Unfortunately Travian: Legends' gamerule regarding this doesn't apply to Travian Kingdoms. So it is indeed a valid strategy, but that's true for gold users aswell as for non-gold users. Despite agreeing that this should be forbidden (either via adapting T:L's gamerule that an account must be played for its own benefit or via mechanic changes) I'm kinda upset about your honestly questionable "conclusion" that gold-users can do what they want. Rules are for everyone and I saw a few players who spend a shitload of gold and yet got banned due to rule violations. But sure, better not read the game rules at all and spread nonsense in the forum. Did you know, that Kingdoms has a hierarchy of three instances for discrepancies (with MH -> go to CSR, with CSR -> go to their complaints e-Mail)?
By the way, every new starting gameworld has a reworked relocation feature which can't be abused that way anymore. To be precise, you don't keep your village's resource field distribution anymore, but adapt the one you relocated to. There will be a few more changes, which you can read in the changelog here: v0.91 The Menhir Era begins – a very special Test World
Best regards,
Be2-e4
There is maybe a correlation, but I don't believe in a causality here. What I mean with that is, it might be that players say they buy lots of gold and get a low punishment - but that they would have got the low punishment either way, because it's standard, and not because they bought gold.
By the way, bans aren't classified as punishment at all, they are an intermediate state to isolate the account until he gets his actual punishment.
I talked to players (in DE), who used a ton of gold, got banned and deleted, because they prefered it over the punishment. I don't know what you experienced (I mean, really experienced, hearing something over three people doesn't really count ^^), but my experience contradicts your "buy x gold to become unbannable"-accusations very strictly.
Hello @Batcountry#EN
what Be2-e4 said is correct - we do care about the game rules and always enforce them firmly when needed, regardless of whether the violator has purchased Gold or not. We also do not reduce/alter standard punishments under any circumstances so please forward those cases that you saw getting lesser or no punishment to me or email them at admin@kingdoms.travian.com and I'll investigate asap.
Kind regards
Georgi
Display MoreWell your experience about how much extra leeway players are given as gold users is different to mine. And mine isn't (always) second hand information - I've had players share their conversations with the multi-hunters with me.
But regardless of whether it's because they use gold or simply because the multi-hunters are useless it doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of players getting away with using multi accounts and/or bots with nothing being done about it.
And even more players that have found ways to abuse game rules like village relocation, vacation mode,etc, etc against their supposed intention
Which still makes my original point valid - This game has become too much who can find the best ways to manipulate the rules rather than a game about skill and teamwork.
I don't know about that. I've been banned a year ago for multi accounting, tried to use the "I bought a lot of gold" on the MH, remained banned.
In regards to what the game has become; In travian, and in any other game, so long as there are things to be abused for gain, they will be abused. This is nothing new, it was happening in every single version of travian just as much as it's happening right now. So what? Ok, some guy registers 2 accounts on same gameworld. So now he has to spend 2x the time to play. What's the problem? He puts in 2x the effort, he gets 2x the troops, 2x the resources etc etc, and is still risking a ban. The mechanics of the game have changed enough so that a multi-accounter would have pretty much 0 impact overall. Can a multi-accounter stand against a whole kingdom on their own? No, it's an alliance based game.
Yes, the skill requirement of the game has been lowered drastically, but that's because it is trying to move into the mobile market, like it or not, that's where the money is. However, the upper skill ceiling hasn't gone down either, if you wanna play hard, you will be rewarded and you will be at the top, no multi-accounter, no rule-breakers can change that.
Usage of bots is a problem about which they can't really do much. I can't imagine that they have the finances to hire extra engineers to write pattern-matching algorithms to detect bots
Overall, you seem to be concerned about the actions of individual players, in an alliance based game, where each gameworld has 3k~ registered users. This seems more like a rant of a frustrated player that fails to succeed and get to the top, rather than an attempt by a passionate player to start a discussion about something he cares.
It was always like that, but now it's out of control.. =)
Multi-accounting is even a greater threat then botting in this game, too bad, but administration haven't done anything to solve any of those problems.
Just an example.. .png
It was always like that, but now it's out of control.. =)
Multi-accounting is even a greater threat then botting in this game, too bad, but administration haven't done anything to solve any of those problems.
Just an example.. .png
This is a serious accusation Deacon. Stop throwing bullshit at our players and focus on your own game please. If you think Take_it_easy did anything against the rules, then report it and let admins decide. Or when you chief someone's cropper it automaticaly makes you multiaccounter? Thats a new thing to me.
A multi-accounter would have pretty much 0 impact overall?! I'm sure that's why every big meta is doing it these days, without even bothering to hide it much. You're a huge noob at multi-accounting if you say that! 
Why stop at 2 accounts to begin with? Why not have everyone in your kingdom temporarily build a 2nd, 3rd and 4th account, supply their first one with resources either directly or by allowing them to be farmed. Hey, according to your logic, you're putting in 4x the time, so this is all completely fine right? No problems here?? Flawless game-design...?! Do I need to point out the obvious problem here? If you're going to put in 2x the amount of time for the extra benefit, do it on your own account. That's fine, in line with the rules and the spirit of the game.
There was a thread somewhere recently about multiacounters starting a new account and then teleporting 15-croppers to their main player's kingdom. If this sort of thing doesn't convince you that this game shouldn't be named Travian, I don't know what would. The spirit of this game died when they turned it into another run-of-the-mill casual simming game, exactly like Travian Legends but worse, but the grave of the spirit was defiled with the extra number of cheaters and bots that this game is now known for. Trying to get into the mobile market is exactly what they should be doing, but not like this - as the continuous decrease in player numbers is indicating. The game doesn't work on any level. Look away from the problems - such as abuse of mechanics- all you want, but that'll only make it worse devs.
I don't think the "use gold to become unbannable" argument holds any water by the way, the problem is more that the MH's have no good ways of detecting cheaters. They actually used to have better (automated) tools back in the day, and MH's were allowed to ban and punish on suspicion and not just when they had direct proof. If only the the devs could remember where they stored 'em. They don't need any extra engineers for this, there aren't thát many patterns. Give one of their engineers a month or two and the most important things should be covered.
Multi accounts always were and also will be an issue. The only problem is, that with current state of relocating mc15s its easily abusable and in general much more game impacting. Right now its more like a flaw in game design so I can understand why MHs and Admins are in most cases shorthanded, but it definitively needs to be handled. Didn't have chance to play on the newest test server, so I am not sure how well its being handled with the menhir era update.
On other note, if you see someone doing actually something against rules, grab all the evidence you can and report it. From my experiences Admins were taking that pretty seriously and in most cases if accusations were correct, they were handled pretty fast within 12-24 hours.
Multi accounts always were and also will be an issue. The only problem is, that with current state of relocating mc15s its easily abusable and in general much more game impacting. Right now its more like a flaw in game design so I can understand why MHs and Admins are in most cases shorthanded, but it definitively needs to be handled. Didn't have chance to play on the newest test server, so I am not sure how well its being handled with the menhir era update.
On other note, if you see someone doing actually something against rules, grab all the evidence you can and report it. From my experiences Admins were taking that pretty seriously and in most cases if accusations were correct, they were handled pretty fast within 12-24 hours.
I like your optimism 
This is a serious accusation Deacon. Stop throwing bullshit at our players and focus on your own game please. If you think Take_it_easy did anything against the rules, then report it and let admins decide. Or when you chief someone's cropper it automaticaly makes you multiaccounter? Thats a new thing to me
That's not an accusation, that's a fact, but to prove it, someone would need to check IP's and MAC's, but ech, why should we bother MH and Admins for little problem like that, game is almost dead anyway, right?
relocation has been fixed for future servers so this isn't really a problem that needs any further discussion
if you think someone is multi'accounting, then report them ingame and get them checked out, if they are seen to be in violation they will be banned.
like others have said MA's always have and probably always will be around, but they are usually still crap even with 2 or 3 accounts, so i've never let them get under my skin (I consider myself better than any MA with just one account, so if they want to make their life complicated then that's their problem)
I like your optimism
That's not an accusation, that's a fact, but to prove it, someone would need to check IP's and MAC's, but ech, why should we bother MH and Admins for little problem like that, game is almost dead anyway, right?
Yeah so you just keep throwing bullshit although you have no proof. I atleast checked the player he chiefed the village from on GT and the same nicname played 3 months ago on FR server.. do you think its just a coincidence or maybe Take_it_easy made an account on french server because he was bored? The name is quite specific, but feel free to believe whatever you want.
like others have said MA's always have and probably always will be around, but they are usually still crap even with 2 or 3 accounts, so i've never let them get under my skin (I consider myself better than any MA with just one account, so if they want to make their life complicated then that's their problem)
In most instances this has been true - usually the players that feel the need to multi do so because they are shit at the game and can be easily dealt with.
Even the Zlf teams on com3 are still pretty useless despite the extent of their cheating and I doubt they will prove to be anything more than an irritation for the rest of the players who decide to stick around. I'm not even going to bother suiciding my troops against them - I'll target a real player instead.
But even if they're easily dealt with why bother continuing to play a game where your time is taken up dealing with them rather than playing against decent players because the developers are either too lazy or too stupid to find a way to fix the problem themselves.
If you're such a smartass who dares to insult people he doesn't even know as lazy or stupid, why don't you apply at TG and implement such definitely-existing-algorithms for automated MA/Bot check yourself?
As a programmer I can ensure you, that it is 100% impossible, even despite the best efforts, to detect multiaccounting, botusing or password sharing relieably even by hand, let alone automatically. It wouldn't take any time at all to hide multiaccounting and password sharing, and an intelligent developer and a little time to make a bot undetectable. I won't share my thoughts on the "how", for obvious reasons, this is the part where you have to trust me. And no, I do neither use multiaccounts or bots, nor do I share passwords with anyone.
The problem are the players who abuse their multiaccounts to funnel resources into their mainaccount and not the players who play two accounts on their own. If there was a rule like in T:L, that an account must be played on its own benefit (and that abusing accounts that aren't is bannable), questionable tactics like the TE metioned would be forbidden, "funneling-multis" could be banned without multiaccountingproof and so on.
Maybe you should think about what you write, and I mean really think about it and don't just make random assumptions. Ah, before you can post some "good, mind-blowing ideas" like "if a player sends a farmatt every 5-7 minutes, it's a bot" ... no, they are not. There are players, for instance like me, who use timers to remind them every x minutes to send farmlists. With a little preperation* you need 2s every 5 minutes to relieably send those atts. Without being a fucking bot.
* Open a new window, open kingdoms, open farmlist tab, select correct village, select correct farmlists, make the window as small as possible such that only the "send"-button is visible and place it somewhere on your 2nd or 3rd monitor. Then click it everytime the timer alerts you.
The problem are the players who abuse their multiaccounts to funnel resources into their mainaccount and not the players who play two accounts on their own. If there was a rule like in T:L, that an account must be played on its own benefit (and that abusing accounts that aren't is bannable), questionable tactics like the TE metioned would be forbidden, "funneling-multis" could be banned without multiaccountingproof and so on.
Exactly - it's a two second fix that would greatly reduce the problem but they still haven't implemented it for some reason. And they wouldn't even need to run it on a test server - it's already been tried before on different versions and they know it works.
I realise that they'll never be able to completely stamp out the issue but there's a big difference between a few individuals doing it to try and make up for shortfalls in their own ability and an entire kingdom doing it so blatantly and with so many accounts.
I appreciate that you want to support the developers and I 'm sorry if my insults towards them have offended your fragile sensibilities. But they've chosen to ignore this issue for too long and will have nobody else to blame when Kingdoms continues to lose players at the rate it currently is.
It's a gamerule, no mechanic, it wouldn't be tested on testworlds anyway. 
Hmm, hard to make a anti-multiaccounting algorithm? Probably, but you don't have to go too far to remove a lot of the easy-to-catch stuff. The objective is to stop most of the botting and multiaccounting, while having a human check before the ban is confirmed. Some ideas:
//some pseudocode:
for Player p : Players:
boolean ban = false;
if (resourcesSentToOnePlayerPerDay, directly or indirectly, => e.g. 80% of his resource production)
ban = true;
//Player not playing to the benefit of his own account, bannable offense. Possible multiaccount.
if(Player not growing, not building troops yet staying active and allowing himself to be farmed)
ban = true;
//same
if(messages never read, or instantly read, but never responded to in a "human-like" fashion")
ban = true;
//this is probably a bot.
if(area contains lots of players/villages with no actual names, but just "new village" or random letters, and resource streams are mostly going to the same person/group of people)
ban = true;
//likely multiaccounts/bots
if(player has lots of timed farming/other attacks over a period of time)
if(!doCaptcha())
ban=true;
//I'm sure real players won't mind proving they're a bot from time to time, right?This is just from the top of my head. I'm sure there are more patterns that you could use to see who's botting/mh'ing. And there isn't much an intelligent developer can do about most of these. It will always require some vigilance - you have to keep up with the new ways of cheating, but implementing these would be a good first step. And yeah, you would definitely need the rule about playing to the benefit of your own account, but I've always assumed that, among all their other oversights, the devs just forgot to add that one.
