1. Introduction This page will give you a rough overview telling you what you have to expect. The following pages will deal with the more important topics more elaborately. Conduct of Multihunters A Multihunter is always polite. Even if banned players become abusive or insulting towards you. Stay calm and reasonable, there’s no point in giving in to these insults and harassments, additionally you should set a good example and answer igms (in game messages) with common phrases like “Hello” and “(Best) Regards” even though the player might be ungrateful. Multihunters are incompetent no matter what You will probably read this sentence a lot in your career as a Multihunter. Most players you ban will be at variance with your decisions and you will learn that demographers are most likely wrong, at least in the aspect of the estimated birthrate. Following a players’ reasoning this birthrate is much too low, everybody has at the very least 3 siblings. You have to develop a kind of sixth sense to decide whether the player’s tale is true or not, not everybody playing Travian is an only child after all. Take care with your judgment and do not pass a sentence rashly! Consulting with other Multihunters or any of the administrators might help you, too. But in general this decision is yours to make. Passing on of information Never ever pass on details about the ACP to a player (or anyone else who does not have legal access). Most of the players can guess about the overlapping IP but that’s it. No additional information should be passed on in under any circumstances. If a banned player wants confirmation of guilt you may of course describe what he did wrong by saying, e.g. that you see account A logs into account B via the password is enough though. The cookie ID tool should not be mentioned under any circumstances. General procedure once you see a violation of the rules, either as a result of your own hunt or a player’s report, take a close look at and verify all the evidence. Once you do this and you are still sure that a violation of the rules has taken place and you have enough evidence (we’ll talk about this later on) to back this ban up, you should ban all accounts affected by this violation. The player will automatically receive a message concerning the reason for the ban and will message you. After the player messaged you verify why he has been banned via the ACP and proceed. Only after the violation of the rules has been resolved with the player in question will you unlock the
player, if necessary with an appropriate punishment. After this has happened have you completed the case. Punishments You are the one to apply the final punishment to a player who violated the rules. At the end of this manual we’ll show you some guidelines. You should, however, consider more factors. On the one hand the severity of the violation and on the other hand how well the player cooperated with you. If a player does everything possible to hinder you the punishment should increase in comparison to a player who frankly admits his wrongdoings. As mentioned above, the so-called “sixth sense” applies to this part of multihunting, too. Of course we, the team, will help you if you’re unsure what you should apply as punishment. Canceling a deletion From time to time a player will message you asking for the deletion of the account to be canceled (24h after the deletion has been started only admins and Multihunters can cancel it). Once you verified that this message has been sent by the real account owner and not a sitter or someone who knows the password may you cancel it. Click the red X to do so.
2. MH-Account
Your Multihunter account serves only one purpose which is answering igms from players. The account is banned and cannot participate in the game. Inbox Attention: Read igms you answered have to be moved into the archive! Please move it there directly after you answered it or you might get confused whether you already answered it or not. In case you or anyone else needs to check the conversation later it’ll still be available. Do not delete messages of (already) deleted players but move them to the archive, too, you’ll never know whether you still need them.
1. In your account there are two specialties: First of all you can see a history of messages sent to you by a specific player, just click his name and it’ll appear. You should click this one first before opening any messages because you can hereby see whether the player sent multiple
messages (happens if they he/she thinks you’re too slow). Also you can ready older messages from this player very easy with this function as all messages from the specific player will be displayed. Behind the player name a small symbol is displayed: . A click on this link will open the player’s profile in the acp in a new window. Attention: The symbol only gets displayed if you logged into the acp before logging into the in game account. 2. By clicking the “Sent” in the table heading the order of the igms will be reversed. The oldest message will be first. This is also the way you should answer your messages, oldest first, latest in the end. An additional click will set the order to the default way again. Search function in the archive Because looking for a single message from a specific player in your archive would drive one crazy a search function has been implemented: URL of the archive: http://…/nachrichten.php?t=3 If you’re looking for igms from the player with the user id 1234 attach the following to the URL: http://…/nachrichten.php?t=3&from=1234 Search function in “Sent” It’s almost the same procedure for messages you sent to some player: URL of the sentbox: http://…/nachrichten.php?t=2 If you’re looking for igms to the player with the user id 1234 attach the following to the URL: http://…/nachrichten.php?t=2&to=1234 Message IDs / Report IDs Assuming we have player A who reports insults that have been sent to him by player B and to prove this he sent s you a copy of the insults. Unfortunately this is no proof we can use because such a text can easily be faked. Due to this you have to ask player A to give you the message ID to be able to read the original message. The message ID is the number at the end of the URL in the browser’s address line (example: http://s3.travian.com/nachrichten.php? id=7050075 ). The same applies to report IDs. Once the player told you the ID of the message in question go to reporter’s profile in the acp.
The box above is on the right upper part of the profile. 1. Here you have to enter the message ID and afterwards press ok. You have to be logged into your Multihunter account to be able to read the message.
2. Here you have to enter the report ID. Being logged into your in game account is not necessary to see the report.
3. ACP General information The Admin Control Panel (ACP) can be accessed by entering following URL in the address line of your browser: http://sX.travian.com/admin.php (X resembling the number of the world). The access code you received is for your personal access only and may not be passed on to others in any case. Furthermore using the ACP on public computers or near other Travian players should be avoided at any costs. Make sure that, if you have to use a public computer, all login data can be deleted irreversibly and completely. General overview The general overview can be accessed by clicking “Multisearch” after successfully logging into the ACP. Above the entry Multisearch there is the entry Statistics which are not of any importance to this tutorial, however.
1. Search function - This is the link to the search function page. 2. Multisearch - After clicking “Multisearch” the ranking of the current world will be displayed in hundred players per page. Additional information will be given on the next page.
3. Online - With this tool you can compare the online times of various accounts. A more detailed description about the way it works will follow later in this manual. 4. History - Here you can see the latest 100 punishments that have been applied on this world. All punishments, deletions and e-mail changes are listed here. Each with the date and name of the Multihunter. 5. Banned - Here you can see a list of all players currently banned. The list includes uid of the player, the ban reason, the MH who banned the account and various other information. You can sort by almost everything, too, just click the headers. 6. Search items - You can search for various account related information here. The account name, alliance names, village names, e-mail addresses, ckeys, IPs and even deleted players. 7. Search box - Enter the item to search for here. A wildcard search is also possible - use the asterisk * for that.
This is the history tab. Here you can look through all changes done to players’ accounts. Who did it, when and what.
This is the banned players list. Here you can look through the list of all players which are currently banned.
3.1. Multisearch General The Multisearch is the tool you need to actually hunt for violations of the rules on your own, independent of players’ reports. However, you should only use this tool if you have enough time to answer the messages afterwards. On the average 4-5 IGMs per case. So banning more than 20-25 players is rather counterproductive. After you banned a larger account you should make sure that you can answer possible messages shortly after their arrival. Page turning You want to look at the ranking 15000-15099 instead of 1-100? Either do an endurance testing with your mouse button by clicking the arrows below the speech bubble no. 6 or add &p=15000 to the URL. The numbers may vary depending on which ranks you want to look.
1. Ranking - The player’s rank in the in game statistics (player statistics) is depicted here. Also a RED background color tells you that the player is currently banned. 2. Player name - By clicking the name you will be forwarded to the ACP Profile of the specific player: 3. Resources - Here information about sent and received resources is depicted. By clicking the table heading you can sort the list in two ways. Either starting with the player who received the most resources or who sent the most resources away. Grey: Means that no irregularities are at hand. Red (-): The player is neglecting his/her account. The amount depicted is the sum of resources sent away and received. In most cases this resembles a violation of the rules. Green (+): Received resources from other accounts. Just because the value is very high it does not necessarily mean that he/she is violating the rules so take a close look if you want to ban the account! 4. Res(%) - Here you can see a percentage displayed depending on the hourly production of the player. The exact value will be shown if you hover of the “m” (short for marketplace transfers). To give you a better overview the m has different colors depending on the percentage. m - Receiver of the resources m - 0-70% of the allowed resources have been sent away m - 70-120% of the allowed resources have been sent away m - more than 120% of the allowed resources have been sent away m!!! - more than 200% receiver’s hourly production received m!!! - more than 200% of the allowed resources have been sent away 5. Passwords - xp tells you how many accounts use the same password. The x is the amount of accounts having the same password. 3p for example means that 3 accounts have the same password. This can be evidence for multiaccounting but doesn’t necessarily have to. Therefor you should take a closer look at the account itself before banning it. Hint: Occasionally you can
see things like 50p this happens mostly due to players using ultra safe passwords like “12345″ or “Travian”. 6. Page turning - As described above you can use the arrows to turn the page to the following respectively previous100 ranks. 7. Cookie overlapping in percentages - This value displays how many cookies from other accounts overlap with this one. This can be evidence for multiaccounting, too. Mind the “can be” - unfortunately sitters and same pc users are not excluded. However, high values are worth looking at in any case.
3.2. Account Profile
The account profile is a combination of many different tools. These tools help you finding violations of the rules or enable you to edit various things at the account you look at. The tools will be explained one after another on the following pages in detail.To access an account profile you can simply enter a name in the search mask, use the multisearch table or click an ACP symbol in your inbox.
3.2.1. Player Details
1. Search information - Here is a short infobox. It contains some information concerning the player and whether there are more people with a similar name available.
2. User ID (UID) - The User ID of the player you look at. The red colored word is the ban reason (assuming the player you look at is banned). 3. Game information - Here you can see information concerning the player and the related things in game such as ranl, tribe alliance villages and population of the account. 4. Change location - This right is reserved to full Multihunters and above. 5. PLUS/GOLD - This tells you whether a player has/had PLUS/GOLD. Once the PLUS expired the date will be displayed in a light gray. IMPORTANT: Do not favor PLUS/GOLD players but do not simply delete them either. If you have to delete PLUS/GOLD players message
either Tschena or flying_fortress first (respectively keep track of the names and reasons). Assuming the player has Gold another row above this one will tell you how much. 6. Profile - The player profile. Medals are depicted as code and not as images. 7. Quests - This row shows you whether or not the player did all quests. You can also see which type he/she chose (Military, Economy) and whether the player received a “huge army” as well as whether all quests have been fulfilled. 8. Change name - Here you can change the player’s account name. Account names will be changed until 100 inhabitants only. The only exception to this would be an offending account name. Important: Check whether the name already exists before renaming an account and tell the player that he will not be able to login with the old name afterwards. Make sure he knows when this renaming will happen. 9. E-Mail address - Here you can see the account’s e-mail address. In case the player wants his e-mail address changed he7she can do so at the account preferences on his/her own without any interferance by MHs or Admins. A MH cannot change e-mail addresses! 10. Change profile - In case the player’s profile does not fit the game rules as described at §7 you can change the profile here. Leave a notice for the player like “changed by Admin, violated the Netiquette.” after you changed it. 11. Delete player - Here you can delete a player. You will be asked to enter the deletion password first, though. 12. Write message - Here you can write an IGM to the player (e.g. after choosing “Other” as reason for a ban, but you’ll get detailed information about this later on). After you clicked this link you will be forwarded to your Multihunter account.
3.2.2. Villages
1. Delete village - By clicking the red X you can delete a single village. After clicking it you will be asked to confirm this deletion via a special “delete”-menu and the ACP password.
2. Village name/Village details - By clicking the village name you will be forwarded to a detail page concerning the village. An elaborate description about this page can be found at 3.2.3. 3. Starved troops - Important: This function is reserved for the Tech-Support and not to be used by Multihunters. With it starved troops can be revived. 4. Inhabitants & Upkeep (Crop usage) The first figure depicts the number of inhabitants in this village. The second figure the upkeep the troops (own and foreign) in the village need. Tip: Even though troops won’t starve while an account is banned they still eat crop and will start to starve directly after the ban has been lifted. Therefor take care while banning players with many troops. If possible you should be able to answer any messages the player sends for some time after you banned him or send him a message of your own that he will be banned in case he does not cooperate. In case a ban cannot be circumvented the player should be allowed to fill his granaries so that his troops might live. 5. Coordinates- The village’s coordinates on the map.
3.2.3. Village Details Foreword: To get to this overview you have to click the village name in the ACP profile of a player as mentioned in 3.2.1. The details described on this page are first of all a guideline to help you verify information a player gave you. A good example would be “Help me, I cannot build barracks in village xyz!”. At the village details page you can directly see whether he/she fulfills the prerequisites.
1. Search information - Here you can see some information concerning the player whose village you look at as well as some information about the village itself. 2. Village name - Here you can rename the village, e.g. if the name violates the rules. 3. Inhabitants & Upkeep (Crop usage) As already described in 3.2.2. the first figure resembles the inhabitants of the village. The second figure shows the upkeep the troops stationed in the village need (own and reinforcements). The ♻-like icon can be used to recalculate the inhabitants of the village in case the player reported an error concerning this. 4. Coordinates / KID - Here you can see where the village is located. KID is short for Koordinaten ID (Koordinaten is the German word for Coordinates) and is the definite allocation of a village to certain coordinates. It’s not that important to know however. In the search box the did is the Dorf ID (village ID) used to identify the village. 5. Not featured on this image. Do not be disturbed by this is and continue reading with 6., please. 6. Map square - This is information concerning the square of the map the village has been settled upon.
1. Resources - Basically self-explanatory: Current stocks and maximum amount the warehouses and granaries can hold. The ♻-like icon can be used to recalculate the production of the village in case the player reported an error concerning this.2. Production - Self-explanatory as well: The hourly production of the village for each resource 3. Crop production - Here you can see the villages total crop production. If you’d like to see why it’s so low/high hover over the cell - a tooltip will appear.
1. The red X - This is the “Free oasis” button. You need the deletion password to actually free an oasis.2. Loyalty - Here you can see the oasis’ loyalty. 3. Type - Here you can see which bonus the oasis grants the village. Both resource and percentage are depicted.
1. Building side ID - Shows the ID of a building side inside the village. Each building side in the game has a specific ID. 2. Gebäude ID (Gebäude is the German word for building) - Shows the Gebäude ID of a building. Each building has a name and a specific ID in the game to identify it. 3. Building name - The name of the building placed on this building site. 4. Level - The level the building currently has.
1. Type of the event - Shows arrived and sent attacks and reinforcements 2. Heading “Battle reports” - Clicking the heading of the table will show the reports of the previous 14 days for this village .3. Troop’s symbol - This icon displays shows which kind of troops was used mostly in the attack. In case catapults or senators (or chiefs/chieftains for that matter) were part of the attack their symbol would be depicted. This enables to you to see conquerings basically on the fly. 4. Subject - This column is basically the same as it is in the game itself. You can see who attacked whom. By clicking the report link you will see it as if you were the player who originally received it. Important: As in this column only reports about a specific village are displayed even reinforcement reports get listed. This is different from the ACP profile table where only attacks get listed.
1. Status - The color tells you what status the troops have. This table only considers troops that have been trained in the village you look at, foreign (even troops from the same player but from a different village will not get listed here). Blue Ball: These troops are currently located in the village itself. Green Ball: These troops have been sent as reinforcements to another village. Red Ball: These troops have been captured in traps. Yellow Ball: These troops are currently doing a sightseeing tour across Travian. Or to put in other words, they are currently on the way. 2. The kind of troops - Here you can see the details about kind and amount of the troops. 3. Upkeep - An x tells you that the troops are currently eating the crop of the village you look at. A gray bar on the other hand tells you that the troops eat crop somewhere else.
Here you can see what amount of troops and their kind the village owned at a given date.
Here you can see when a village lost its troops. How many and which type can also be seen easily enough.
1. show - This link toggles the extended view as seen at 2. 2. Extended view - Here you can see when exactly an amount of troops has been lost.
3.2.4. Logins
1. Cookie ID - Important: CID is short for Cookie ID. As you can see there are 3 different CIDs. CID1 shows the UID of the account a person was logged into latest (before logging into the account you currently look at). CID2 and CID3 display the accounts this person logged into before CID1 - CID3 is the oldest login, followed by CID2. The yellow background tells you that the account which you currently look at via the ACP has been logged into - it can show the login of the account owner, however, this does not apply always! The various shades of green do not tell you anything about sitters (more about this later) but tell you how often someone logged into the account. The lighter the shade of green the fewer logins are present. By hovering the UIDs (see 3.2.1) named in the different table cells the name of the account will be displayed. You can also click on them to directly get to the matching player’s profile in the acp. 2. CKEY - Important: The Cookie Key is a special cookie which will be set at the first login into any account. It will continue to exist until the player decides to delete his cookies. Another way to phrase the meaning of the CKEY would be to call it the browser’s (computer’s) fingerprint the player uses to log in. The CKEY will only be given to a player using the main page to log into the account, directly logging into the account will result in no CKEY at all. The CKEY is used cross-world, a player receives only a single CKEY (for each browser he uses to play Travian) and it will automatically be used on every Travian world he plays on. A player playing on s1 and on s3 with the same browser will have the same CKEY on both worlds. CIDs without a CKEY are caused by a player logging directly into the account without visiting the main page first. As the CKEY is made up of numbers and letters each player theoretically has his own CKEY and in the best cases you can easily tell whether the player uses just a single computer to log in or a multitude of computers.3. Screen resolution, Browser & OS - XY is the acronym for the screen resolution. An additional, even though not that important, evidence for
the multisearch. More interesting is the hover function of this cell - a tooltip displays information about browser and operating system used by the player. Tip: Many players like to cover up their multiaccounts by using different browsers for them, obviously cookies will not match. However, the operating system will stay the same and along with that the IP. A quick glance at the xytooltip will reveal that. 4. IP address & Provider - As the name already says you can see the player’s IP here - hovering above the cell will show you the provider. 5. Time - The time of the last login. A good way to see who actually wrote an IGM. The login a few minutes before the IGM has been sent is normally the one to look for. 6 Date / Number of logins - The date of the according login. Depending on the activity of account owner and sitters one can see the previous 14 days in the normal table or just 1-2 days. Important: By clicking the table heading the logins of the previous 14 days will be shown. This way even older logins can be accessed and checked. 7. Login types - Very important: As you can easily see the date column has a great variety of background colors (there are just 4 colors visible above though). These colors help you identifying what kind of login is at hand. An account totally independent of sitters, same pc usage or illegal password logins would have a complete white date column. White Background Overlapping UID and CID normally indicate an account owner’s login. Green Background: A regular sitter login. The CID matches the UID of one of the account’s sitters (an explanation where you can see this will follow on the next pages). Yellow Background: A login of someone who entered same pc usage (SPU). Check whether the IPs match for both accounts (and CKEY!). Setting same pc usage without actually using the same computer is not allowed. This function is reserved to same computers only. Playing from a local network does not qualify for entering same pc usage. Red Background: An illegal password login! Here you should carefully check what actually happened as telling anyone your password is illegal. Note that once someone cancels his sitter access to another account the gray colored logins will become red so check the sitter history. Blue/Gray Background: This color marks “returning”-logins. A simple example: Player A is sitter of player B but B not of A. Once A logs back into his own account (coming from B) the login will be colored in this shade of gray. Check the sitter settings to verify this kind of login.
3.2.5. Failed logins
1. CID / CKEY / IP / Time / Date - The information displayed here is basically the same as explained in 3.2.4. Logins. The only difference is the complete white background. There are no color codes. 2. Password - Here fragments of the passwords which have been used to try to get into the account get displayed . In case you see that many different passwords have been tried until an illegal login occurred it is likely that someone used the “Trial & Error” method to get the password and finally access the account. Hint: Sometimes you get reports of hacked accounts. This, however, is very seldom true. It is rather the case that the affected player gave his password to some of his friends “for an emergency”. Somehow the password was spread and the “hacking” occurred because someone couldn’t just keep his mouth shut and had to try it out. So be careful when checking such cases. Also you should check the Miscellaneous section of this tutorial for more information concerning hacking. Be aware that if you need information from this table make sure to get a screenshot because Travian only keeps this info for only 7 days.
3.2.6. Trade
1. Name - The name of the account receiving resources or sending resources away that do not match 1:1 trades. Only trades not fitting a ratio of 1:1 get displayed here. 2. How many times did the players trade - Here you can see how many times the players traded with each other. Telling whether regular deliveries or one time transfers are at hand is quite easy this way. 3. Sent/Received more resources (away) - Here you can see the 5 players each receiving resp sending away the most resources. Every transfer listed here does not fit a ratio of 1:1. By clicking the heading a list of all trades not fitting the afore mentioned ratio will be displayed. Also three statistics concerning the trade balance. 4. Traded resources - Here you can see which amount of each resource has been sent away or received (a minus always means the opposite of what the part of the table is in general about) see the example in 5. Amount for an example. 5. Amount - Here you can see the sum (Summe is the German word for Sum) of all resources sent from/to this player, e.g. in the first line haldunertek received 9200 lumber, 7500 clay and 6000 iron but sent 33750 crop away. In total 11050 resources were not traded 1:1 . 6. Heading -> Detail view - By clicking the heading you get a better view of the transactions described above - not only five but all of the transactions fitting the criteria will be displayed. Additionally three graphs will show up explaining the transactions more detailed.
Supplying the troops (Versorgung der Truppen)
1. Complete upkeep - Depicts the complete upkeep of the troops in the village on a per hour basis. 2. Upkeep needed for reinforcements - Depicts the amount of crop reinforcements need on a per hour basis. 3. Crop production - This bar resembles 2/3 of the total crop production of the account. 4. Stolen crop - Depicts the amount of crop the player gained with raids and attacks. 5. Crop received/sent away - Here you see how much crop a player received from others or sent away to others.
Trade balance (Handelsbilanz)
1. Received resources - This part of the graph depicts the amount of received resources on a certain day. 2. Resources sent away - The resources sent away on a certain day.3. Date Normally shows you the amount of traded resources on a 14 days basis. Raid balance (Raidbilanz)
1. Amount - Says which amount of resources has been stolen. 2. Stolen resources - These are the stolen resources divided into the 4 different kinds.
3. Date - Normally shows you the amount of stolen resources on a 14 days basis.
3.2.7. Sitter & Co
1. Players that may access this account- Important: Here you can see a list of players that are legal sitters of the account you look at. In case a sitter logs into the account the date cell will have a green background (as described at 3.2.4. Logins ).
Hint: By clicking the heading Account sitters a complete history of all sitter connections will be revealed. Including the dates of entering and removing the connections. 2. May access the following accounts - The player you look at is sitter for the listed accounts. 3. Same pc usage - Important: The account you look at entered the listed accounts as same pc users. Normally this means that all listed players use the same computer to login. High CID and IP overlapping has to expected - where one can see this will be explained in 3.2.9. As previously explained at 3.2.4. Logins the date cell will have a yellow background. This function is only meant for players using the same computer, not network! Hint: By clicking the heading Same pc usage a complete history of all same pc usage connections will be revealed. Including the dates of entering and removing the connections.
3.2.8. Suspicious
General At “Suspicious accounts” all connected accounts of the highlighted player are listed. The normal view uses 50% (theoretical value) of the available information to create the list. Normally that’s enough to see whether something is wrong. If this information is not enough click the heading “Suspicious accounts” to increase the amount of data processed by Travian to create the list. As a result the list far more exact. Despite what you see below the table is sorted alphabetically instead of by UID.
1. PLUS/GOLD display - These checkboxes have a special color code and tell you whether a player has PLUS/Gold or previously had it. This information is especially important in case you want to delete PLUS/Gold accounts. As afore mentioned that shouldn’t be done without certain precautions. Shade of blue: Player bought Gold and has Gold left resp. some Plus features activated. Shade of green: Player bought Gold but has no Gold left resp. no Plus features activated. Shade of yellow: Player never bought Gold. Please take note, that a player who transferred Gold or gained Gold via ad will not be “blue” or “green” if he did not buy at least 1 Gold on the current server within the current round/turn. 2. Checkboxes Ban/Compare/Delete - As this subheading is connected to a lot of information it’ll be explained on the following pages in detail. The general function is basically “check boxes and click any of the three options” to get to the
confirmation page. The option “ban” will forward you to a banmask where all checked players will be displayed and you will be given the opportunity to write a comment that will be put into all comment fields and ban the players. More information can be found at 3.3.2. Banning (2). The option “compare” will forward you to the online time comparison where you can check when the selected players play. All the details about this function can be found at 3.2.11. Online times.
The option “delete” enables you to delete accounts below 750 inhabitants who never paid for PLUS/GOLD. The deletion of the selected players has to be confirmed with the deletion password on a second page. Concluding a deletion of huge accounts or PLUS/Gold users is not possible via this system. 3. Activity display - The balls give you a rough idea when the player was online the last time via color codes. To see the exact date and time hover your mouse above a ball. Blue Ball: Player is Online Green Ball: Player has been online in the previous 24h Yellow Ball: Player has been online within the previous 3 days Red Ball: Player has been online within the previous 7 days Gray Ball: Player is inactive 4. Player name - By clicking the player name you will be forwarded to the according ACP profile. Tip: You should open all accounts you think connected in a series of Browser-Tabs and compare them. 5. CID / Logins - Important: The figures displayed here tell you how many times someone logged into the highlighted account. For example there were 10 logins connecting Dominee with smoking respectively 6 connecting Tefelon with smoking. The account you look at via the acp is always highlighted in this table. These figures get calculated with the help of the Cookie ID (CID). Each time some uses an existing cookie to access another account on the same world this will be marked down here. By using the Sitter/Same pc usage diplay (see 3.2.7.) in combination mit den Logins (see 3.2.4.) you can easily see whether the logins were allowed (Sitter/Same PC) or illegal password sharing. 6. IP Overlapping - Important: Here you can see the IP overlapping between the listed accounts. In general high overlapping and CID figures greater than 0 should be checked in case there is no record of sitting and same pc usage. 7. Alliance - This displays in which alliance a player is. 8. Actions - Important: At “Actions” details about connections between accounts is given concerning the information given at “Multisearch”. The p is short for password, here too. So
each account with a p in the Action column has the same password. Additionally to that you can actually see who has the same password. The resource transfers not fitting a ratio of 1:1 get displayed, too. As afore mentioned you can easily see the connected players and the exact amount someone received / sent away. The example above tells you that smoking sent away 224250 resources which were received by Dominee. As the m of smoking is still green the transfer was legal in general. However you should check the Sitter and same pc usage settings and the resource table / graphs to verify that. In case there seems to be a “missing” amount players normally sent resources to players they are not directly connected to. Explanation for the color codes used for the marketplace transfers: In general the figure displaying the amount of resources sent away is always red, for received resources the figure is always black. m +123456: The player received resources. Here you can see the sum of all resources received within the previous 14 days. m -1234: The player sent resources away according to the rules, no violation at hand. m -12345: The player is near the limit of the allowed amount and should be watched if necessary. m -123456: The player sent away too many resources, a violation of the rules is at hand. 9. Inhabitants - Shows the inhabitants of the account. 10. Account banned - In case this cell has a red background the account is banned.
3.2.9. Reports
1. The type of event - Depicts attacks that hit the player you look at via the ACP
resp. the player you look at sent away. In contrast to the village details (see 3.2.3) you will not see reinforcement reports here (this is the same image as used for 3.2.3!). 2. Heading “Battle reports” - By clicking the heading the reports of the previous 14 days will be shown. 3. Troop’s symbol - This icon displays shows which kind of troops was used mostly in the attack. In case catapults or senators (or chiefs/chieftains for that matter) were part of the attack their symbol would be depicted. This enables to you to see conquerings basically on the fly.4. Subject - This column is basically the same as it is in the game itself. You can see who attacked whom. By clicking the report link you will see it as if you were the player who originally received it. Important: As in this column only reports about a specific village are displayed even reinforcement reports get listed. This is different from the ACP profile table where only attacks get listed.
3.2.10. Alliances
Here you get a short overview about the player’s alliance movements.Which he joined, when he did this and when he finally left it.An explanation concerning the actual alliance profile will be added later.Change alliances’ descriptions / delete alliances As described at 3.2.1. Player Details subsection 7. you can even edit or delete Alliances. The details will be explained below the image.
1. Change profile - This function is more or less self-explanatory. By clicking the link you will be forwarded to an edit mask where you can change the profile and the name of the alliance. 2. Delete alliance - Here you can delete an alliance with the obligatory deletion password. You should only do so if an alliance itself violates the rules, e.g. by having illegal names or highly offensive descriptions. In case the alliance displays e.g. National Socialism or any other radical ideas you should check the members, too. Banning them should be done anyway. Do not forget to copy the profile and save it so that you know what was displayed. 3. Member list - The member list works exactly the same as in the game itself. The status icons are the same and even the nicknames link to the in game profiles and not to the ACP profiles.
1. Alliance 2 - The alliance which accepted the confederacy.
2. Status - Green icon means the confederacy exists. The red x icon means it has been canceled. 3. Alliance 1 - The alliance which proposed the confederacy.
3.2.11. Online Times General With the Online times analysis tool you can compare up to 8 players. You can get to this function by two ways, either via the way described at 3. ACP -> 3. (make sure to enter the correct name, this function is case sensitive!) or choose the more comfortable way using the checkboxes as described at 3.2.8. Suspicious -> 2.. The primary function of this tool is to give you evidence about the selected accounts and on what times of the day they have been accessed. You will be able to see very quickly whether the selected accounts have been played mostly at the same or different times. In the best cases this would hint a multiaccount. Of course sitting and same pc usage have to be considered, too. Concluding this tool will only give you some hints about the accounts and possible violations of the rules. In case the depicted online times look like 24/7 of all of the 14 days displayed you should forward the players’ names to Tschena.
1. Name - Here you see the Names of the selected players. 2. IP overlapping - The calculated IP overlapping of the selected players for the depicted time span. 3. CID overlapping - In contrast to the CID display at 3.2.8. Suspicious you see a CID overlapping comparison in percentages for the depicted time span. 4. Compared time span - The caption tells you which time span has been used to compare the accounts. Each day has a different line on the following table (the picture above shows two days). Each day is depicted as a horizontal line where the player’s online times get inserted as small vertical lines (one color per player). Each line depicts one action in 5 minutes, however, as players usually do more than that, a broader bar will be shown.Read the Miscellaneous section about Bots for more information on how to effectively use this feature.
3.3. Banning Players General The option to ban an account is placed directly in the ACP profile of it. But due to its importance we created a special page to deal with this function appropriately. On the following two pages you will be introduced to everything concerning the ban function. It is important to comment a ban foolproof and complete, how to do that will be explained at 3.3.1. and 3.3.2. When do I have to ban and whom? Before you ban some account for a violation of the rules you have to verify that your evidences are good enough - to ban someone for insults without having the NID but a mere copy of the insulting message is not a good enough evidence. In general you ban every connected account, e.g. the pushed account and the one who sent the resources away.
What happens when I ban a player? Banning an account will result in a player not being able to do anything in his account but sending IGMs. The other functions of the account will continue to run without the owner being able to access them in any way. Troops are likely to starve that way but to prevent that starvation has been deactivated for banned accounts. So in case the player has many troops and they are likely to starve after you banned him you should arrange a date and time to unlock him so he may ask his allied to provide crop for the troops. Do I have ban every player? Yes and no. In general every single clear violation of the rules you see should be punished. Especially highly offensive insults, obvious multis or massive pushing. However, if you find a top10 account with 30 villages pushing someone else should be messaged first. Ask for an explicit explanation and tell him that you have the option to ban his account any time. This way should be used rarely, though. In case you are not sure how to handle a case you can always ask Tschena or any of your MH fellows.
3.3.1. Banning (1) Banning player via the ACP profile In each ACP profile the comment field (and the ban options) is located below the sitter & same pc usage box (or in case it is not displayed because the player didn’t have any of these yet, below the resource trades). How to use the comment system will be explained on this page, including the specialties because a complete and clear documentation is very important for the work of a Multihunter.
1. Select the reason for the ban - Here are the different reasons of which you can select one to
ban the player. “Unlock(ed)” means that the player is not banned at the moment. Always choose the reason fitting the violation of the rules best because the player will see a different message in the game for each. After you confirmed the ban with Ok the player will be banned immediately and not be able to do anything but writing messages. Each time he tries e.g. to build something a message fitting the reason for the ban will be displayed, including whom to contact to resolve it. Keep in mind that players like to message every MH available, though. Do not, however, meddle with other MH’s cases as long as they didn’t allow it. Selecting ‘Insults’ will render the player unable to message anyone but the Multihunterwho banned him. 2. Automatic entry - Depending on which reason you chose an automated comment will be entered in the comment field. This automated comment states the reason, the date, time and name of the MH. Tip: To unlock an account a simple click on “Unlock(ed)” followed by Ok is enough. The comment field will be updated with your nick and the date, you should, however, put a short explanation in the comment field why you unlocked the account. 3. Comment - Enter every information you have concerning a case into the comment field. Subsection 4 shows you more detailed what to enter in the box. It is very important that the documentation is complete. Also do not delete previous comments! 4. What to copy and paste - To make a complete comment copy the all the information of the Suspicious accounts list into the comment field, independent whether he’ll be banned for owning multiple accounts, pushing or both. Any of the three reasons can be seen just wonderfully in that table. However, only copy and paste the lines concerning the accounts you’re going to ban. The image above shows what you have to do (both accounts are connected obviously so you copy both lines of the table). This way to keep information is standard on both .de and .com and practically any MH with some human sense left will be able to interpret the information - so if in any case someone has to check up your case he/she ‘ll be able to do so successfully. Important: In case of pushing the “Resource trades” table lines concerning the players in question should also be put into the comment! In case you need to ban for insults you do not have to copy the information above - at least if there is no other violation. Just get the NID (Nachrichten ID -> Message ID) of the insult from the offended person and put it together with the receivers name and UID and a copy of the IGM’s content into the comment field. This way you can easily read the message again without having to generate the link first.
3.3.2. Banning (2) Checkbox banning As already described at 3.2.8 you can use the checkboxes to ban accounts, too. What you have to keep in kind and what the differences in comparison to normal way of banning are will
be explained here. Please try to memorize this procedure we explain in this topic as good as possible for a complete documentation is very important.
1. Summary - Here you will see a list of all accounts you marked in step one at the ACP Profile. Additionally to the names, alliances and inhabitants the e-mail addresses will be listed. In case they can be used as further evidences you should copy them, too.2. Select the reason for the ban - Here are the different reasons of which you can select one to ban the player. “Unlock(ed)” means that the player is not banned at the moment. Always choose the reason fitting the violation of the rules best because the player will see a different message in the game for each. After you confirmed the ban with Ok the player will be banned immediately and not be able to do anything but writing messages. Each time he tries e.g. to build something a message fitting the reason for the ban will be displayed, including whom to contact to resolve it. Keep in mind that players like to message every MH
available, though. Do not, however, meddle with other MH’s cases as long as they didn’t allow it.
3. Automatic entry - Depending on which reason you chose an automated comment will be entered in the comment field. This automated comment states the reason, the date, time and name of the MH. Tip: To unlock an account a simple click on “Unlock(ed)” followed by Ok is enough. The comment field will be updated with your nick and the date, you should, however, put a short explanation in the comment field why you unlocked the account. 4. Comment - Enter every information you have concerning a case into the comment field. Subsection 4 shows you more detailed what to enter in the box. It is very important that the documentation is complete. Also do not delete previous comments! 5. What to copy and paste - To make a complete comment copy the all the information of the Suspicious accounts list into the comment field, independent whether he’ll be banned for owning multiple accounts, pushing or both. Any of the three reasons can be seen just wonderfully in that table. However, only copy and paste the lines concerning the accounts you’re going to ban. The image above shows what you have to do (both accounts are connected obviously so you copy both lines of the table). This way to keep information is standard on both .de and .com and practically any MH with some human sense left will be able to interpret the information - so if in any case someone has to check up your case he/she ‘ll be able to do so successfully. Important: In case of pushing the Resource trades table lines concerning the players in question should also be put into the comment! In case you need to ban for insults you do not have to copy the information above - at least if there is no other violation. Just get the NID (Nachrichten ID -> Message ID) of the insult from the offended person and put it together with the receivers name and UID and a copy of the IGM’s content into the comment field. This way you can easily read the message again without having to generate the link first. Tip: The comment and reason you use will be added to all of the selected accounts’ comment fields.
3.4. Punishing General The topic “Punishing” has not only a technical aspect (how to punish a player) but also the aspect how to punish a player correctly is important. On this page, however, only the technical aspect will be dealt with. The correct way to punish a player, which punishment to apply and when will be explained later on. This much as a preamble: In general you are the one
to choose which punishment the player will finally receive. This always depends on the severity of the violation and how cooperative the player was. There is no standard way to punish a player. Important: The punishment table will appear once a player has been banned, only. In case an account is not banned you will not be able to punish it, obviously.
1. Punishments in percentages - Here you can choose a punishment that will lower the overall population of an account. This means that the system will randomly demolish mines and buildings, however, not remove them unless they’re level 1.2 . Additional punishments - Here you have the possibility to give additional punishments adding to the percentages. Of course you can use these punishments without the percentages if the need should arise..
3.5. Deletions
General - In case you need to delete an account you have to enter the deletion password here and press delete. The password will be given to you after a certain trainee-phase. Normally only multiaccounts will be deleted! Do not delete players asking for deletions, ever. Usually they just try to avoid getting conquered. Tell them to use the regular deletion instead. Important:
PLUS/GOLD users should not be deleted so easily. Message Vinter or Tschena first. 1. Information - Here you can see various information concerning the account(s) to delete. In case the player as Plus/Gold you will see so as the rows are colored red. 2. Reason - The deletion reason, usually a copy of the ban reason. 3. Insert - The insert button will paste the ban reason into the reason field for the deletion.
3.6 Maintenance Maintenance scripts
In the navigation bar you have the entry called “Maintenance work” (1). Here are several scripts to restore vanished troops and merchants, release troops from deleted traps. respectively remove deleted troops from still existing traps, delete animals from player owned villages, and several more. Even though these scripts have been optimized and no longer burden the server anymore as in the beginning you should run them only in case you actually need to - which is in case a player reports e.g. vanished troops. Additionally I, flying_fortress, try to run these scripts once a day (at least if I don’t forget it) to restore anything that can’t hide on a count of three.
1. Maintenance - Important: The scripts have to be run from top to bottom. However, click only one at a time and wait until it finished before proceeding with the next one. The results of the queries will be displayed below this table. In case the script restored something you will see the afflicted data sets below the table, including the player name and depending on the script also the villages and number of restored things.
Here you can see information concerning the Travian Version used on the server.1. - ServerID & Language - this is the ID the server has in the language pool and all except speed versions can usually be referred to by this number. In the second line the languages used on the server for texts and images is listed. 2. - Game Start - The date the server was started on (available to the public) and the current run time. 3. - Server & Main URI - The address used to access the server with and the homepage for the language version. 4. - E-Mail - The e-mail used for this language version. 5. - Travian Version information to see whether it’s running Classic or regular T3. 6. - No starvation - This cell says when the server has been put into e.g. a Christmas peace the last time or the starvation had to be turned of another reason. 01.01.1970 - 01:00:00 is the Unix time stamp ‘0′ and can be ignored. 7. Game speed information, self-explanatory. 8. Gold information, self explanatory, too. 9. Beginner’s protection information. In case some Supporters need to know this 10. This is not relevant on .com as all servers use the same one (as defined in the game rules). There are less strict settings available, though. Following information is only available on this page once the endgame has been initiated.
Information about the Natar’ account and the villages used to build the wonders of the world in. The numbers are the map IDs.
Here you can see the list of all wws. Spieler = Player; Allianz = Alliance; Dorfname = Village name; Koordinaten = Coordinates.
Here you can see the list of all constructions (and the time of their capture [Zeitpunkt]). Spieler = Player; Allianz = Alliance; Dorfname = Village name; Koordinaten = Coordinates.
This is a map of where the wws and the plans are located. The wws are the larger red dots and the plans the smaller green ones.
3.7. History & Banned Players
The history is a log for all actions concerning player accounts except unlocks. It can be sorted by all columns but the violations one. If you need to find out when someone punished and account because e.g. the comment doesn’t yield any information, this is the place to look in.
Here you can look though all currently banned players on a server and get information on their cases. Sorting is possible by all columns except for MH (which is the account ID of the MH in the game).
4. Miscellaneous
On the following pages a few important things not directly connected to multihunting will be explained. This category will be extended piece by piece in case we can think of anything else to put here ;-).
4.1. Punishment Guideline General I’d really like to present you some sort of detailed list when you have to punish someone to which extend. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment and I doubt it’ll ever be possible. The reasons are manifold - each case has to be seen as its own self-contained trial, for example. Not only the severity of the violation of the rules and how cooperative the player was but also the size of the account and the elapsed time since the server started have to be taken into account. A list compiled of all the potential possibilities would probably be as big as New York’s telephone directory. Guidelines Luckily we’d hand out some make-shift umbrellas to new Multihunters, giving them advice how to deal with certain cases and try to answer their questions as soon as they asked them. There are certain clues which you can take into consideration and in case you’re in doubt go ahead and ask any Multihunter or admin who’s available. The following list is a crude guideline for clear violations of the rules. However, it is NOT a listing of punishments that have to be issued in this way and none else! Use your brain when applying a punishment and decide on your own if possible. If you are unsure how to punish in a specific case, feel always free to contact Tschena. Preamble: Also, keep in mind that PLUS/GOLD players should only be deleted after messaging Tschena! < 100 inhabitants - type | possible punishment - Multi -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 33 - 100% - Pushing -> 25 - 100% - Multi&Pushing -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 50 - 100% + EW - Insults -> EW or 5 - 100% or deletion 100 - 1000 inhabitants - type | possible punishment - Multi -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 25 - 66% - Pushing -> 25 - 66%
- Multi&Pushing -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 33 - 66% + EW - Insults -> EW or 5 - 100% or deletion (after talking to Tschena) 1000 - 5000 inhabitants - type | possible punishment - Multi -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 5 - 33% - Pushing -> 5 - 33% - Multi&Pushing -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 10 - 33% + EW - Insults -> EW or 5 - 100% or deletion (after talking to Tschena) > 5000 inhabitants - type | possible punishment - Multi -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 5 - 10% - Pushing -> 5 - 10% (*deletion of a village) - Multi&Pushing -> delete multi. accs., main acc. 5 - 25% + EW - Insults -> EW or 5 - 100% or deletion (after talking to Tschena) Bot/Script Users as well as WW or construction plan holders May not be banned or punished without messaging Tschena. * The deletion of villages is a step towards the players from us. The player may choose the villages that have to be deleted himself. However, they should roughly fit the percentage punishment that would be applied in other circumstances. The advantage for the player is that not his whole account suffers but only small part of it
4.2. Serverstatus
Important The functions explained on this page are for emergencies only, i.e. if no one of the
team can be contacted who might be able to help.General By using the website http://status.travian.com you can mark servers as down. The main page shows you a complete list of all available game worlds. The “helmets” tell you whether a world works as it should or has been marked as down. A green helmet resembles a properly running server. The red helmet, however, tells you that something wrong with this server. To log into the status tool use the login data you use for the Team-Forum.Functions
Report Failure - By using this function you can inform the support in munich of a server breakdown via SMS. Choose the server with the help of the dropdown menu and describe the problem with short and incisive words (the remaining figures will be shown on the left side). Add also your MSN/ICQ/IRC details to ensure that the support can contact you in case they have further questions.Very important: Use the View Log to see whether someone was faster than you to prevent double reports! Switch Status - With Switch Status you can, as the name implies, switch the color of the helmets and mark them as down. View Log - This log shows you all breakdowns of the (recent) past. Use it to see whether someone already took care of your problem. Usage guideline for the Report a Failure system: TechSupport - the Game works, but something is wrong (e.g. “WW can be built without plan”) Sys-Admins - something can not be accessed (e.g. Forum, Server, Start-Page) General terms of what an emergency is and what not Send a sms if a huge error occurs, like: - if noone on tr1 can use gold for 2 hours (Tech-Support) - WW can be built without plan (Tech-Support) - the Warehouse capacity dropped from 120.000 to 1 (Tech-Support) - Server is down (sys-admin) - Server is “unplayable” because of lag for over an hour, so troops are start to starve (sys-admin) - and so on DO NOT send a sms in cases like: - the Teamserver (no one is paying for that) drops out of free “Plus” - your server lags as usual - a non-WW account was hacked - one “strange” combat report occurred - troops starved - a player is not able to login - any other usual buissness that can wait for another 4-12 hours, till the regular working shift
begins - and so on Ro cut it down to a simple “guideline”: If it affects several players (or even better: the whole server) AND if it can not wait till 09 o’clock CET AND if you think, that it is really important for your server/players to get fixed asap -> write a sms.
4.3. Dial 999 For Help The story about possible contact persons is a story filled with misunderstandings and misconceptions. In case a player has a problem and you have no idea whom to contact you might want to consider reading the following. A player reports possible bugs or inexplicable happenings? Player should write a mail to
[email protected] - including nickname, world and a description of the problem. A player does not agree on a Multihunter’s decisions? Player should write a mail to
[email protected] - including nickname, world and a description of the problem OR and in game message to “Admin”. A player reports possible bot/script user or there is the possibility that the player uses one himself? Contact Tschena or vinter via ICQ, MSN, IRC or E-Mail. A player reports missing troops or merchants? Tell him that once every 24h these will be recovered until ~11.00 am gmt+1. In very urgent cases ask the player to write a mail to
[email protected] - including nickname, world and a description of the problem OR and in game message to “Admin”. A player has been banned due to Plus/Gold/Money related reasons? Player should write a mail to
[email protected] - including nickname, world and a description of the problem. DO NOT talk to the player yourself about the ban! A player has questions about Plus/Gold you cannot answer? Player should write a mail to
[email protected] - including nickname, world and a description of the problem. Tschena or vinter were mean and you want to complain about that? Contact Agge via ICQ, IRC or E-Mail [
[email protected]]. <- edit by 44: This will never happen
4.4. Etiquette General Information concerning the subject “How to deal with players” Some information has already been given about this in the very beginning of this tutorial. I’d like to give you a more elaborate explanation concerning this, though. Being polite is one thing of course. Also staying calm and reasonable. All this has already been mentioned. Additionally you should make sure you heed the following basics: English grammar and spelling is important for us. Sounds somewhat dumb but these things are really important anyway. You represent the Travian Team to the players and using 1337-Speech or contemporary abbreviations of the internet is not to be done. You wouldn’t like to receive a message from your bank saying “Ey yo! Check yah accohnt will ya? Lookz lik ya in debpt” (yeah, yeah bad example I know but you should get the gist anyway). Hence you should write your messages in a formal way using standard English (whether American, British, Australian or Indian) does not matter as long as it is any of that and no crude mixture. Using e.g. FireFox and a Language Dictionary Extension (correct as I type) is useful and will help A LOT. Next the content of your messages: Never any information concerning about how we see things in the ACP or things that can explain this. You should, however, include an elaborate explanation of what the user did wrong, how he can rectify this mistake and what will be done next. Especially important is to state that a ban is not permanent and will be lifted after successfully solving this problem. Give the users information they can actually use and understand, also copy and paste the rules they violated and how. At the very least point the paragraphs out and tell them where to find the rules. Never should you ignore messages players sent unless it’s plain spam or does not need any further reply. If you’re not sure about the latter send one anyway. Doing it anyway is a reason for Tschena for that matter, to kill you. Dealing with accounts in the top regions (or accounts with large amounts of troops in general) If you only just recently joined the MH team you should try to avoid these accounts and forward them to more experiences MHs for your own sake as well as that of our superiors and co MHs. Why? Because these players usually create a lot of ruckus and are in general not easy to deal with. They are likely to put you into situations you cannot directly handle with nil experience at hand.
You may of course look at these accounts and forward anything unusual or out of the normal to people who can handle these players. At some point in time, however, you are going to have to deal with them. There are several things you have to heed, though. Firstly: Check everything twice as careful. Secondly: Make sure to have a low answering delay and be online and available for an hour or two after banning high ranked players so you can immediately reply at least once. The special case: Dealing with people who are MHs or Team Members in general They are not different from any other player you ban basically. They have to follow the same rules and will receive the same punishment (concerning their account). If people claim to be team members somewhere or you know they are immediately inform Tschena about this. Include all necessary information (who, where, what, etc.). We will deal with the Team aspect then. If you happen to get banned for whatever reason - do NOT run amok or presume to be right. The MH will hopefully forward this to his/her admin anyway but you should make sure to do the same, too. They will, if necessary, also check the case itself or completely deal with it.
4.5. Endgame So, now the server you hunt on has been put into the endgame phase. This means tons of work for the players as well as you …. on second thought especially for you. Why? Because now they all try to gather as many passwords as possible and the further the wonders of the world develop the more are (ab)used for certain tasks in the players’ greater schemes and strategies. Your duty here is to limit the effect such password sharing / gathering has and make sure that from day one on the ww accounts are CLEAN and I don’t mean clean as in a bit o’ dust doesn’t hurt but clinically clean. Additionally you should never ever give any information whatsoever to players about wonders of the world you might ban or check in the coming time. Sounds pretty obvious? Well, due to a certain event in the past I feel better having that said. As can be seen here on this image (check Maintenance -> Info Tab) this is where the WWs and Natars are located. The next image gives you a complete list of all wonders of the world as well as who owns them, to which alliance they belong, the level of the wonders of the world, the village name as well as the coordinates. Below this information a map can be seen. The red dots are the WW villages, the green squares the construction plans. The other image shows essentially the same as the one above just for construction plans however it does not include the level of the wonders of the world but the date when they have been conquered.
Now what happens if you need an emergency service to deal with cancer? First of all check your badge. Does it read Junior Assistant? If so, forward this to someone else. It reads something else, perhaps even Senior Doctor? Then check everything carefully, nothing is worse than a failed diagnosis. Now you made sure this is cancer we are talking about. What to do now? Hopefully, you are not considering to do this alone and without conferring with other docs. Once you are sure you have a positive case of cancer inform Tschena … your mom/wive/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/daddy, too, you might come late to dinner from now on regularly. After talking to them and getting a general ‘go’ you may ban them and ONLY then. Have fun answering their messages. If you got questions or encounter problems, directly ask Tschena. Before applying a punishment ask Tschena for an opinion, too. A note on cancer: Pushing [this includes ALL resources] WW accounts is legal. From 0 to 100 to be exact. There is also an exception about crop (only!) concerning construction plan keepers!
4.6. Detecting Bots A short history on bots and scripts first: In the beginning there were none - yes, that’s correct. Then later with the first wave of Chinese, I know a text book example of a prejudice, the first bots were created. You have to know it could have been basically any other nation, too, but in the beginning the Chinese hit Travian.com like a real Tsunami. Following this in some distance were the first crude and primitive bots, not really effective but also easily detectable. I once had a 20MB folder full of bots and scripts somewhere on my HDD. Then gradually these scripts and bots became more elaborate and the first versions of GreaseMonkey scripts were spread. In general usage of them was well, it happened and we caught a great many because it was easy. After some time, though, these scripts and bots became better, way better in fact. On the one hand they were easier to handle and could be used for more on Travian, on the other hand they became harder to detect. Why? Because there is a limited amount of information which can be received by a server and naturally some people find about about what we can see. So, what can we see? Some things we can directly see, some we have to guess and in some cases we have to ‘provoke’ information to reach us. This last way, is, however, not advised unless you got serious evidence already at hand. Some evidence is the lack of a resolution (0×0) in the login table. Also weird resolutions (note, Safari Apple Macintosh with 320×396 is actually okay - calls itself iPod or iPhone respectively) or missing information in the tooltip like “unbekannt unbekannt” (unknown / unknown) are hints. Nothing we can ban for, though.
Now, what else do we have. I believe you recall this activity check we told you about? Well, you may pretend to recall, that is sufficient for now. This online times graph can be a good help in case you want to check for bots. Obviously bots and scripts aim at maximum activity or at least some do. There is a number of pictures available which show either convicts or people that might be using bots / scripts. Be aware that *no* online time can also be a bot in a special case. WTF - No online time and a that is a bot? Yes, this is correct. Bots online REAL 24/7 do not get shown for one reason: the colored bar gets drawn once a session times out. If the session is active 24/7 no graph. Note that there are several pending bug reports concerning this where this special case should apply but doesn’t really. You can, however, see this because logins still get logged. This special case is very strong evidence. The other evidence collected with this tool’s help is good evidence in some cases in other not so good. Yes, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it just ain’t good. It’s never enough in most cases anyway. YOu have to watch for repetitive figures, very short action intervals and real chunk-like actions. There are a couple of images which might help you with identifying a bot. [BOT IMAGES] - currently unavailable Now the way you should not use normally. If you really feel you need to do this still contact your superior and explain the case to him. If this gets handled wrong you might cause some nasty incidents. Incidents neither you nor your superior are going to enjoy pretty much. A further note: what I describe now is gray-zone-stuff - not really nice and it gets logged in a way *no one* can remove and you will be associated with it. Look up the account in question in the ACP and get the e-mail address changed (either do it yourself or ask your superior to do it if you can’t) to some you have access to. Now, if you are pretty sure that the real owner of the account is offline change the password via the forgotten password function. Afterwards make sure to change the e-mail again to the old one! This is important, if you don’t you’ll definitely have a problem. The next thing is wait. If you are lucky a bot or script will try to login. Not once but repeatedly. The log of failed logins will start to fill and may, after some time, look like the following one. failed_logins.png - currently unavailable This is the ‘ultimate’ proof for a bot/script - no human person will behave that way.
4.7. Hacking Hacking? Yeah, happens … sometimes or rather quite rarely. What happens mostly is this: A player [B] tells someone else for whatever reasons his password. This password might be forgotten for a long time but believe me, once someone desperately needs it and the unlucky [B] did not change it until then, it’s going to be found - passwords want to be found and used. Just like the One Ring. They stay with someone for as long as they like and then, they slip. Our poor [B] here won’t notice until something weird starts to happen. By then it’s of course too late. [B]
will file a report and you might be asked to check. Now let me tell you what you will most likely see: 1-2 rows of logins absolutely not matching with the previous ones. Likely to contain a proxy IP and no cookie information whatsoever. 2-3 failed logins by someone who’s not the owner (if any at all). Several other failed logins which are likely done by the owner or sitters. That’s it. Now your real task is to get all information from the owner you can get: when did the ‘hacking’ take place, what has been done to the account etc. etc. etc. What you will also need to ask about is whether anyone at all besides the owner knew the pw to a) the account or b) the e-mail address. Also how safe the password was and related information. Additionally you will have to ask whether the owner used a script or bot to play Travian or whether he used public computers. A few failed logins are usually hint at a weak password. Other things that might have happened are packet sniffers (e.g. on public computers) and/or trojan infested scripts&bots - many like to call ‘home’ once in a while. Does Travian know about Brute Force? Yes, it does! Any IP may have 20 attempts in 10 minutes - 21 and it will be banned for 10 minutes from this account. How long can we see the failed logins? At the time this has been written Travian keeps these records for 7 days. In case you need info stored there copy them and/or make a screenshot for safety reasons. I mentioned proxies. (Un)fortunately Travian allows proxies. This can be a large problem with hacking because tracing back is nigh but impossible, especially if additional information like cookie based stuff is missing. System Administrators (the Office people who do server administration) can ban individual IPs from accessing Travian, though. However, as this will make linking cases of Proxy use harder, requesting this is not advised.
