Here's a dangerous idea......
http://speed.travian.co.uk
If we could get 20+ of us i'm fairly sure we'd dominate..... I've only played one round so far but i'm really enjoying it (and its free to a point)
There's about 22k people on the server and the map (universe) is absolutely huge.
Barely any of the alliances seem to use IRC to communicate and co-ordinate. Thus far i've only bumped into Starfish from Fury in my alliance that seems to think it'd be a good idea.