they are surely not replacing neighbors fairly
You've posted several variations on the same theme, and while your concerns are valid you're preaching to the choir. We're already believers. There are already several relevant threads, as you have discovered.
You can't lose what you don't have. You're not losing coins from lack of neighbors any more than you're losing coins, supplies, and goods when you don't collect right on the dot.
- A couple of months ago, inactive players were NOT being replaced.
- A simple procedure was implemented to remove inactive players so that there would be SOME POSSIBILITY of getting new neighbors, who were active
- From what I've seen, new players were previously added at the fringes of the occupied areas.
- Bump and Run cities are now being removed in batches, after not less than 30 days of inactivity.
- As a pure guess, the city sectors are consider in some predictable order that's convenient for the computer, but probably wouldn't make much sense to the players.
But there are some fundamental philosophical tradeoff that we have to consider:
- How often SHOULD somebody play, to keep their account alive?
- Do we want mixed neighborhoods, so that advanced trading partners are always available? Random replacement will accomplish that objective.
- Do we want segregated neighborhoods, with clusters of similar scores? Do we move cities around to optimize the World Map accordingly?
I prefer the clustered approach, and
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/climbing-the-penrose-stairs.116/#post-975 is one possible implementation.
This is a new product that is being heavily advertised. We are, unavoidably, going to attract a lot of looky loos.
Let's assume, for the purposes of discussion, that 1/3 of the folks try the product for a few hours, don't care for it, and wander off.
What would you regard as a fair way to deal with the bump and run players??