So I got moved ...

[DeletedUser19458]

Wanted to start bit of conversation on how Inno moves people:

I'm currently in Orcs; I was in a good neighbourhood and scouted some 220 provinces. Seeing a coin was actually pretty rare. All neighbours were either same chapter or lower then me and I had a few good trading partners. One in particular I spent several months going straight line 6 or 7 provinces to reach them, spending way too many goods to cater and only got there last week. Overall no real problems.

I assumed only people in dead area's of the map get moved. Not so. Yesterday I woke up to find myself in completely new neighbourhood. I was moved. My new hood SUCKS. 60% is just coins. All the effort I made on that one straight line is now just going off into nowhere, the whole line nothing but coins. The people that DO surround me are small and I can see no legitimate trading partners. 2 other big cities in my area (1 Orc 1 Fairies) have identical boosts, so the 3 of us are going to be competing to snag up the same trades and probably never trade with each other.

I'm a good sized city that is active ... my fellowship suggested that's why I got moved. Cause so many coins around me will eventually be new people and if I'm active it will encourage them to play more and be active (trading / visits / etc) and buy diamonds. I think that would really be why I was moved ... I see at least 3 other cities nearby of people I recognize who apparently were also moved. And Inno spaces us out fairly evenly, no big city directly near another big city. So I really do feel I got moved to make my world seem more active to new players.

So the moral of my long boring post is ... if you are happy where you are TURN OFF YOUR DAMN AUTO MOVE SETTING! I got moved from what I considered an ok area, thinking 'why would they ever move me?' to a place that is complete shite.

Definitely not impressed.
(yes I'm aware I can request support to move me ... next up on my todo list!).

 

[SoggyShorts]

I'm a good sized city that is active ... my fellowship suggested that's why I got moved. Cause so many coins around me will eventually be new people and if I'm active it will encourage them to play more

Only if the developers are lying to us can this be true.

So the moral of my long boring post is ... if you are happy where you are TURN OFF YOUR DAMN AUTO MOVE SETTING!

This is dangerous advice. The devs seem to run the player movement a little randomly, and are changing how and when inactives are deleted. If you like your area and uncheck that box you may be left behind when everyone else is moved after a major sweep of inactives

yes I'm aware I can request support to move me ... next up on my todo list!).

They can't move you.

 

[DeletedUser6205]

That sucks.

 

[Ashrem]

Only if the developers are lying to us can this be true.

Actually, somebody (Aelfwine?) recently dropped a hint that there might be changes in player movement afoot which would improve the situation. I can imagine that being an experiment with dispersing larger active cities evenly in a new area and filling in between them with new players. Not to say it actually happened, but if it did, it wouldn't be a lie, just new information which wasn't communicated effectively (which makes it even more likely.....)

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

So the moral of my long boring post is ... if you are happy where you are TURN OFF YOUR DAMN AUTO MOVE SETTING! I got moved from what I considered an ok area, thinking 'why would they ever move me?' to a place that is complete shite.

Completely agree, that was one of the first things I've done when starting a city.

To Soggy's point above that other people may be moved around you, and you'll be left in a desert without moving yourself. I see it as an easier version of prisoner's dilemma. Basically, as long as somewhat advanced people are happy in the neighborhood and they know what they're doing (not a dig at OP), they'll likely turn this flag off. This means core of your trading partners stays intact, and ultimately you only care about those. I have ~240 provinces cleared, and there is less than a dozen of cities that I would even notice if they're gone.

Another takeaway - get into a good fellowship. Really. If you're in one, you wouldn't even care if there is absolutely no one around you. FS effectively combines neighborhood areas of all the members, as they can scoop resources in one place and trade internally to another to supplement internal capacity.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Basically, as long as somewhat advanced people are happy in the neighborhood and they know what they're doing (not a dig at OP), they'll likely turn this flag off.

I think it more likely that players will ignore that button (which is defaulted to on) rather than change it. It is called "allow movement to a better position" which certainly sounds like turning it off is a mistake.

. I can imagine that being an experiment with dispersing larger active cities evenly in a new area and filling in between them with new players.

This sounds like a terrible idea, so yes it is likely. The large active cities are probably some of the bigger spenders too, so sending them into he void to babysit new cities that quit 90% of the time within a day isn't likely to make anyone all that happy.

I never found any real flaw in the original idea that inactives get deleted and active players are moved closer to the middle. The execution was the only problem I could see, and the fix for that was to reduce the protections or to reverse the algorithm and make step one "move inactives out"

 

[Ashrem]

the fix for that was to reduce the protections or to reverse the algorithm and make step one "move inactives out"

I think it always was the first step. The problem is that Hurtball would have to find their old spot on the map. It's possible that spot is even worse than where they are now.

And aside from spending extraordinary money, automating a complex task always has a non-zero chance of making things worse*.

* With the advent of mechanized strawberry pickers, the permissible number of slugs per pound of strawberry jam was increased

 

[Dopeykr]

Could be worse, your world map could look like mine. A big blob swallowed up 21 of the cities. Only advantage I know when cities start reappearing I'll know where they are.

 

[DeletedUser19723]

1. Who decides if a city is inactive, the game's programmers? How do they get this info and what constitutes inactive? Is it based on time? Are the cities defined as inactive deleted? A long absent player decides to get back in the game and the city is no longer available at the logon?

2. If one's city is moved do they go to the world map and it is all different? Do they have to start scouting right at the first circle of hexes all over again, along with all that would entail, re: province difficulty/cost?

Sorry for all the ??s. I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Also trying to understand which is better - auto-move button should be on or off. I moved mine to off, Now I'm wondering if that's the smart thing to do.

 

[Ashrem]

1. Who decides if a city is inactive, the game's programmers? How do they get this info and what constitutes inactive? Is it based on time? Are the cities defined as inactive deleted? A long absent player decides to get back in the game and the city is no longer available at the logon?

2. If one's city is moved do they go to the world map and it is all different? Do they have to start scouting right at the first circle of hexes all over again, along with all that would entail, re: province difficulty/cost?

Sorry for all the ??s. I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Also trying to understand which is better - auto-move button should be on or off. I moved mine to off, Now I'm wondering if that's the smart thing to do.

It is automated. There are a number of criteria, which can be found with a little searching, but basically you have to not log in for a month, not have bought diamonds, and not be past chapter 4. If you don't meet those criteria, your city may be deleted, then either a new player, or an active player form somewhere else, is moved into the spot. If you were deleted, then when you return, you would be starting from square one, as though you never played before. if you were moved, then you have the same number of explored provinces and same city, just new neighbours.

 

[DeletedUser19458]

This is dangerous advice. The devs seem to run the player movement a little randomly, and are changing how and when inactives are deleted. If you like your area and uncheck that box you may be left behind when everyone else is moved after a major sweep of inactives

Yes you could get left behind. Do those sweeps actually happen? As my case, you could instead get moved to the edge of the map. Sounds like damned if I do, damned if I don't.

My biggest gripe is they moved me to a spot worse than before (worse being subjective, but by my rating ...) when I would l think the only reason for moves is to make things better.

I'm active and I've bought diamonds. Inno, hear me roar

Another takeaway - get into a good fellowship. Really. If you're in one, you wouldn't even care if there is absolutely no one around you. FS effectively combines neighborhood areas of all the members, as they can scoop resources in one place and trade internally to another to supplement internal capacity.

My fellowship is pretty good on trades. But I'm one of the biggest and one of my roles is to bring goods in to disburse to our smaller cities. So the other big guys need to pick up my slack if I can't do that as effectively. Different story if I was instead the small fish, then yeah I probably wouldn't care at all.

 

[DeletedUser]

Do those sweeps actually happen?

Yes, they do. I've logged out for the night and come back in the morning to find some of the inactive/abandoned cities gone.

 

[samidodamage]

there might be changes in player movement afoot which would improve the situation.

This might explain one of our FS member's recent move in Elcysandir. Where they moved him, every single city south of him is a gold mine. I went and looked and it's the oddest part of the map I've ever seen. There's literally a line of cities on the map where he is; about 6 rings out to the east you see a couple of cities one notch south of that line, then all gold mines again. I got tired of scrolling through nothing, but I saw no end to the gold mines.

an experiment with dispersing larger active cities

He's in S&D and is now the largest city in his discovered area. He is a daily player.

This sounds like a terrible idea, so yes it is likely.

He does spend money on the game, not a 'blue city', but does have 5 magic residences and a couple of magic workshops upgraded to current chapter (and we just got our very first blueprint last week, so he's spending diamonds for the upgrades). Also a few Snail Palaces... No, he is not happy with the move.

Nothing about this move contradicts what either of you are saying about the possible new (and apparently unimproved, lol) player movement criteria

 

[Socrates28]

I am the city Samidodamage is talking about, and to say the least I am not happy. I sent a "nasty gram" to support letting them know that (no bad words either as they are just doing their jobs). I also included some suggestions to their "automated system." I used to be a programmer and have also been on a number of new program roll outs for a major Fortune 500 company, so I understand some of the constraints they are working under. However, that does not fix the situation I am in.
IF, and that is a big word, they are doing it to stimulate smaller cities to develop I might be in favor of it, IF I knew about it before hand.

 

[SoggyShorts]

IF, and that is a big word, they are doing it to stimulate smaller cities to develop I might be in favor of it, IF I knew about it before hand.

Much simpler to just give us our damn trade filters. Then players like me with over 450 cleared provinces will go back to clearing out the entire trader multiple times per day like we used to before we got flooded with 60-80 pages of T4,5,6 trades.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

Contrarian view. I'd rather be surrounded by coins.
Most large FSes can support your trading needs. Most neighbors don't counter-visit anyways.
A coin city is 1 click to get your gold; a real city is 3 clicks. I'd rather do my visits 3x faster than get maaaybe 5-6 helps back.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Contrarian view. I'd rather be surrounded by coins.
Most large FSes can support your trading needs. Most neighbors don't counter-visit anyways.
A coin city is 1 click to get your gold; a real city is 3 clicks. I'd rather do my visits 3x faster than get maaaybe 5-6 helps back.

Indeed. After doing tens of thousands of visits, I'm done for good.
I've probably collected fewer than 10 visit chests since visits came to mobile.

Coins I'd pick up 4-5x a week though.if it was my full map.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Contrarian view. I'd rather be surrounded by coins.
Most large FSes can support your trading needs. Most neighbors don't counter-visit anyways.
A coin city is 1 click to get your gold; a real city is 3 clicks. I'd rather do my visits 3x faster than get maaaybe 5-6 helps back.

I am with Tedious on this one.

For all the active players who want to move together with other active players - guys, take a look at this from a different perspective. Who benefits the most from being next to active/large neighbors? I'd argue it's not other active/large players. Those players are likely to be in large/active FS, and for them neighbors do not really matter. As is evidenced by some of the replies of such players above. And I agree, being surrounded by gold mines for advanced/active players is not really a detriment, perhaps even a small benefit.

Now, people who would really need some decent neighbors are relatively new players. If you're not in a strong FS, you have to rely on your neighbors as trading partners, and if all of them are weak, it is really hard to move forward. So from Inno's perspective I think it makes perfect sense to sprinkle active/strong players in between not-so-active/weak players, to encourage them a bit more to play.

It's just like in sports - if all the strongest players bunch together on the same team, playing becomes not interesting for everyone else as they have no chance of winning. And active/strong players here already have such advantage - fellowships, which tend to group strong players with strong players.

TL;DR - I think from overall game balance perspective it makes more sense to disperse active/strong players throughout the map, rather then group them together.

 

[mucksterme]

So the moral of my long boring post is ... if you are happy where you are TURN OFF YOUR DAMN AUTO MOVE SETTING! I got moved from what I considered an ok area, thinking 'why would they ever move me?' to a place that is complete shite.

As far as I'm concerned, this line invalidates your complaint.
You knew there was a setting that would turn off auto move.
You ignored that setting because you thought you were special.
Inno took that to mean you had hung a huge "Please move me" sign on your city.
So they moved you.
You should thank them.

 

[DeletedUser2959]

I just wish they would take the realllllly old abandoned cities and move them somewhere out of the way. I love it when I get a new neighbor. It's nice to chat with someone just starting out and help them with goods. But upwards of 90% of my map is filled with long-abandoned cities that will never be replaced. (I'm just spitballing here, I didn't count or anything)