If you want to play offensively in Travian: Legends, your success depends on planning ahead and maintaining a strong, sustainable attacking army. This guide explains what an Operational (Working) Hammer is, when to start building it, and how to determine whether your account can support it.
What Is an Operational (Working) Hammer?
An Operational Hammer is a mid-sized offensive army trained in the Barracks, Stables, and Workshop (without Great Barracks/Great Stables). It is meant for daily offensive actions, such as clearing nearby villages, supporting alliance operations, farming in-actives, and participating in minor conquests.
Typical size on a standard server:
25,000–35,000 offensive infantry
6,000–12,000 offensive cavalry
1,500–2,000 rams
1,500–2,000 catapults
This makes it a good starting option if you’re new to offensive play, returning after a break, or switching from a defensive playstyle.
Choosing Units
Each tribe has different offensive infantry and cavalry options. Some tribes offer multiple viable units, and selecting your preferred unit early helps reduce smithy costs and increases your hero’s bonus gain.
When Should You Start Training Your Hammer?
Do not start too early. Your economy must be strong enough to support continuous troop production. Building too many projects at once or training troops without sufficient income will slow your account significantly.
You should only begin when:
Your economy is stable and can support non-stop queues in Barracks, Stables, and Workshop.
You can still invest 40–50% of your resources into economic development.
Losing the hammer would not threaten your long-term progress.
If You Farm
Start by building farming troops to increase income, then expand to full hammer production, adding siege last.
If You Don’t Farm
Wait until your resource income comfortably covers full training queues.
How Much Does an Offensive Village Cost?
An offensive village is one of the most expensive setups in the game. A prepared Teuton offensive village costs over 9 million resources, not including ongoing troop training. This includes:
Resource fields and base infrastructure
Barracks, Stables, Workshop, Smithy, Tournament Square, Hospital
Full smithy upgrades for key units
This cost makes careful planning essential.
When Does a Hammer Make Sense?
A hammer is viable when maintaining and rebuilding it does not jeopardize your account. Since Operational Hammers are used frequently—farming, chiefing, local fights, alliance operations—you will occasionally lose parts of it. Your account should be strong enough to replace losses without falling behind.
A good rule of thumb:
Start building an Operational Hammer when your account regularly produces at least double the hourly resource cost of training it.
How to Calculate Your Resource Production
You can estimate your hourly production using the in-game general statistics:
Open General Statistics and check your daily production share.
Look at the crop value and its percentage of total production.
Use the formula:
(Crop production × 100) ÷ crop percentage ÷ 24 = total hourly production
2,150,904 crop at 65% → approx. 137,878 total resources per hour.
How to Calculate Your Farm Income
Check the total resources farmed since midnight of the week.
Divide by the number of hours passed.
Example:
1,135,000 resources farmed by Wednesday 14:00 → around 18,300 resources/hour.