cannot play too regularly - construction assignments and general timed actions will take longer to complete, and troop parties will take longer to travel between villages. On the other hand, faster world and troop speeds (often set at 2) appeal to highly active players who will be online often, and the gameplay moves faster than worlds with lower game speeds.

Awards System

TribalWars utilizes an Award system reminiscent of Achievements/Trophies etc, where players gain "plaques" that they can show off on their profile for milestones. Awards adds incentive for players to contribute to offensive operations both internally in their tribe and externally, to support friends, to plunder other villages often, and to conquer villages. Some Awards are satirical such as Unlucky Fellow and Resurrection, for missing out on conquering a village by 1 loyalty point and starting over in a world 5 times, respectively.

There are also four daily Awards: Plunderer of the Day (for farming the most resources), Attacker of... (for destroying the most enemy units as attacker), Defender... (for destroying the most enemy units as defender), and Great Power... (for conquering the most villages).

Awards have 4 levels - Wood, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Wooden framed Awards are the most basic, consequentially Gold are the best and hardest to achieve. This system shows clearly how well a player has performed in certain aspects of the game.

Awards are not shared between different worlds. Awards on one world are independent there and, although they can be displayed on a player's profile on a different world, it clearly states that they were earned elsewhere.

With the Version 7.0 update, multiple new Awards were introduced, such as The Warlord (for attacking numerous players) and Brothers in Arms (for being a member of a tribe for a period of time).

Reference Tools

Several 3rd party websites such as TW Stats, TribalWarsMap, and zomgTW have been designed to aid gameplay, and provide additional information and statistics not found in the game itself. TW Stats is a text based website that provides information similar to the in game ranking system on Tribal Wars. It also allows for the ability to create maps of the world by highlighting different players, tribes, and villages, along with many other features.

External links