Abbreviations

Here you can find a list of terms and abbreviations commonly used by players in the game and on the public forums.

#

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

#

• 150ms rule: No 4 attacks from the same village may be sent within a 150 millisecond time frame.
• 24/7 Account: An account that is played 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ordinarily done through multiple players logging into the one account.
• 7*7: The territory immediately surrounding one’s own village. This territory spans 7 tiny squares x 7 tiny squares. 7*7 is the usual map available to non premium players.
• 15*15: The wider territory surrounding one’s own village. This territory spans 15 tiny squares x 15 tiny squares. This is a map option available to premium players.

A

• Abandoneds: Villages that were once owned by players, who have either quit or restarted.
• Academy sharing: Nobling villages with academy 3 from a tribe mate, then producing nobles, then giving the villages back.
• Academy tribe: A second tribe created by the ‘main’ tribe, into which newbs are often convinced to join on the premise they’ll be ‘taught’ how to play. In reality, these are typically associated with tribes that are more interested in points than troops, and once you reach a certain number of points, you will be allowed access to the main tribe. Generally scorned by the older TW community. Not to be confused with teaching tribes.
• Account check: Carried out by tribe leaders periodically, this involves account sitting a player in order to see what their account is like (troop counts, building levels, tech levels, etc). This is a relatively commonplace requirement when applying to tribes.
• (Account) Sitting: Allowing another player to take control of your account, through the Settings à Account Sitting process in game. This is most notably done in order to have someone look after your account whilst you’re away from TW. Many tribes maintain a rule explicitly stating their members may only be account sat by other tribe members. Aka the bane of many Australian players existences.
• Act of war: Anything a player may do that causes an opposing tribe to declare war on the initial player’s tribe. Typical ‘acts of war’ include (but are not limited to): scouting players from opposing tribes, inviting players from other tribes, and attacking players from other tribes. For lesser Acts of War, see: http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=126340 (humour, newb, humour).
• Activity check: Usually done in the form of a post in a tribe’s forums, leaders will ask for everyone to ‘sign in’ (respond) to their post, in order to make sure everyone is active. Another method is to send a circular mail to all tribe members.
• Autofire mouse: Mouse that is used to send fast trains - often argued as cheating.

B

• Backtime: An in-game technique in which Player A works out when Player B’s troops will return to Player B’s village after an attack. An attack is then arranged to hit Player B’s troops the instant they get back into the village. Typically this is conducted between two players - one player attacks, the second dodges, then backtime’s the first - although anyone can backtime a player provided they know when X’s troops return to the village.
• Backup time: This is when the server does the backup and you get massive lags (4:45 server time).
• Banned: When a player breaks the rules (typically the ‘no multi accounts’ rule) they are banned from the world and unable to play any more. It is against the rules to discuss bans in the public forums. Bans can be appealed by sending in a ticket.
• Barb / Barbarian: Non-player villages already established in a world’s settings. These are good for farming early on, and many new players choice of a first noble target, as they don’t put up a fight.
• BB-codes: Codes that help you change the appearance of your text, or insert links, images or quotes into a post.
• Bonus villages: Particular to certain world settings, ‘bonuses’ are villages with special features, such as extra population, faster production times, more res’s produced, greater warehouse capacity, etc. They are part of a world from the beginning, and not owned by any players until they’re nobled.
• Bookmarking: A farming technique where you copy the "resend same" link from the farm report to your bookmarks. By opening all bookmarks in a folder you can farm a huge number of villages within seconds - legally.
• Bot check: A quick check that confirms a player is in fact a mere mortal, by requesting one clicks inside a broken circle. Aka ‘that thing that happens when Jamm tries to time attacks’, and ‘zomfg, why now, why?!’
• BP (Beginner Protection ): The first few days after a player joins a world, during which no one can attack them. The length of BP time varies from world to world.
• Bug: A ‘bug’ is another term for a glitch in the tw system.

C

• Cats: Lazy term for catapults.
• Cat Waves: As cats are more effective in small numbers it is better to send them in trains/‘waves’ than one huge attack. Lots of small cat-attacks sent in succession are known as cat waves.
• Claims: Tribes will often have a section in their forums set aside for players to ‘claim’ future noble targets, to avoid two or more players trying to take the same village.
• Clearing: Describes the act of killing all the troops in an opponents village. I.e. “I just cleared player X, so now would be a good time to noble him.”
• Cluster (player): A group of villages owned by a player. Its preferable to have a tight cluster (villages close together) in order to make the villages easier to defend when under attack.
• Cluster (tribe): A tribe with lots of players in close proximity to one another.
• Crippling: This is the catapulting of crucial buildings in an opponent’s village, designed to slow down or halt their growth completely. Which buildings will vary depending on the stage of the game, and in-game circumstances.
• Coordinates: The location of a village on the map. I.e. 475|724.
• Co-Players: Two or more players playing the same account, most often from complimentary time zones, to ensure maximum activity on the account.
• Coat of arms (COA): The picture used on a tribe or player’s profile. Generally speaking, no ultra-l33t COA is complete without at least some of the following: blood, darkness, shadows, swords or other weapons of choice, the tribe/player’s name.
• Coin: A unit which you use to buy noblemen in your academy. Each additional nobleman costs one coin more than the last one. Each coin is bought with a certain amount of resources. Specific to coin-worlds. In a coin world, if your nobleman gets killed while defending or you over noble yourself, you do not need to mint the full number of coins but rather just pay 40K/50K/50K training costs.
• (The) Core: The four innermost continents in the map - K44, K45, K54, K55. Generally regarded as prime real estate, unless you miss the opening of the world, in which case ‘waiting for the rim’ is a pretty cool fallback position. It should be noted however that as the world grows, the core expands outwards.
• Cross defending: When two players put their defence in the other ones village. This means when one is attacked he can just pull his defence back, even if the other player is offline.
• Cross Sniping: Two villages do not snipe their own attacks but the attacks of the other one.
• Cupping: Nobling yourself in order to raise the loyalty back to 25 after 4 unsuccessful noble hits, or nobling yourself in order to make multiple attackers hit themselves with their nuke/nobles. This strategy is only worthwhile in coin worlds.

D

• D / Def / Defence: Spears, swords, scouts, heavy cavalry and catapults comprise what is referred to as a player’s defence, or defence force.
• Dodging: An in-game technique in which a player sends all their troops out of the village just before an attack hits, thereby saving their troops.
• Duke: Leader of a tribe. Often characterised by in-tribe forum silence, due to the overwhelming amount of mail they have to sort through every time they log in.

E

• Ego: The reason we play TW. The size of one’s ego should be directly proportional to one’s IG skillz. For reference: Duffbdat. Need I say more?

F

• (Epic) Fail: A phrase used to express extreme disapproval of a post, poor attacks, etc. Commonly used on poor PnP posts.
• Fake: In-game technique in which a player sends a ‘fake attack’ at another player - often consisting of a single axe or ram. Typically used during war to confuse and fluster enemy targets. Choose thine target wisely - if you’re not faking someone who gets worried, you’re probably faking someone who’s just going to get irritated and make it a personal mission to crush you.
• Family tribe (lulz):A group of tribes joined together with a traditionally silly name. Widely renowned for having a ‘numbers > skill’ policy and poor co-ordination/organisation. No true family tribe is complete without an ascii sword.This applies to 99% of family tribes.
• Family tribe (serious):A family tribe is any tribe that has multiple branches, all of which are united as one 'group', playing together with the same goals - as distinct from allies, who occasionally help each other out when it's mutually beneficial, but quite often have their own agendas. And yes, this includes brother tribes, sister tribes, academies, and so on. Any addition to the main branch.
• Farm: Any village a player sends his troops to, to gain resources, is a ‘farm’, irrespective of whether the village is actually being played by someone or not.
• Farming: The act of sending troops to another village, to gain resources. If this village happens to be played by an active player, irate mail may accompany any resources you take.
• Farm shaping. This happens in worlds with growing barbs. As they stop growing at a certain point, catting everything you don't need in your farm ensures the resource pits and warehouse grow to decent levels.
• Fast tabbing: Quickly switching or closing tabs on opera using keyboard shortcuts.
• Flaming: The art of shooting down another poster's arguments and points in the forums whilst also making fun of them.
• Free Trade: Refers to the ability to send resources to players in game, via the market, without needing to make a swap for anything in return.
• FTW: For the win. Used to express great approval. Ie. AI’s TW dictionary is ftw!

G

• Gang-bang: The act of multiple players attacking the same target. Or on a larger scale, multiple tribes attacking the same tribe. Typically done to high ranking players/tribes, by lesser ranking players/tribes, whose main ambition is to take the #1 spot and, poetically, wait to be gangbanged themselves.
• Greys: Grey villages on the map. These include abandoned, barb/barbarian, and bonus villages.
• GTFO: Get the f*** out. Most often said disparagingly on the forums, to express dislike towards another poster. (Or in jest, depending on the players.) May or may not get you an infraction or warning depending on the moderator in question, if used in the public forums. (May or may not get me two infractions for posting it in this dictionary. Twice. Cruel, cruel irony.)
• Guides: Guides are written by (usually) experienced players, and range from detailing single strategies, to advice on how to approach world settings, etc. New players who dare to suggest they’re not interested in reading any guides, and just want someone to ‘tell them how to play’ will soon find themselves victim to a cascade of scorn and disapproval from older players.

H

• Hate Mail: Hate mail is usually received after a successful attack on another player. The targeted player will send insults to the attacker, after which one of two things will usually occur. One: the recipient of the hate mail will report the sender for being insulting, and get them banned. Two: the recipient of the hate mail will post the mail in the in tribe, or public forums, and much lolz will ensue. Typical hate mail is identified through poor grammar, poor spelling, swearing, insults regarding one’s mother/sister/intelligence/lack of life, and an excess of exclamation marks.
• HC: Heavy cavalry.
• Hugging: Aka Tribal Hugz, this is when tribes obtain as many alliances and naps as they possibly can, in order to avoid conflict. Can also be used in reference to any nice behaviour on the forums. W34 was especially good for Forum Hugz, early on.

I

• Infraction (forum): A player may receive what is known as an ‘infraction’ when they post inappropriately in the forums. This is like a black mark against the player, and in serious enough cases, can result in players being banned from the forums for a time. 4 infractions = instant ban, and most infractions expire after a certain time period, except for serious ones which are permanent.
• IG: In Game.
• IGM: In Game Message.
• IGN: In Game Name.
• IRL: In real life.
• In Game Staff: A player who has volunteered to help police and "moderate" the game worlds. Typically speaking their dedication and service to the running of the game is undervalued by many players. They do a great job! (… -slips $50 from Godsman into pocket-. Pleasure doin’ business with you.)
• Inactive: A player who isn’t logging into their account often/at all.
• Invite: Aka invitation. Tribes send invites to players, and once this is accepted, the player automatically joins the tribe. If you're already in a tribe, you need to leave in order to view your invitations.

K

• K: Shorthand for ‘continent’. Ie. K45.
• Kicked: When a player is dismissed from a tribe.

L

• LC: Light cavalry.
• Loyalty (tribe): Willingness to stick with your tribe during war.
• Loyalty (village): Each village is set at 100% ‘loyalty’. This means it is 100% yours. When you are attacked by another player, with a noble, the ‘loyalty’ will lower from anywhere between 20% - 35%. When a village reaches 0% loyalty, the attacker takes control of your village, and you no longer have access to it. This is known as "nobling" someone, any troops that you have outside the village when the loyalty falls below 0 will simply disappear.

M

• MA: Mounted Archer
• Merge: When two tribes agree to join forces and create a single tribe. The community response to merges can vary depending on the stage of the game, the reasons for the merge, and the tribes that are merging.
• Moderator: A player who has volunteered to help police and "moderate" the game worlds. Typically speaking their dedication and service to the running of the game is undervalued by many players. They do a great job! (… -slips $50 from Godsman into pocket-. Pleasure doin’ business with you.)
• Monitor: An early-game technique in which players keep track of the points of surrounding players to gauge their building progress.
• Morale: A protection mechanism for smaller players. Players more than 3 times bigger than their target get a handicap that reduces the strength of their attacking troops depending on the relative difference of the size between attacker and defender by up to 30%. Some worlds have time based morale, which adds a deduction of troop strength for attacking players that are new to the world.
• Morale sacrifice: Allowing an enemy to noble a village before attacking him (this village may or may not be one of yours), thus getting a better morale when attacking and clearing him. Afterwards you may take both his old village(s) and his new one.
• MS: Millisecond.
• Multi accounting: A practice typically employed by newer players, where they create multiple accounts for the one world. Usually recognised by being labelled in such a creative fashion as: spartanwarrior1, spartanwarrior2, spartanwarrior3. Against the rules, and ill-advised.

N

• NAP: Non-aggression pact. Made between tribes to signify a state of peace between each other. This generally lasts until one tribe decides they want the villages of the other, which is most often followed by the betrayed tribe posting in outrage on the PF’s.
• Newb: A new player that shows promise.
• N00b: A player that does not show promise. Can be either new or old.
• Nobling: The in-game act of taking over someone else’s village. See “Loyalty (village)” for more information.
• Nuke: A massive force of troops, larger than your average ‘100 axes, 30 LC’ attack combo. A nuke is the full space of a level 30 farm used to make offence troops. Used with the sole intention of obliterating an opponent’s army. Informing enemy players you have built up several defence nukes is a good way to provide cheap lolz.

O

• O / Off / Offence: Axes, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, rams and catapults comprise what is known as a player’s ‘offence force’. These are the units you attack other players villages with.
• ODA: Opponents Defeated as Attacker. Refers to a player’s ODA ranking, which gives an indication of how many enemy troops a player has destroyed by sending attacks at others.
• ODD: Opponents Defeated as Defender. Refers to a player’s ODD ranking, which gives an indication of how many enemy troops a player has destroyed by defending against attacks others have sent.
• Offence-defence matching: Automated programs that match increasing ODA and ODD (can also include the delay of ODA, when all troops died) to show who has attacked whom.
• OP:Original post / Original poster - depending on context.
• OT: Off Topic / On Topic - depending on context.

P

• PA: Personal Ally. Typically a good friend up until the moment one PA nobles another.
• PA (premium account/points): ‘Premium’ is the shorthand reference to a paid account. A premium account comes with additional bonuses, beyond that of the ordinary, unpaid account.
• Packages: The system of creating noblemen preferred by many "old school" players. Simply put the cost of a noblemen is "X" number of packages. "X" is determined by the following formula :

X = current number of villages + number of existing noblemen + number of noblement currently in training Under a package system, a nobleman which dies on offence can be retrained at the source village for a single package. However when a nobleman that gets killed on defence or is lost when a village is over nobled, the full number of packets needs to be paid to get it back. This makes defence far more strategic.

• Pally: Lazy term for paladin.
• PFs: Public Forums.
• PNP: Politics and Propaganda.
• Point Disguise: Building/demolishing hiding place levels to make it look like you have been building something else - counter-strategy to monitoring. Also has strategic value in church worlds - can be used to hide the points increase accompanying the construction of a church.
• Point Whore: A player who enjoys collecting points, rather than troops. They don’t last long.
• Post: Anything one writes in the forums, once posted for all to read, is a post.
• Premade: A tribe that is made prior to a world opening, typically with players that have some idea of one-another’s skills and strengths. Often themed.
• Pushing (legal): When a tribe sends a rim-side, or newly restarted, player resource deliveries to boost his rate of growth and dominate his area.
• Push Accounts (illegal): When a player makes multiple accounts to send troop support or resources to his original account to try and gain an unfair advantage.

Q

• Quarantine: Deleted mails are shown as read, so you need to store unread mails in order to appear offline. These mails are ‘quarantined’.
• QFT: Quoted for truth.
• Quick Bar: This is a tool bar only available on premium accounts. It is the bar below the main options, which allows you to shortcut to a particular building. The quick bar can be edited as you want and used to add legal scripts to help play more easily.

R

• Ranking: Determined by the number of points a player has in any given area. Each player has an overall point ranking, a K player ranking, an ODA ranking, an ODD ranking, and a combined ODD/ODA ranking. Opinions differ wildly on which ranking is the best to rise to the top in, and at what stages of the game it’s most impressive to be highly ranked in a given area.
• Rax: Lazy term for Barracks.
• Recruitment (as a summary of barrack, stable and workshop) building
• Refugee: A player that is under attack, and looking for a tribe to join, in order to get protection from them. The general rule is to dismiss players if they’re found to be refugees, and leave them to the attacker.
• Report Deleting: Reports and mails not stored in self created folders or the archive are deleted, and the resend link expires too.
• Res’s: Resources. I.e. wood, clay, iron.
• Restart: When a player chooses to give up his current location, and start over. Typically done for one of two reasons. One - after joining a world, and surveying the map, a player may restart if dissatisfied with his location. Two - when getting pwned, a player may restart rather than spend any more time on a lost cause. Often when players are getting thrashed in a war, they will restart just before being nobled, so as to ruin the conquering tribe’s statistics. Restarting is only possible when in possession of a single village.
• Restart mail: Aka hilarious. Mail sent out by Player A to everyone in his 7*7, or 9*9, or etc., to try and convince players it would be in their better interests to restart before they get pwned by his spear army.
• Restarting in tribe territory: After being nobled, a player may be given the option of restarting in the middle of their current tribe (world specific).
• Re-take: Presuming one’s village is going to be nobled, this involves timing an offence with a noble to hit after the last enemy noble, thus killing the enemy nuke that stays in the village, and re-claiming the village.
• Retiring: The classier version of quitting.
• (The) Rim: The outer K’s on the map. The rim is always expanding.
• Rim tribe: Any tribe that forms on the rim.
• Rimming: The act of nobling all of a player’s villages, and sending him to the rim of the world. A term that is slowly becoming obsolete as players in current/future worlds will be able to restart within their tribe territory when nobled.
• RL: Real Life. If you play TW to any great degree, RL will become a distant memory. Something spoken about in a detached, clinical way, with no real understanding of what it actually involves anymore.
• RL Excuse: An excuse given about RL, in order to leave the game, traditionally given just after one is pwned by another player. Excuses may include, but are not limited to: I don’t have time for this right now, a long-lost relative has just reappeared in the Bahamas with a small fortune, the dog ate the internet, and I got an upgrade to web 2.0 and apparently TW isn't compatible.
• Rollback: This is when a world gets set back to an earlier point in time. Typically when the last backup occurred.
• Rush / Rushing: The process by which a player focuses on achieving a set goal, to the (relative) neglect of all else. LC rushing, HQ rushing, and noble rushing are the usual suspects.

S

• Scripts: Scripts are java based codes that help you make your gameplay easier
• Service request: Service requests can be lodged in-game, through Settings à Service Request. Through this, players can ask for help on matters such as bugs, in-game problems, premium accounts, etc. Before sending in a service request, it is advisable to read through the q&a’s already listed, to see if your question is already answered.
• Shared Forums: Used when two or more tribes create a section in their in-tribe forums where members from multiple tribes can communicate.
• Sims / Sim City: Derogatory term, used in connection with players who are more interested in building up their villages than getting involved with the war aspect of TW. Often noted for only nobling low-point villages or barbarian/bonus villages, and in turn needing to build them up from scratch.
• Sleep: A foreign concept to any long-term TW player. If you’re new and reading this, please contact Agent Incognito immediately with an updated definition.
• Sniping 1: To time support / recall defence in such a manner as to split an attackers noble train and thus prevent him from conquering your village in one stroke. This is a favoured defence tactic by experienced players when defence needs to be conserved.
• Sniping 2: To noble a village that another player cleared before he/she can noble it. This is considered a low trick.
• Solo player: A player who chooses to play alone, without joining a tribe. Usually a technique adopted at the start of the world, whilst tribes are formed, disbanded, merged, destroyed, etc. This allows a player to establish their presence in their own territory without worrying about tribe mates, as well as giving the opportunity to observe which tribe(s) might be worth approaching for an invite.
• Spam (PFs): Irrelevant rubbish that completely drags a thread/conversation off topic.
• Spam (in-tribe): A section in the tribe forums where people may talk about whatever comes to mind, play games, etc. Aka “If that counting game keeps getting put into forums of tribes I join, I will have to noble my entire tribe just to shut them up.”
• Spear wars: Typically used in a scornful manner, when referring to tribes/players that declare ‘war’, or fight one-another, so early on that the only troops anyone is likely to have are spears, and possibly a token sword or two.
• Spiking: Used in the early stages of the game, this technique involves players sending a limited number of swords (ideally) and/or their paladin to support grey villages. This causes other players in the area to lose their troops when they attempt to farm the village. A questionable technique with as many pros as cons.
• Split second: The ms shown in the detailed attack screen.
• Spread Out: Used in reference to the locations of tribe members. I.e “That tribe is so spread out they’ll never be able to coordinate effectively.”
• Spy: A player who joins a tribe solely to feed information to another tribe. Used most often in war times. As a general rule, it’s best not to leave one’s public forum signature as advertising one’s original tribe, when spying.
• ST: Server time.
• STFU: Shut the f*** up. May or may not get you an infraction or warning depending on the moderator in question, if used in the public forums.
• STW: Speed Tribal Wars.
• Stack: A technique that involves the members of a tribe all sending support to a particular player, thus ensuring he is ‘stacked’ against an incoming attack. Also used as pre-war preparation, for players on the front line.
• Stats: Lazy term for statistics.
• Suicide Troops: A technique that involves sending all of one’s troops at an enemy target that will quite likely wipe the attack out. Suiciding troops is commonly done for one of two reasons. One: a player is quitting/restarting, and chooses to suicide their troops on an enemy target first. Two: a player may choose to suicide his own troops ahead of a tribe mate’s nobling attacks on a common enemy, ensuring successful nobling.
• Support: Any defence troops player A sends to player B to help against an incoming attack are then known as ‘support’. Very important one doesn’t confuse the ‘attack’ and ‘support’ buttons when sending support.
• Target blocking: NAPing with a tribe and then taking all good targets in a specific area, in order to create a wall, which can only be crossed with long range noblings, thereby keeping them out of "your" territory.

T

• TBH: To be honest.
• Teaching Tribe: Few and far between, a true teaching tribe is essentially a tribe established by experienced players, with the intention of bringing newer players in and teaching them the ropes of TW. Not to be confused with ‘academy tribes’.
• Tech (technology) / Research: Particular to certain world settings, in which troops can be upgraded to stronger levels. Each upgrade is referred to as a ‘tech’ or ‘research’ upgrade.
• Thread: A thread is created within a forum. When a player makes an initial post, they start a ‘thread’. Anyone who responds to this post, contributes to the thread.
• Ticket: A ticket is a question or request to In Game Staff. It can be a question on game play, a report of breach of rules or an appeal for an account ban.
• Time in: In-game technique in which attacks are sent to ‘time in’ with other attacks already in progress.
• Train: A series of attacks sent in quick succession, most usually including nobles, (referred to as ‘noble trains’).
• Tribe hopping: The act of switching excessively from one tribe to another. Tribe hoppers tend to get themselves a bad reputation, as the better tribes don’t have an interest in bringing in a player who’s just as likely to leave a week later. Tribe hoppers often switch tribes to avoid war.
• Trip wire: A system by which players in a tribe send troops as support to one-another, in order to be alerted should a tribe mate be attacked. As a rough guide, 10 scouts are advisable for this purpose.
• Troll: Used to refer to players who spend their time posting irrelevant, controversial, or simply off-topic posts in the forums. Usually in an attempt to incite argument and flaming.
• Turtle: A player who builds masses of defence troops, but very limited/no offence force. (See Last Apparatus for a definitive guide to turtling. He’s got it perfected.)

W

• “W”: Short for world. I.e. AI sadly quit w33 and w34.
• Warning call: An internet site that monitors the world data and sends a warning call to your tribe mates if the points in one of your villages go down or if a nearby enemy village looses points or goes inactive - automated external messages are possible, but not allowed any more. Messages to an external forum or to your phone are still allowed.
• White wall: Stacking a village with scouts so as to prevent attackers from getting info on the level of defence.