Exploit Allowing NPC's to Join a Player's Army

There are some players that used this bug to get more towns then they should.

But with illytools population history, evidence is available. The way how this bug works is that one player creates 2 or more new towns within one day (usually within few minutes) and town creation date and time are part of official xml data.

So I created a list of suspicious towns and check some of those suspicious players in illytools. Some are of course ok but some are not.

Like this guy here: 18th August he had 7 towns and 80k pop. Then next day he captured one and created another town so had 9 towns with population not even near to 130k.
http://www.puzzleslogic.com/illy/downloads/1.png

Or this player with 10 towns and around 160k pop. He got last 2 towns 9th July evening within 1 hour.
http://www.puzzleslogic.com/illy/downloads/2.png

Sometimes it may look like exploit but in fact it could be ok. Like this player with 1 town and 1k pop and next day with 4 towns but it is actually possible to do.
http://www.puzzleslogic.com/illy/downloads/3.png


I think there are not so many exploiters.



Edited by MoguI - 12 Aug 2013 at 12:28

If we catch anyone purposefully using this exploit to gain towns, for any other reason than to expressly help us locate and fix the bug, there will be problems for that person. 

It must be result of that siege-capture/settle bug.I thought devs removed that bug half year ago.If not than all of us who are falowing rules when settling new cities are fools compared to those who use that exploit.

If they did not remove it would be good that they revert all gains that players have gained by using that exploit.I know people who use RL money for the game and they would not be happy to see host of players settling 10 cities from 130k pop or less by using capture/settle exploit.

Update... GM Luna is investigating the issue now.

I have sent sieges that have been annihilated by NPC occupations, and I know of other players in my alliance that have experienced the same thing.  Either this is unique to blockades or does not happen every time.  (Which would make it harder to track down the problem.)