After 8 to 10 days

During the 8th to 10th day you should be able to reach the first turning point in the game: All your fields have reached L3. You now have a solid resource production of about 60/60/60/40 per hour, and now it is time to take a small break. Upgrading fields to L4 is relatively expensive and the 7 extra resources you get from doing are not much of a reward, so we need a boost to get past L3 quickly. We’re finally going to build buildings and get military! Upgrade your main building to L3, build a rally point and a barracks. Also, if you are sometimes away from Travian for more than 9 hours, you will want to build a warehouse to store your resources. And if you want to join an alliance (which I strongly recommend as raiders will be much less likely to attack an alliance member), you have to build an embassy. And finally, a marketplace will come in handy, as it allows you to trade away excess resources for stuff you need. When your barracks are built, train about 4-6 legionnaires. These are the basic roman troops, and they are good for both offence and defence. For now, we will use them to raid our inactive neighbours. You will see that some people in your neighbourhood are not growing at all, often even staying at size 2. These can be raided for resources. For the next few days, raid these people as often as you can until they are empty, but make sure you don’t attack people who are your size or who you suspect to have any military. You don’t want to lose those precious legionnaires or make enemies.Legionnaires start making a profit only after 12 successful raids, and therefore you have to keep them alive for at least that long. So, be careful!

You might be attacked in this period. If you are, make sure to have a big enough cranny, but don’t keep your troops at home unless they greatly outnumber the enemy. And communicate! Politely ask the attacker to stop and tell him you will start defensive troops and upgrade your cranny to make sure he won’t make profit out of you.But do this in a nice and positive manner, and don’t make it personal. And read the what to do when being farmed guide on the forums for more details.

Don’t neglect your growth though. As soon as the buildings and troops are in, start working towards your next interim goal: all fields at L6. Keep raiding inactives, expanding your target range when those inactives closest to you are empty. In the meanwhile, you don’t need any new buildings except for the granary to store your ever increasing crop production. And upgrade your warehouse and granary as you grow. Also gradually expand your military force, as this becomes ever cheaper while you grow. When you have all your fields at L6, you will want to have a force of about 30 legionnaires, more if you have threatening neighbours.