Introduction: five games, one economic question
Search for a browser management game and you get lists that mix everything together. This article does something different. It compares five medieval and ancient classics through their economic loop. What does the player produce, wait for, and put at risk?
Our top 10 browser games leans toward space and idle games. Here we take the opposite corner: Tribal Wars, Travian, Ikariam, Grepolis and Elvenar, games of villages, cities and kingdoms.
Every fact below comes from public sources (Wikipedia, plus InnoGames' press releases and official pages). When something could not be confirmed, we say so.
How we compare them
A management game runs on one loop. You collect resources, convert them into buildings or troops, and time does the rest. The games differ on three levers.
- The scarce resource → what really limits growth.
- The role of conflict → conquest, defense, or none at all.
- The pace → short daily sessions or rounds lasting months.
This grid follows the one in our anatomy of the OGame-like genre, applied here to a different universe.
The five games, one by one
Tribal Wars: precision as an advantage
Tribal Wars started in 2003 at InnoGames, first as a text game, with an international version in 2006. You begin with one village, gather resources, build, recruit, then conquer other villages.
The economic loop is classic, but the game mostly rewards mastery of time. Players talk about "noble trains", "sniping" and "backtiming", tactics that depend on precise timing.
Each world also has its own speed settings and victory conditions. According to InnoGames, the game passed €180 million in total sales by its 20th anniversary in June 2023.
Travian: a 200-day round
Released in 2004, Travian is set in classical antiquity. You grow villages by upgrading resource fields (wood, clay, iron, crop), trade, join alliances, and raid or defend.
Its signature is the round structure. Each world is a separate server, and a normal round lasts about 200 days. It ends when the Wonder of the World plans are released: the first player to take the Wonder to level 100 wins.
The game then stops, and a new round starts after a break. That is a rare model: progression is never endless, it is a cycle with an ending.
Ikariam: one player, one city, five resources
Launched in 2008 by Gameforge, Ikariam changes the scale. The world is split into islands of up to 16 players. Each player grows a single city, whose citizens must stay content or they leave.
The economy rests on five resources: wood, wine, marble, crystal glass and sulphur, all required to progress. Research runs on points produced in academies.
The tension here is not military first. It is the balance between production, satisfaction and trade. Trade routes between cities are a paid feature, according to Wikipedia.
Grepolis: conquest with gods
Grepolis entered open beta in September 2009 and brings the InnoGames formula to ancient Greece. According to the official page, you pick guardians among Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Athena and Hades, and recruit land and naval forces.
The game adds mythical units such as the Hydra, Pegasus and Manticore, and lets you invade other cities after research at the Academy. The publisher reported over €200 million in lifetime sales in 2024.
The naval dimension sets it apart: you recruit forces on water as well as on land. The game is free to play without restrictions, with optional purchases, on browser, iOS and Android.
Elvenar: cooperation against encounters
Launched on 28 May 2015, Elvenar is a fantasy game built around city building. According to older guides and reviews, it does not allow combat between players, and it bets on helping neighbors rather than fighting them. We found no recent official rule to confirm this today.
Combat does exist, but against encounters run by the game. InnoGames' 2016 press release on tournaments describes a weekly tournament tied to a region type. You finish it by fighting or negotiating.
Each province accumulates points as players finish encounters, and every contributor is rewarded once a threshold is reached. The mobile app arrived in November 2017, and InnoGames reported more than €200 million in revenue in April 2025.
What these loops teach us
Conflict is optional
Ikariam and Elvenar show that a solid economy can carry a game without permanent war. We looked at the same idea pushed to the extreme in Rail Nation. Competition then shifts to logistics and rankings.
Time is the real design
In all five games, the scarcest resource is the player's time: build queues, recruitment delays, rounds lasting months. Travian pushes the logic furthest with a scheduled ending, where others bet on persistence.
For a studio, this choice sets retention rhythm and the economy. We covered the interface side in our article on alliances and diplomacy, where cooperation also shapes the loop.
At a glance
Here is the reading grid for the five games, on the three levers defined above. It does not replace the detailed sections, but it places each title in ten seconds.
- Tribal Wars (2003) → village and conquest, pace set by the world you pick.
- Travian (2004) → four farming and mining resources, round of about 200 days.
- Ikariam (2008) → five resources, a single city, citizen satisfaction.
- Grepolis (2009) → conquest and mythical units, naval dimension.
- Elvenar (2015) → building and mutual help, combat against encounters.
Which one should you pick?
It depends on your relationship with conflict and time. For short, precise sessions, Tribal Wars. For a cycle with a winner, Travian. For a single city and a balance to hold, Ikariam.
For a mythological, naval universe, Grepolis. For building without targeting other players, Elvenar, provided you check its current rules in game.
And if you prefer space to kingdoms, our browser game guide covers the genre as a whole.
