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

I have never posted on the forums as yet, but as my 12 towns have got mentioned once or twice and there seems there are people curious about it I thought I should perhaps say something...

I recall many moons ago Dittobite successfully broke through the 10 town barrier for the first time. His #11 was short lived and was deleted by the Devs. It was achieved if memory serves me correctly by sending settlers while sieging someone at the same time. I believe this avenue was promptly closed by the Devs.

Months later, when I was going for my town #10 by sieging an inactive I also had a couple of other sieges open on abandoned towns I was clearing. I saw the opportunity to 'storm and capture' several towns at once - which I did, and it worked.

I realised that with 9 towns each with 5 commanders I could have sieged 45 towns simultaneously, when added to my original 9 towns would have made 54 towns. Had I done that I suspect I may have been suspended straightaway.

So I raised a petition (9000) there and then, stating I expected to lose the towns & explaining what I had done. Given that the same trick could get someone from 2 towns & 8 commanders to 10 towns very quickly indeed, I agreed with the Devs to keep this under my hat until a fix was put into place - Stormcrow made it clear I would not be able to keep #11 & #12 and we agreed the Devs would take them down.

From the issue being reported 14th May it was fixed in around 48 hours. I guess had this become common practice it would have spoiled the enjoyment of the game for many so it was fixed very quickly indeed, thank you Devs.

I have not encouraged or assisted any other player to follow my trick, but it looks as though people already knew about it if many have done it as has been said, unless of course there is another way.

I am moving one town out of the way (and would have gladly moved the other if exodus were researched). The Devs will remove the towns at their leisure. This is all agreed, no assistance is required.

Regards

Maccam

To be fair I didn't know this existed till I noticed it and started asking around. Thus - 

Edited by belargyle - 07 Jan 2014 at 09:17

LOL... so the DLords actually believe there is some way of doing this on purpose.  It is completely down to luck and it happens when our opponents set camps outside our cities too.

I like the feature, it adds some randomness to the game.

However, would you please care to point out a single time when it is the npc's that overpower your alliance and not our troops?

If a single city, let alone your 'alliance' can be overpowered by an npc occupation, then you really need to consider surrender, because any alliance that weak should not have any role in a war.

well if you occupy on a square with NPC's on it it don't work anymore! just  tried! 

Once or twice is luck, 6 times is someone taking advantage of a glitch. Any alliance purposely taking advantages of glitches should be publicly shamed and possibly attacked.