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Food for thought here on potential diminishing returns.

Consider for example, upgrading your wood pastures.
To take one field from lvl 0 to level 1 requires:
40 lumber, 100 brick, 50 iron, 60 wheat, 2 wheat/hr upkeep.
To take one field from lvl 1 to level 2 requires:
65 lumber, 165 brick, 85 iron, 100 wheat, 1 wheat/hr upkeep.

That is quite nearly a 5/3 increase in cost (save for wheat upkeeps).

Lets compare the benefits:
A lvl 0 field produces 2/hr
A lvl 1 field produces 5/hr
A lvl 2 field produces 9/hr

So in upgrading from 0->1 we net an additional 3/hr, while upgrading from 1->2 we gain 4/hr.

That is exactly a 4/3 increase in production.

Now barring the wheat upkeep this would be a classic diminishing returns scenario, where one would clearly buy all the lower level upgrades before acquiring any higher level ones. However, the upkeep is an important mitigating factor to consider, because in upgrading our fields to lvl one we now pay 2 additional wheat/hr, whereas upgrading to lvl two we only pay 1 additional wheat/hr. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm assuming this is cumulative. That is a lvl 2 shop burns 2 wheat for lvl1-ness, and an additional 1 wheat for lvl2-ness, for a total of 3 wheat/hr.)

Here we see that buying level twos is beneficial compared to level ones, and pretty dramatically at 50% wheat cost.

Taking a look, however at typical materials requirements though, consider the following building costs:
Warehouse: 130 lumber, 160, bricks, 90 iron, 40 wheat, 1 wheat/hr
Granary: 80 lumber, 100 bricks, 70 iron, 20 wheat, 1 wheat/hr
Embassy: 180 lumber, 130 bricks, 150 iron, 80 wheat, 3 wheat/hr
Cranny: 40 lumber, 50 bricks, 30 iron, 10 wheat, 0 wheat/hr

Lumber and brick are clearly the highest demand, followed by iron, with wheat in dead last. So bulk wheat is not particularly vital. In fact it would appear that if your net wheat production is even one third as much as your powerhouse resource production you won't be left wanting to produce something but come up short on wheat. Indeed, from the bit of game I've seen (note this is completely neglecting anything unit-based), it seems if you have enough wheat to pay your upkeeps, with perhaps a small surplus, you'll probably be in the clear.

This has led me to continue advocating my policy of broadly upgrading the lower-levels first, while maintaining a respectable wheat income. This means, granted, my wheat fields will be leveling up faster and my gross wheat production will outstrip my other minerals, but it seems the most logical course, from what I've seen. However, if at some point it becomes unfeasible to continue upgrading my wheat fields (far too expensive, compared to the alternative of prematurely upgrading a different resource tile), that also is something I haven't yet taken into consideration.

If you have ideas of your own, or reasons/unconsidered evidence/further game progress/etc. to the contrary, I'd be more than happy to listen, though.

Based from assumptions from the FAQ:

1 2

You can determine how well defended a town is with a spy unit. Equites Legati, Pathfinder, Scout, respectively. They are only detectable (and thus killable, I suspect) if you have a spy unit within your town in the first place, otherwise, they can't be seen.

Not sure about the beginner's buff bit yet.

Also, initial opinion on the storage shed buildings (warehouse/grainery) is that they are almost entirely useless to buy for a long time. At my current rate of production it would take ~35 hrs average to go from zero to full.

3 Homelands shipments, all of the same quantity (125x each resource). Exactly six hours apart.

Wheat drain from upgrading buildings/fields is cumulative. Example: Clay pit drains two wheat/hr at lvl 1, and an additional one/hr at lvl 2 for a total of three wheat/hr consumed.

Also, you might want to be aware of this sort of thing.

Oh, in regards the 15-wheaters, first cities always start with the same resource allocations (6 wheat, 4 of each of the rest). 15-wheat areas are only available to found a 2nd+ village on, and they seem to only be the most 'blank' of grass squares on the map if you want to search for them (but the 'blank' ones aren't always 15-wheaters).

What sorts of interesting options does the marketplace give you Ellie? I assume there is merchant training/trading to other PC options available, but can't guess any real details beyond that.

Point of potential interest. I hijacked my first non-"here's my infos" post where I was simply lamenting being in the opposite corner of the world from most of you to include some of the various things I've said/asked about Travian at various points in the thread. I will try to continue to update it, as often I'll find myself discussing it in-thread rather than in here, and here seems to be a fine place to store the results of said discussions.

Also, I'll be likely keeping semi-regular updating of my acquisitions in the post where I already followed Ellie's example. It is something to do, and may be of potential interest to my allies.


Ahhhh, that explains my pondering whether your math for fields and production added up or if it was just very late for me last night (I arrived at the false conclusion that you had typoed).

I'm now curious whether the bonus production is floored, rounded, or ceilinged. I may do some poking around with your numbers.