Artifacts

Artifacts are special items that are introduced at mid-game and give significant bonus to their owners in mid-to-late game. Artifacts are categorized into 8 types, each gives different bonus to each owner. In each type, there are three levels: Small, Large and Unique. Small artifacts affect only the village that owns the artifact. Large artifacts affect every villages the owners have. Unique artifacts also affects every one of a player's villages, but with a greater gain. All artifacts are stored in Treasury. A level 10 Treasury is needed for a Small artifact and a level 20 Treasury is needed for Large or Unique artifact.

Release[]

The exact time for releasing artifacts is different for each server and is determined by the admin. It is usually around halfway through the server duration. The exact time is published to all players beforehand for preparation.
When released, each artifact is kept in a Natarian village whose name describes its artifact. Regardless of the artifact level, the Treasury in the Natarian village is always at level 20.
The defense at the Natarian village is dependent on the current troop in the server and the level of the artifact. Unique artifacts have most defense, Large artifacts have medium and Small artifacts have least.
After the artifact is captured, the Natarian village is always deleted.
Natarian artifact villages are NOT uniformly distributed on the server. Unique artifacts are located densely around the center of the map. Large artifacts are located farther from center and less dense. Finally, small artifacts are farthest and sparsely distributed among the people of Travian.

How to Capture[]

There are two methods to capture an artifact, either from Natarian or from other players: stealing or chiefing. When a player steals or chiefs an artifact, the artifact will not activate until after 24 hours has transpired.

Steal the Artifact[]

To steal an artifact means to destroy its Treasury and send a successful attack (NOT raid) with the hero. The hero must survive the attack to steal the artifact. The catapult wave to destroy the Treasury and the hero wave can be the same.
Moreover, the village from which the hero is sent must have a Treasury with adequate level (10 for Small artifact, 20 for Large/Unique artifact).

When an artifact is stolen, the artifact will immediately appear in the Treasury of the village from which the Hero attacked from; the artifact does not "travel back" along with the Hero. This fact can prove important for coordinated attacks by an alliance to steal and subsequently move an artifact. For example, a player from one alliance could steal an artifact from a player in another alliance that is many hours away, and within minutes, destroy their treasury in order for another player in their alliance to move the artifact, despite the fact that the original artifact thief's hero is still hours away from returning to the village.

Chief the Artifact[]

To "chief an artifact" means to chief the village, whether Natarian or another player, holding the artifact. The process is exactly identical to normal chiefing.
After successful chiefing, the player will gain both the village and the artifact inside that village. The effect of chiefing still applies (all buildings lose one level). However, there is nothing in Natarian artifact villages besides the Treasury.

"Moving" an Artifact[]

Because it is nearly impossible to capture an artifact from the Natars by oneself, artifacts are typically held by players within alliances. Because of this, there are often artifact bonuses that an alliance wishes to share with as many players as possible. For example, an alliance may want to share the storage artifact so that their members with cropper capitals can upgrade their fields to higher levels (it is impossible to upgrade wheat fields to >level 19 without great warehouses/granaries, and impossible to upgrade wheat fields to >level 18 without demolishing the marketplace and the bonus buildings). Alliances may also want to share the troop training artifact, so that players building "hammers" or "anvils" can train even more troops.

Typically, when it comes to small artifacts, most alliances will move the artifact by having one player "steal" it. The original user will simply demolish their Treasury and allow the new user's hero to take the artifact.

However, with large and unique artifacts, it is very cost-ineffective for dozens of players to build and demolish a level 20 Treasury when rotating an artifact between players. As such, most alliances will "move" a large or unique artifact simply by having the new user chief the artifact village from the old user.

Type of Artifacts and their Bonus[]

Note that the name here applies for international server. Each national server may have different name subjective to language translation. Small artifacts apply their bonus/ability to the village holding that artifact only. Large/Unique artifacts apply their bonus/ability to all village in the account. In both cases, the bonus applies only after the 24 hour (for 1x speed servers) waiting period is expired.

Stronger buildings[]

The buildings are more durable against attacks by catapults and rams. Does not count for the Wonder of the World, but the account wide and unique type count for all other buildings in the Wonder of the World village.

Small (Diamond Chisel)– 4x as durable buildings in the village of the artifact
Large (Giant Marble Hammer) – 3x as durable buildings in the whole account of the artifact owner
Unique (Hemon’s Scrolls) – 5x as durable buildings in the whole account of the artifact owner

Faster troops[]

Troops travel faster, regardless of distance from target.

Small (Opal Horseshoe) – 2x faster troops in the village of the artifact
Large (Golden Chariot) – 1.5x faster troops in the whole account of the artifact owner
Unique (Pheidippides’ Sandals) – 2x faster troops in the whole account of the artifact owner

Better spies[]

The Scouts, Equites Legati, and Pathfinders are better at spying, and defending against spy attacks. All scouts in the village/account as well as all scouts sent for spying from this village/account are affected. Additionally, you can see the type of troops attacking you at your rally point, but not the amount of troops.

Small (Tale of a Rat) – 5x as effective scouts in the village of the artifact
Large (General’s Letter) – 3x as effective in the whole account of the artifact owner
Unique (Diary of Sun Tzu) – 10x as effective in the whole account of the artifact owner

The Spy artifact is one of the three most difficult artifacts to steal (along with the Unique Durability and Unique Cranny), and is arguably the hardest artifact to chief in the game of Travian. Because the artifact allows a player to see the type of troops attacking the village in the rally point, defenses can easily know the exact second when the waves of chiefs will hit. This can allow a defense to do two things: First, they can "cut waves," which is the act of timing the arrival of reinforcing defensive troops to happen after the main attack (i.e. tens of thousands of Imperians and ECs or Macemen & TKs) and instead arrive as the chief hits with a smaller escort. Second, if a player with the Spy Artifact knows the exact second that chiefs will arrive, he or she can time an upgrade of the Residence to finish exactly between the arrival of catapult waves (which presumably destroy the Residence) and the arrival of the chief. Construction times are never affected by the destruction of a building due to catapult attacks; for example, if a person queues a Residence upgrade from 10 to 11, but the Residence is destroyed by catapults 1 second before the upgrade is finished, the Residence will upgrade to Level 1 exactly 1 second later. When the waves of chiefs hit, even a Level 1 Residence can prevent a chiefing.

Less hungry troops[]

The troops consume less crop.

Small (Silver Platter) – 50% reduction in crop consumption in the village of the artifact
Large (Sacred Hunting Bow) – 25% reduction in crop consumption for the whole account of the artifact owner
Unique (King Arthur’s Chalice) – 50% reduction in crop consumption for the whole account of the artifact owner

Faster troop training[]

The troops are trained faster.

Small (Scribed Soldier’s Oath) – 50% reduction in training time in the village of the artifact
Large (Declaration of War) – 25% reduction in training time for the whole account of the artifact owner
Unique (Memoirs of Alexander the Great) – 50% reduction in training time for the whole account of the artifact owner

Great warehouse or great granary plan[]

Grants ability to build great warehouse or great granary.

The small (Builder’s Sketch) storage artifact allows construction of GWs and GGs in the village of the artifact
The large (Babylonian Tablet) storage artifact allows construction of GWs and GGs in the whole account of the artifact owner
There exists no "unique" storage artifact

Cranny + random aim[]

Artefact raises cranny capacity and additionally causes enemy catapult attacks to fire randomly. World wonder can always be targeted and hit.

Small (Map of the Hidden Caverns) – Cranny capacity increased by 200x in the village of the artifact. Treasury can be targeted and hit.
Large (Bottomless Satchel) – Cranny capacity increased by 100x in the whole account of the artifact owner. Treasury can be targeted and hit.
Unique (Trojan Horse) – Cranny capacity increased by 500x in the whole account of the artifact owner. Treasury cannot be targeted; can only be hit at random.

The Unique Cranny artifact, along with the Spy and the Unique Durability, is one of the three hardest artifacts to steal in the game of Travian, and arguably the most difficult to capture of them all. Unlike the small and large cranny artifacts, not even the Treasury can be targeted by catapults attacking any village of the artifact owner. Unless an attacker is extremely lucky, they will not be able to hit the Treasury with one or two catapult attacks. To capture this artifact thus requires over a dozen waves of catapults, which is risky, because it allows an alliance to reinforce the village with waves of defense that arrive between separate waves of catapult attacks (also known as "cutting waves").

Artefact of the fool[]

This artefact changes its effect every 24 hours, and can get any of the effects of other artefacts, except the storage plan. Also the effect scope is randomly decided between account and village wide every 24 hours.

The normal artefact of this type may get also negative effects. For example, troops can move slower, they might train slower, or they might even consume more food. Buildings might become weaker, and crannies may hold fewer resources. On the other hand, unique artefacts of this type may only get positive effects, but the magnitude of the effect is still random. For example, it might grant a speed increase of 1.01x.

Normal (Pendant of Mischief) – Both positive and negative effects are possible.
Unique (Forbidden Manuscript) – Only positive effects are possible.

[Note: No large or small because the scope is randomly decided every 24 hours]

Some Further Notes[]

No player can have more than 1 large or unique artifact active at any given time.
No player can have more than 3 artefacts active at the same time.
There is no limit to the amount of small artefacts a player can have in their possession at any given time.
Players may own more than 1 large or unique artifact by chiefing villages that already hold them but only the 3 oldest artifacts will function.
When a player steals or chiefs an artifact, the artifact will not activate until after 24 hours has transpired.
Moving artifacts between your own villages will also deactivate the artifact for 24 hours.
A level 1 treasury or higher will show the record of every owner of all artifacts in the server, including the time and date of each time the artifact was captured.
The bonus of a small artifact will override the bonus of any large or unique artifact of the same type for the village that it is in.
Uncaptured artifacts in Natarian villages are deactivated.
A village containing an artifact that is completely destroyed will still remain on the map (as opposed to becoming an Abandoned Valley), provided that the artifact has not yet been stolen.