Set in classical antiquity, Travian: Legends is a predominantly militaristic real-time strategy game.

Travian has been translated into over 40 languages from the original German version,[1][2] and at one time boasted over 5 million players on over 300 game servers worldwide.

Its creators may have drawn from an earlier German board game, The Settlers of Catan, for layout[8] and the resource development theme.

Players must register on the Travian website to join a game, providing an e-mail address, and creating a username and a password.

After logging in, the player can follow a tutorial that guides them through various aspects of the game and offers rewards for successful completion.

At the start of the game, there is a "beginner's protection" period, in which the player cannot be attacked, the length of which depends on the server.

Travian: Fire and Sand introduced two more playable tribes (Huns and Egyptians) which are later incorporated into all international servers.

Romans can upgrade buildings and resource fields simultaneously, have powerful troops which are expensive to train, and have low-capacity merchants.

Teutons are geared towards an aggressive style of play, and offer weak but cheap troops, as well as slow but high-capacity merchants.

They cost time and resources to construct, and attract more people to settle in the village, increasing the population.

Players can found or conquer additional villages to expand their realm, increase total resource production and help support larger armies.

Once these criteria are met, the player may train three settlers to go and found a new village at a chosen vacant area on the map.

The player may train an administrator (a Roman senator, a Teutonic chief or a Gallic chieftain) instead of three settlers.

Siege engines, which are built in the workshop, allow players to destroy enemy buildings and defensive structures.

Troops' offensive and defensive attributes may be improved by constructing an armoury to enhance their weapons and armour.

Roman villages can build a horse drinking trough to speed up training of cavalry and reduce their upkeep.

Heroes can equip items, embark on adventures, capture oases and produce resources.

Equipment consists of armour and weapons for the hero, mounts, and special items that increase the speed or carrying capacity of the troops.

Consumable items include those that regenerate the hero's health, provide experience points, reduce battle losses, increase culture points, reset the hero's attributes, and provide the means to capture animals from oases.

Travian players can create and join alliances whose members support each other economically and militarily.

Once in an alliance, the player can make, view and accept alliance-only resource trading offers in their village marketplaces.

Towards the end of a game, different alliances often join together, resulting in large coalitions that fight each other to try to complete the victory conditions.

After the winner is declared, the game stops and players can no longer build, trade or engage in combat.

Travian was developed and published in June 2004 as a PHP hobby project by Gerhard Müller, then a student of chemistry at the Technical University of Munich.

Critical Gamers compared the game to The Settlers of Catan and Solar Realms Elite.

Update 3.1 introduced quests that players could complete to receive rewards in the form of resource or game gold.

The introduction of 'Gold' allowed players to directly influence the game mechanics: for instance, by increasing resource production, instant completion of building and researches.

These effects can be replicated with user scripts, but implementing these can result in a banning of the offending account as they are against the general terms and conditions of Travian.

[29][30] Christian Donlan, game reviewer, described Travian's version 2 interface as "ugly", with a "primitive cartoon style" and a bad colour scheme.

[1][33][34] It was blocked in Iran with the reason of "being non-islamic" according to Iranian government, despite having a license from Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance.