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Account Security
Your account's security is important
Dear players,
On regular occasions the Tribal Wars Support team needs to handle cases in which players, like yourself, have lost access to their account, where a co-player has gone rogue or where sitting features have been abused. This forum announcement serves as a reminder to make sure your account is as secure as possible!
A lot of damage can be done on a player's account when unlimited access is given or gained. The worlds you have spent months on can be nullified in a matter of a few clicks, without any possibility of recovery.
Please note that the support team can not intervene in most situations. This is due to several game rules that are in place which determine that actions on an account are always with the consent of the owner, despite the actions that have taken place.
These rules exist to protect actual account owners, but only under the assumption that these account owners have protected their account as they should have. The support team will never intervene with game actions. The support team has no way of differentiating mistakes from abuse, without taking a biased approach - game mistakes are sadly part of the game.
Explaining the Rules
The game rules that apply to the general security of your account are the following:
You can find a full list of the game rules here. Note that upon registration you are expected to have read and understood these rules.
A Breakdown
This game rule, in a generic sense, states that having multiple players on your account is strictly forbidden. While, on Tribal Wars International, co-playing is tolerated, it is not being supported.
Therefore, all actions that happen on the player's account are the actions that fall under the responsibility of the account owner. If said owner has been negligent or careless with his/her passwords, or picked co-players that could not be trusted, this can cause huge irrecoverable damages to the account.
The support team will not intervene if actions on the account took place by a regular player on the account, as it is considered to be an authorized player. Additionally, while we don't support co-playing, please be aware that mistake logins to the wrong world on an account could get it banned for multi-accounting, so please be careful.
These three rules will be evaluated together. As a whole they can be summarized into choosing a valid mail address for your account and also making sure you verify the mails on it regularly. An important factor in "stealing" someone's account is owning the mail address the account is registered to. According to the rules, the player that owns the mail address the account is registered to, is also the actual owner of the account. This is also the only factor the support team will evaluate when trying to determine account ownership.
The game allows for mail address changes. However, each mail address change can be rolled back by the previous mail-address-owner within a 14 day timespan. Because of this, you are able to dispute account ownership changes for 14 days on your own end, by simply checking your e-mail on a regular basis and using the rollback link that was sent to the old mail address.
The support team will no longer intervene after 7 days. Account owners should therefore make sure to check their accounts regularly and report theft or abuse as soon as possible. As per 4.10 and 4.11, it is your responsibility as an account owner to choose a valid mail address that allows you to guarantee your account's safety.
This rule is quite self-explanatory. By choosing an account sitter, and defining the restrictions under which the account sitting can take place in the game settings menu, you are explicitly allowing your sitter to perform actions on your account. By configuring these restrictions, you are giving prior consent to a player on your account to perform these actions. The support team will never intervene in cases of sitter abuse.
Choosing trustworthy allies to manage your account while you are gone is part of the game, just as well as limiting the access to the game's functions for this player depending on the level of trust you have. If you have not explicitly disabled certain access for this user (in game settings) for the duration of the sitting period, all actions on the account will be considered as if they have taken place with the consent of the owner.
How to protect your account
Step 1: Choose a valid e-mail address.
Choosing a valid e-mail address is one of the most important steps in protecting your account. As outlined above, your account's ownership depends on owning the mail address it is linked to. Besides this, your account's mail address gives you the chance to roll back on ownership changes, just as well as account password resets.By choosing a mail address you check regularly, you can intervene in theft situations quickly and avoid huge damage to your account. If you are concerned about advertisement or "spam" from Tribal Wars or InnoGames, you are able to disable these mails in your account settings. This way, important account ownership mails will not go lost on an account you never check, or in the spam folders.
Step 2: Choose a strong and unique password
Access to your account is granted by entering the public username and a private password. Your account's password is therefore the last barrier to getting into your account. After access is gained, nothing is impossible. A lot of irrecoverable damage can be done in a matter of a few seconds on an account, which is why you need to make sure your account's password is as strong as possible.
Some tips and tricks to get your started:
1) Use lengthy passwords. Tribal Wars requires at least 8 characters, but... more is better!
2) Mix in regular letters with special characters and numbers! Adding them on random locations makes them harder to guess and crack!
3) Avoid re-using passwords! We are well aware of the amount of passwords the average person needs to remember. This leads to a lot of people re-using passwords. The bad part about this is... get hacked there? Get hacked here... (and reverse). Try to use different passwords on each site you go to! If you don't already, consider using a password manager. Password managers allow you to safely store your passwords, which means you won't need to remember the most complicated and secure passwords.
4) Avoid common words, phrases or combinations. Duh!
5) Avoid birthdays or names! Someone trying to get into your account can very easily find out a lot about you through random conversations or social media. You wished your cat a happy birthday this morning and you told your friends? Great! Now they know the birthday and its name. Better avoid using that as a password!
Step 3: Change your password when a player leaves
Too often, the support team is confronted with players that didn't change their account's password after a co-player has left. These co-players then return on another account in the world, possibly an enemy, and see an easy way to destroy your account. Possibly, they have also shared the login details of your account with their friends.
Your account is now accessible to a lot of people who can all damage your account.
Even without a player leaving, it is advised to change your password regularly. You never know where your account's login details have leaked out, accidentally or not!
Step 4: Limit account sitting
Everyone needs a break from the game every now and then, we know! When you give your account sit to another player, your are giving that player almost full control over your account. For this reason, make sure that you fully trust the player you give this sit to.
Besides that, make sure to head over to game settings and tick only the relevant permissions. Also make sure to revisit this page for each sitter you choose, as you may want to reconsider some access for specific players or situations.
Feedback & Suggestions
Do you have some additional tips and tricks? Share them with us and help your fellow players in protecting their accounts! We would be more than happy to have your feedback here.
Happy gaming!
Your Tribal Wars Team
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