[Mzyxptlk]

If Travian is anything like Imperion (another game by the same makers), then it's an entirely different game than PA is. It's much more focused on individual players; it's possible to defend each other, but the short travel times, large universe, real-time nature of the game plus the fact that you can't see what your attacker is sending make efficient cooperation much harder to pull off than PA is.

Conceptually, Travian and Imperion are much more war games than PA is. Once you reach a decent level in PA (say, top8 alliance), diplomacy becomes much more important (even if you're not actively engaging in it yourself), though you still need to manage a planet effectively as well. In Imperion, it's basically planet management all the way to the top.

In Imperion, as far as I've seen so far, having lots of ships is enough to do well. I'm in an alliance, but none of my alliance mates is close enough to me to help out when I get attacked, so the only advantage it gives me is that I have a community to hang out in.

Personally, I think there are more games in the genre of Imperion/Travian than in the genre of PA. I would be much more interested in a well managed PA clone than in a well managed Travian clone, simply because there's more depth to PA.

It's pointless to compare Travian to PA; it'd be like comparing Counter-Strike to Starcraft: both involve killing opponents, but the games aren't even remotely alike.