Tribal Wars - Is It Worth It?

Registration on the website is pretty easy and straight forward. When the website comes up, if you are a new user, you will see the image of a man holding a sword and shield and a LARGE button saying "Register now for free!"

Click on the registration button to begin the process of World Domination (with a smile). As you are registering it will ask you for your username, password and email address. **NOTE** at the top of the page it tells you which world you are about to start playing on, so if you have friends on another world you wish to join you need to click on >>Select another world (see pic)

Once you have accepted the terms of service (read them because there are some specific items that will have your account banned) and hit the button to register they will send you an email to verify your registartion. As you enter the validation code they send you it will tell you "Welcome" and ask you to log into the world that you have selected (or was pre-selected) for you.

The process is easy and only takes a few moments. I rate this pretty high up there. 5 out of 5.

When you first log into the game it will show you what your village looks like, with the nice graphical interface. It also has a small tutorial to help quickly give you the basics of the game and get you moving forward in a short time.

When you start off the game your village will be around 72 points, depending on the world you choose and what the rules of that world are for village set up. I am writing this as if you are starting on world 35, because at the time of this publication that is the default world for starting. Your village will include the following structures:

Village Headquarters - Think of this as your town hall. The higher up in level it gets the more efficient your village works and the faster you can build other structures. (it is also required to be a minimum level 20 to build an academy)

First Church - A Village with a church in it will cause your troops to be inspired when fighting and give them a bonus in battle over fighters from villages outside the sphere of influence of their church.

Rally Point - This is where you command your troops and track their actions in battle.

Timber Camp - Produces timber, which is one of the three building materials used for construction in TW.

Clay Pit - Produces clay, which is one of the three building materials used for construction in TW.

Iron Mine - Produces iron, which is one of the three building materials used for construction in TW.

Farm - The larger your farm the more people your village can support. Each time you raise the level of most buildings in your village it requires more people to maintain it, plus you will need a large farm to feed the troops within your village.

Warehouse - This is where you store your timber, clay and iron. The larger your warehouse the more you can store.

Hiding place - This is a game of war (it's in the title), so you will be attacked by someone at some point. The hiding place, when maxed out will let you hide enough resources to try and get back on your feet a little bit between attacks.

To upgrade any of these you just click on the link that says "Expansion to level #". It is on the right side under Construct column. As you upgrade your existing buildings you will notice the point value of your village going up. As you raise certain building levels up, you will have the opportunity to construct new buildings (notice above I mentioned an academy, but didn't mention you having one.- I will discuss this in a second.) You can also change the name of your village. The default name is "Your Username's Village"

The game makes it very easy to get going quickly, and even offers you a few days of safety before you can be attacked. It does make you dig for information if you want to get a clear understanding of what your goals are supposed to be as you are building your village, so I am only giving this part 3 out of 5 despite thinking it easy to get moving on it.

All in all I think that Tribal Wars is a great game. it is quick to get started and easy to start growing your village up. It is NOT an easy game though, because a lot of thought needs to go into how you play your village to grow the most efficiently you can and start taking other people's villages before they take yours. Once you make some allies (my account on world 5 is in a great tribe and I have over 6 million points, and yes I remember saying you start off under 100 points) the game takes off and can become extremely fun. Just remember that even the largest player on your server isn't bigger than the group of people looking to take him or her out, and no one is untouchable.

One final item I didn't mention. This is a java based game, so it will cause your computer to work a little bit. If playing this game while also playing a traditional MMO (WoW, WH, etc) it can cause some lag issues for you.

Have fun with this one it can be a great way to kill some time online. Overall I give it 4 out of 5.