We are excited to present an exclusive interview with our game designer Jake, diving into the highly anticipated Annual Special for Travian: Northern Legends. This Annual Special update will introduce the Vikings as a tribe, bring new offensive and defensive strategies to the game, and emphasize the unique roles of ships and harbors. Over the next two weeks, we will be showcasing what makes the Vikings special, including their units, buildings, and hero abilities. So, stay tuned with us by keeping an eye on the blog and Discord for all the exciting updates to come!
And on the topic of interesting things to come, let’s dive right into our exclusive interview below.
💬 Why did you choose the Vikings and not any other tribe?
🔷 I was evaluating a lot of tribes all around Europe; the Vikings drew a special picture – raiding, ships, strength… etc. – and they are getting more media attention than some other candidates.
Taking the improvements in ship travel into account, I’m really confident that the Vikings will add an additional level to it. With the Vikings, the Annual Special will be taking place a bit later in the historic time line compared to regular Travian: Legends, which is fine after the Spartans were historically earlier than the Huns but later than the Egyptians. You see, the timeline isn’t historically accurate anyway, so we allowed ourselves to jump a bit.
💬 What niche do you think the Vikings will take?
🔷 The Vikings will bring another way to farming, so they will be raiders for sure. But there is only so much space in the balancing, which is why we’ll have the Vikings take over the role of the Teutons. The Vikings will fill that place with some changes – the spearman will be missed for sure… enabling some Viking troops to counter horses.
While the Teutons needed a lot of crops to maintain their armies, the Vikings will have a bit easier time feeding their troops. Not as extreme as the Spartans, of course.
Ah, and the Vikings will introduce a new feature or two… which have never been seen in the whole Travian Universe!
💬 What do players need to know about the Vikings? Anything standing out in particular, something worth pointing out?
🔷 They are Vikings! They love ships! And their troops hit a punch! One of their troops will introduce a unique ability, which will enable new strategies and moves and may even shift the meta of how to defend by quite a bit.
💬 How was your experience integrating ships into Travian: Legends? And what was your process for giving advantage to the Vikings on the seas?
🔷 Oh, it was an adventure – first the question of whether we’ll be able to provide pathfinding at all and discovering which constraints I need to be aware of. There were some concerns about the complexity, but I’ve put my trust in the ability of our community to figure things out, and that’s what they did!
With the New Years Special, we made a lot of adjustments to it, making it easier but also more limited – just to make sure it’s not overwhelming – and with the Spring Round, we adjusted it further. So my experience of integrating ships into Travian: Legends is that we are able to adjust game mechanics with server iterations, and this is great as we are more and more a living game.
And now we’re changing it further, giving the Vikings a ship-based advantage, which also implies that they will not set sail to Travian: Legends vanilla game worlds. They need water, and regular Travian: Legends game worlds are missing that.
💬 Do you have a favorite Viking strategy in mind that players should try out?
🔷 Oh, I’m looking forward to existing strategies, but on steroids – on this Annual Special, we’ll offer tools and mechanics to achieve what wasn’t achieved yet! I’m pretty sure that quite a lot of players will use the Vikings! Discussing the Vikings balancing with the team already sparked strategies revolving around Oasis, a new type of offensive hammer, and how this will affect the game for all tribes.
💬 Are there more opportunities for new tribes in the future?
🔷 Yes, with the move of the timeline by quite some years, we’re opening up for other possibilities for tribes – even though we already had a few ideas about tribes in the current timeline!
Thank you, Jake, for sharing your insights on the Vikings with us. We can’t wait to see how the new tribe and their strategies will improve the gameplay in Travian: Northern Legends. And to you, our community: we would love to hear your thoughts, so be sure to join the conversation on Discord by clicking the button below, and stay tuned for more detailed information on the blog very soon!
