The Tribal Wars Wiki is a project run by the Tribal Wars community. If you have a problem with Tribal Wars, see Tribal Wars support or the Tribal Wars Forum.

From TribalWarsWiki

Keys to an Effective Start

This guide requires a huge amount of aggressiveness, time, and ability to suppress sleepiness. But it will make sure you grow among the fastest in the world, and that you get into the top rankings and stay there. This strategy is not for newbies. It is risky. You need to know the game well to pull it off, but it can be very rewarding.

First, for 48 hours don't touch anything other than resource buildings and warehouse. Seriously, stay away from all other build buttons - All of them - And warehouse is only if you really have to.

Build resource buildings, starting with clay. Keep wood and clay two levels ahead of iron. This is all you do for 48 hours. Put off building warehouse as long as possible, and only build it if it looks like it will get full, say if you're going to sleep. If you find a sitter when sleeping maybe you can go the 48 hours without building warehouse. Or if you set alarm clock for every few hours.

Then get HQ to 10, Smithy to 5, Barracks to 5. Stable to 3. Get a few resource buildings in between if you want to. Maybe more warehouse too, but only if strictly needed. Research scout and LC. Start building LC. Start farming with LC. Build farm and warehouse as needed, but don't try to build them preemptively. Prior to building Light Calvary, it is best to farm with a small number of spears in order to achieve the resources to get the requirements for Light Calvary

You won't get as high points as the pointwhores do (you'll pass them later), and you may start farming a bit later than you would have done if you had done it by spears. But it's worth it, as getting LC early makes for fast travel speed, good carrying capacity, and long range. You will grow faster if you look at a 1-2 week scale.

Don't build any def or wall yet, its totally worthless at this stage. Just dodge all attacks and you'll be fine. If no one has rams they can't do any damage to you if you don't have any troops in the village when they hit. And if you don't have walls rams can't do any damage anyway. Will take some time before anyone has cats, and people who build cats this early shouldn't be any problem. So in other words, defensive troops and walls are useless until people start getting nobles. And by that time you'll be large and have a quite big offensive army (relatively speaking) and most likely a noble of your own.

Build LC like crazy. Farm like crazy, and build resource villages like crazy. After a few days maybe some more stable and barracks levels for getting troops faster, and start building axes. If you farming is good enough that you don't know what to do with the resources put them into axes earlier. Resource villages are the focus. Also get some more HQ for faster building and academy requirement. HQ should never go above 20.

Only farm villages that are going inactive anyway. Farming active villages are a waste of time. Sure you can probably get them to quit or restart, but it's better having as many beginners as possible nearby building up the villages. Maybe they'll quit in two weeks and you'll have a larger farm. Or maybe they won't quit and you'll have a nice built up noble target in a few weeks/months. There will be plenty of people who go inactive, so don't worry, you'll have tons of farms anyway. Farming abandoned is mostly a waste of time too, everyone will be farming those. Go for the villages that has gone inactive (stopped increasing in points for 24 hours), but haven't gone abandoned. Thats where the real meat is. Farming often with few troops is better than farming a few times with many troops. Scout the villages before you start farming to see if there is something you need to kill before you start farming, or if there is a wall. Calculate exactly how many LC you need to send to take the resources there, to use the LC most effectively. I will be providing a tool that does this on the IRC channel within the next few days. I will also be providing a tool that lists inactive villages near you. If you need more farms go for longer range.

Start putting in a few smithy and market levels in between the resource villages. This is to get the academy requirements. When getting resource village up a bit (don't remember what number is best, will calculate later. 15? 16? 17?) go for Smithy 20 and academy. If you're afraid of getting nobled because you're lagging behind maybe get some def and wall, but this slows you down quite a bit. Its better to keep the first village all off. Since you will be growing alot faster than everyone around you they will be scared of you and won't attack you anyway. Its called psychology, its the most important aspect of defending and attacking early in a world. Use it to your advantage. You do not want anyone around you knowing that you don't have any def.

Then noble something. Go for the largest village in your area, as close as you as possible. The one with the most points. Yes I know that small little abandoned there would be easier to take and offer no resistance. But if you have a village built up a bit you'll save weeks of building. Since you focused on offense troops only killing the largest villages nearby should be easy.

Now you could either turn the second village into a def village and keep taking more villages and farming with the off village, this is the safe option. Or you could make the second village into another off village and make your first def village the third or fourth village. This is the risky option. It depends on what area you're in. If you have any good players nearby go for the safe option. If you find it unlikely that you will get any serious attacks on you for a few weeks you might as well go for the risky option, which allows you to grow much faster. But eventually you'll need some defense, both for yourself and supporting your tribe.