Gameplay and getting going

I am often asked what is the cheapest way to train a certain skill, this is not as straight forward as it sounds, for example you may think that big bones are cheaper to get 99 prayer because they are cheaper than dragon bones, willows are cheaper to train fire making than maples, yews or magic logs or cooking trout is cheaper than cooking lobsters or sharks, this may well be the truth but there is a lot to take into consideration before you decide the cheapest route.

You need to work out what the most expensive commodity in Runescape is, this is not as straight forward as it might seem, if you have low level stats then it is generally the best thing that you can make or collect, if you have medium to high level stats the the most expensive commodity is often time.

Let me explain, these examples are made up numbers used to demonstrate my reasoning but they are not far off being correct at current prices.
Willows cost 22gp and maples cost 40gp you need 130k willows to get to 99 and 90k maples to get 99 firemaking, now you may think it is cheaper to use willows because 130k Willows cost 2.86m to 99 FM, maples cost 3.6m to get to 99, so by burning willows you are saving almost 1m.
Look at it another way, you need to burn an extra 40k willows to get to 99 fm, how long will it take to burn 40k willows? its a long time, how many nats can you make in that time? how many yew logs can you chop in that time? how many monkfish can you catch in that time? its going to be a fair few, if you spend the time that you would be burning those extra willows doing a good money making skill you can easily make more than the 1m that you save by burning willows, the cheapest apparent method is not necessary the cheapest way to train, in this scenario its cheaper to burn the more expensive log because it gives you more time to train money making skills.

Its the same with bones for prayer, fish when cooking and many other skills, you need to way up the costs per xp and quantity of items that the different training methods need, there is also the enjoyment factor to count in, if you like burning logs then willows would be fine for you, you may lose more money but its a lot easier if you enjoy it.

Unfortunately I can not say what is good for who, every player is different and stats for other skills pay an important part in your training method, all I am saying is consider the time taken in your cost to train calculations.

Link: http://www.travian.co.uk/?uc=uk4_20307

I found Travian through an advert on Runescape.

The initial idea is quite fun, you build a village make troops and kill other villages with well co-ordinated attacks and many not so well co-ordinated attacks, you can build troops to defend your village attack troops on other villages and raid their supplies and bring them back for your own use.

My initial opinion was that Travian is a game of hate, it is not generally friendly like Runescape, the more ruthless players can build big armies and catapults and destroy other players villages, as the game progresses this is quite a common occurrence and many players quit because of it.

You do have the option to join alliances, these are groups of players who help each other out by sharing resources and troops, this is the friendly side of Travian but to be any good in the game you need to be in a good alliance or you will get flattened or farmed (Farmed is when an aggressive player regularly raids your resources).

I have played on the speed server, this game goes on for about 4 months and on the normal server that I have been informed goes on for a year.

Conclusion is that Travian is an unfriendly game, perhaps ideal for the pkers from Runescape when Pkin was abolished recently to make it a more friendly and better game to play.

Click here to check it out.