Open Discussion Defining Pushing

[JawJaw]

Hi everyone,

Over the past months, we have very often had discussions and questions about Pushing. This topic serves to openly discuss the pushing rule on itself, come up with definitions for pushing, and how you, as a player, would like to see it enforced.

If you haven't already done so, we would recommend reading through the following threads that have already touched these topics to get some ideas:

https://forum.tribalwars.net/index.php?threads/feedback-pushing-rule.288422/

https://forum.tribalwars.net/index.php?threads/account-pushing-and-coplaying.284697/

Current Rules

4.4. Creating and/or using one or more accounts for the primary benefit of another account ("pushing"), as well as profiting from such behavior, is forbidden.

On World 125 (Non-premium, No-Haul) we extended this with:

- Account merges will not be allowed for the first 40 days of the world. If you intend to play together, join together.
- The market can not be used to freely send resources, at any point during the runtime of the world. Only 1:1 trades will be allowed. This will be enforced on a setting level.

Problem Description
One of the main problems with Pushing is how the situation is interpreted. An account can not serve for the primary benefit of another, but when does such an account become a benefit of another? On world 125 we have seen a significant amount of reports against players that were either cooperating on a tribal level or another bunch of players that were just lucky with how their attacks went. Each of these situations led to an outrage when the team did not find sufficient evidence to support a ban.

The main problem in enforcing is that there are many in-game situations that can lead to pretty easy takeovers that can be interpreted as pushing by the player but are not as obvious for the team. For example, a user just sent out all his troops scavenging (not en125) and the attacker was lucky with sneaking a noble in. This is just one of the situations that can occur.

As a team, we can not share our findings on a specific investigation due to privacy legislation, which limits us enormously in explaining how these investigations happen. However, we would really like to work with you to find a suitable and enforceable definition and policy for pushing. One of the things to keep in mind is that such enforcement policies can not be defined on a world level. A policy needs to work on every world within this game market (Tribal Wars International), which makes finding rules that fit every situation and eventuality extremely difficult.

Exactly for this reason, pushing cases are only ever investigated by Senior Staff on a case-by-case basis, checking off every possibility.


Expectations

In summary, what we would like to start here is an open discussion/debate about:

1. What is pushing? What is it to you?
   1. How would you define pushing?
2. How can the team enforce a rule on pushing?
   1. Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected
   2. How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?
   3. How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting?
      1. Should village gifting also become disallowed?
      2. How would this work compared to a merging rule?
   4. A combination of "thresholds" or one clear line?
3. How do we detect pushing?
   1. Give clear arguments and definitions that can not be countered/circumvented with a daily situation within the game
      1. Keep in mind that "there was no ODA gain" does not work to cover all eventualities of an in-game situation
         1. eg. scavenging = no troops home = easy conquer does not fit an accurate detection method
      2. Keep in mind that Tribal Wars encourages tribal cooperation for as long as there is a benefit for all parties involved
      3. Keep in mind there needs to be actual proof and not suspicion.
      4. Keep in mind a rule, policy or definition needs to fit every world's situation (a rule for a specific rule or setting will not be accepted)
   2. Keep in mind that our players are very competitive in nature. They would love to report everyone for pushing, simply for every conquest ever achieved. Take every argument with a grain of salt.
4. ... we will expand on this list on the go and as the discussion goes forward ...

Additionally, we would really appreciate it if you engage in each other's situations! If you see a loophole in what someone else wrote, please react to it and give it as feedback! Only when we point out the loopholes in the rules/policies of the suggestions, we can find a strong definition of them!

As always with ThinkTank threads, we expect you to follow the rules and only contribute if you have something constructive to add to the discussion.
Non-constructive posts will be removed and your account suspended from this section.​

 

[SwedishBlueCheese]

I think the first thing that should be looked at is the mix of mods that are on the worlds. A CM from a local market should not be the one handling the reports on the players that go way back with him/her. I rather divide it up a lot more so its not as much BIAS. Feels like the bans are just a roulette depending on what mod are the one taking the report

 

[Eakshow McGee]

I think the first thing that should be looked at is the mix of mods that are on the worlds. A CM from a local market should not be the one handling the reports on the players that go way back with him/her. I rather divide it up a lot more so its not as much BIAS. Feels like the bans are just a roulette depending on what mod are the one taking the report

And this has to do with pushing how?

 

[old gheboasa]

pushing is when your tribe is so great that every opponent you find on the map feels like push-ups when you conquer them and everybody salty

#aztecaforever

ps. shall not be enforced as long as there's no limit/enforcement on the coplaying rule.

"If you intend to play together, join together." Sure we join together, but not from the beginning on 1account, it's much fun to start solo, survival of the fittest.

 

[SassySwagGuru]

My views:

1. What is pushing? What is it to you? - As Defined by TW
   1. How would you define pushing? - Multi-accounting for benefit of one main account
      
2. How can the team enforce a rule on pushing? - I think TW mods have handled w125 excellently. Should continue to do the same.
   1. Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected - Sounds unfair. I think Account mergers after the first 40 days should be a regular thing for all worlds.
      
      
   2. How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment? -In my opinion, TW has dealt with w125 bans by appropriately removing the gifted push villages, I like that methodology. I don't care if many don't agree with this statement, just my views.
      
      
   3. How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting? -Complex scenarios where a tribe is bleeding to the enemy, gifting should be allowed within the tribe.
      1. Should village gifting also become disallowed? - Would hurt a tribe losing a single player to a war
         
         
      2. How would this work compared to a merging rule? - I feel the 40day rule can be implemented for the no merger policy at the start of the world.
         
   4. A combination of "thresholds" or one clear line? - It's a complex game, gotta have a complex combination of certain thresholds.
      
3. How do we detect pushing? - I don't know what kind of access TW has over players' accounts, I assume you are able to view in-game conversations and reports and player actions of course. I am thoroughly satisfied with how Mods have handled w125.

 

[One Last Shot...]

1. How do we detect pushing? - I don't know what kind of access TW has over players' accounts, I assume you are able to view in-game conversations and reports and player actions of course.

On the subject of ingame mails...

It is really important to note that we can't access mails (with the exception of extracts that are reported by a user) because of GDPR regulations in the EU. That can't be changed as it goes beyond anything the CM or Inno can control.

I think it is also worth saying that additionally to this, a player once banned can't access any part of their account on the banned world which means some potentially relevant mails can't be retrospectively flagged up as part of an appeal process.

 

[Deleted User - 848983838]

past worlds should be relevant when you say you don't consider them

if your friend joins to do nothing but gift you a village which was clearly all that happened besides also bashing for them and they've used the same accounts to push "cooperate" it should probably be changed to innos definition of pushing because thats just hilarious. honestly idgaf what excuse is given support was complete trash this world. whatever you guys define as cooperation is hilariously bad, it's not cooperation to just build a village to be nobled by a tribemate.

125 should've had merges extended to 90 days minimum if not 180, coplayers starting separate to merge is pushing. this is a complete joke as well.

also include merges to "quitting" can't internal because it's too grey. no eating tribemates for at least 90 days or eating anyone that was in your tribe. i'd rather have to suffer dealing with accounts quitting and not being able to noble them than to let everyone just "quit' and get eaten and support not do anything because it's not "pushing". just no eating anyone thats been in your tribe (or obvious family tribes based off name) for 90+ days. be smart who you invite and deal with suffer when someone quits early on.

creating accounts that you have no intention of player long term either to ruin other tribes or to spy is pushing and then just jumping onto your account you planned to play long term when you get rimmed or internalled. on milestone worlds force everyone to use a vpn if they are going to push like that and suffer worse timings or potentially logging with the same ID. I'd almost say milestone worlds your IP address cannot appear on two accounts at any point the entire world especially if you were eaten by the same tribe. a merge 180+ days into the world will need to be pre approved with support staff and no previous history on any world between those IP addresses so it's a real merge to coplayer no preplanned merge etc (at least without not having a vpn entire world.

be more clear. why weren't they banned if you give a lot of evidence and it's just we didn't see anyhting its not bannable it's BS.

if support cannot create concrete rules, just tell us how deep and similar pushers are not blatantly pushing and let us do the same thing to equal the playing field.

without responding directly to the template tldr change definition of cooperation, increase duration of account merges, no internalling accounts that quit same or similar duration to that of merges to prevent the "quitting" excuse, IP cannot appear on two accounts ever not just simultaneous. NO RELOCATION EXCEPT FOR PREREGISTERED TRIBES who can only do so on each other.

template:

1. What is pushing? What is it to you?
   1. Using accounts that are never intended to be long term accounts to benefit the real accounts whether through bashing/free defense, building+gifting villages, spying/infiltrating other tribes.
2. How can the team enforce a rule on pushing?
   1. Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected
      1. if you cannot create clear enough rules you should just let pushing happen and explain how people got away with it so everyone knows exactly what they can do pushing rule wise, if you are incapable of handling it, just let it become part of the game to limit it's effectiveness.
   2. How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?
      1. publicly humiliated, account permabanned from current and future worlds, ip ban from creating new accounts to circumvent ban.
   3. How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting?
      1. Should village gifting also become disallowed?
         1. limit "internals" similar to how merges were limited this world except a longer duration 40 days is not long enough.
      2. How would this work compared to a merging rule?
         1. basically the same. time lock duration
3. How do we detect pushing?
   1. Give clear arguments and definitions that can not be countered/circumvented with a daily situation within the game
      1. Keep in mind that "there was no ODA gain" does not work to cover all eventualities of an in-game situation
         1. eg. scavenging = no troops home = easy conquer does not fit an accurate detection method
      2. Keep in mind that Tribal Wars encourages tribal cooperation for as long as there is a benefit for all parties involved
      3. Keep in mind there needs to be actual proof and not suspicion.
      4. Keep in mind a rule, policy or definition needs to fit every world's situation
   2. Keep in mind that our players are very competitive in nature. They would love to report everyone for pushing, simply for every conquest ever achieved. Take every argument with a grain of salt.
      1. then explain how our reports aren't pushing because theres very clear pushing that is ignored in tickets and no ability to understand why support does not view it as pushing. and the secrecy does nothing but make it seem like inno is unable or purposely not banning players.
4. ... we will expand on this list on the go and as the discussion goes forward ...

Pushing is really only a *huge* deal on non pp worlds. which is every 4 years. surely you can get a better guideline and ruleset before 150. eliminate relocation item as I've stated before as that is the huge culprit for allowing all this pushing.

on non PP worlds the main things pushing is merges and push account farming. i've stated how push account farming should be handled and how it needs much more increased punishment because atm its a joke. account merges/internals should just be 3 months limited and don't just let 1 player eat force the tribe to spread it around to everyone then (ie <50% of caps allowed to the account merging into) to prevent people who do it for rank etc. merges should only be there for time coverage benefits and you should be happy to get a coplayer you didn't plan to merge into and just not for the points.

there is a problem this creates in situations of force internals early game as well as dumb mods deciding to punish some people and not others etc, honestly not super sure how to handle the force internal stuff as it generally happens even early on for players being bad etc would have to think more about it.

I do not think pushing can be stopped there will always be some excuse that inno will allow it to happen in some sort of grey area and a bunch of losers will mass push to compensate for their poor ability in this game

this was about as pg as i could keep it.

 

[Registeredonline]

Imo you will never stop pushing so no point enforcing rules if some are going to get away with it anyways. What is the difference between cooperation and pushing? Impossible to keep track of and will always be a part of the game one way or another. Trying to enforce this just encourages it even more and people will be looking for loopholes and ways to take advantage of it

I think gifting a village to an account that you will transfer on yourself should be forbidden ( or even gifting it to the same tribe)
Othwise co-players starting on different accounts and then "merging" will have way too big of an advantage and will beway to easy to pull off
If you can track this using IP

 

[Eakshow McGee]

On the subject of ingame mails...

It is really important to note that we can't access mails (with the exception of extracts that are reported by a user) because of GDPR regulations in the EU. That can't be changed as it goes beyond anything the CM or Inno can control.

I think it is also worth saying that additionally to this, a player once banned can't access any part of their account on the banned world which means some potentially relevant mails can't be retrospectively flagged up as part of an appeal process.

Well if we could easily report multiple message (aka conversation) it would be way easier to make em public for you?

 

[Stunz]

1. Pushing is a player gaining a large advantage at 'world start' due to having another player (friend) build a village for them while not having to worry about troops counts or weather or not they have the troops to clear the village. I honestly don't care to much for pushing on worlds where you can buy resources from the pp market. PP is a far larger advantage at start up. I would suggest a world where players first village can not be nobled until they have 2 villages. This would of course me a world where possibly more barbs and a larger spread between people. But that's a different discussion i am sure. But honestly i couldn't care to much about pushing as I think everything you have explained makes it near impossible to have evidence that a push is happening.
2. You either allow pushing or gifting or you don't allow both. If you stop people from gifting then the rule is more set in stone. Merging later on in the game can be allowed. Maybe 90+ days makes more sense.
3. I think the sitting situation can be used very well. I would ban outside tribe sitters from all servers that way randoms can't just quit and send a sit to a random tribe that's fighting the same tribe as them. Scavenging can be fixed where troops stay home and scav at same time. maybe they are farming inside the castle and when an enemy approaches they grab battle gear and still fight. That may take some fun out of it but at least it removes that part of it. And i don't really see anyway of fixing a co player building a village and nobling it then waiting 72 hours or however long it is to move onto the main account. You just have to ban gifting at stage and look into how the village was taken. But same issue you could just have a co player play as a point whore or build offense and that is just easy to hide into the fact it was not gifted or pushed. But overall you just have worlds where its allowed then other worlds where you make it so first villages can't be taken for 60+ days. something interesting like that.

 

[.Spotlight.]

In my opinion pushing is part of the game and even though it gives an unfair advantage, the thing that makes it most unfair is that some pushers are detected and get banned and others doesnt. And this is nothing i blame the tribal wars team for, but players of this game are just way to creative and obsessed to always find a way to work their way around pushing rules. Be it with vpns or whatever, idk how they do it, but its obvious that even though the team released new rules, which were stricter, some still managed to make push accounts. Then again the line to what counts as pushing and what doesnt is very thin. If some1 clears a target for me in the early game is that pushing? well yeah, it gives me an advantage over people, who dont do that but its still part of the game. In my opinion pushing should just be allowed for everyone. Not because its a good thing or because it helps the game, but because otherwise its an even bigger advantage for those who dont get banned. However, integrating some mechanics is a good idea. Just how they did it on the most recent german world (World200). There only preregs were able to start together and every1 else starts randomly. This is in my opinion the best way to hinder pushing as best as possible. Because it will take a shit load of vpns to find accounts next to each other. So yeah thats my take. And honestly in the end game it doesnt matter. The tribes that are most active win, not those that pushed in the beginning.

 

[One Last Shot...]

past worlds should be relevant when you say you don't consider them

If we go by twstats alone, the sheer number of worlds mean we will find multiple players who regularly noble the same users. It became a running joke at one point as I'd found and nobled the same user on 4 consecutive worlds. Never knew the dude or had any contact.

As closed worlds don't keep the necessary ingame data, this 3rd party tool would be the only evidence which could lead to vast numbers of unfair bans.

also include merges to "quitting" can't internal because it's too grey. no eating tribemates for at least 90 days or eating anyone that was in your tribe. i'd rather have to suffer dealing with accounts quitting and not being able to noble them than to let everyone just "quit' and get eaten and support not do anything because it's not "pushing". just no eating anyone thats been in your tribe (or obvious family tribes based off name) for 90+ days. be smart who you invite and deal with suffer when someone quits early on.

To play devil's advocate, this would almost certainly encourage spies/backstabbers/traitors and also hurt any disenfranchised users who can't realistically look for a new tribe in such conditions as they'd likely have no real growth room. Great for short worlds, not great for regular ones.

creating accounts that you have no intention of player long term either to ruin other tribes or to spy is pushing and then just jumping onto your account you planned to play long term when you get rimmed or internalled.

How would you go about proving this? And how would you differentiate between your example and a rimmed player who joins a friend's account elsewhere in the world?

I'd almost say milestone worlds your IP address cannot appear on two accounts at any point the entire world

For technical reasons on the way IPs work, this is physically impossible. I'm not the best person to explain it but @DaWolf85 is a good person for explaining the more geeky stuff

But, what that boils down to is that this would instantly prevent a significant number of rule-abiding users being blocked from ever playing.

 

[world8vet]

What is Pushing?

Joining the world for the benefit of another tribe/player , without the intention of winning or having any clear goals. Or the abuse of multiple accounts for the benefit of one.

I added the second part of the definition because you have instances of players joining on different accounts, getting the benefit of multiple items/quest rewards and " merging " shortly after. This should be pushing, as the purpose of the second account was to provide free villages to the first, even when the player moved over as a coplayer.

How can the team enforce the rule of Pushing?

The problem that TW has faced so far, is that you have multiple playstyles and situations that are not pushing, but they can be used to push an account while being in the grey areas of the rules. Such as bashing, family tribes, merges and so on.

One of the great things that the TW community has done, is all the well detailed support tickets documenting what happened, getting into OD numbers/player relationships and so on. If the team took such reports more seriously and added the knowledge that they have to the investigation, than they could catch people abusing the grey areas of the rules. For example , regarding the situation of players joining to merge into each other, the team can look at account sitting data and at troop usage to further prove the pushing.

The problem is that the TW staff, has not been interested in patching up the grey area of the rules.

The question of gifting

No, i don't think that village gifting should be banned, it all depends on the context. Was the player actually playing but just quit the game? Did the player join the world to pp farm like thousands of others player?

Regarding the use of oda as proof

I just want to comment on the point posted by JawJaw that it does not cover all eventualities. It is true, that a players troops could be scavenging, farming or doing tons of others thing, and i think that the player base assumes that the TW staff has the tools to find that out. If the team is able to know what's going when it comes to troop usage at the time of being cleared/nobled, than it should be easy to figure out the relationship between a lack of oda and a potential push.

 

[DaWolf85]

Multi-accounting for benefit of one main account

I do think honestly that Rule 4.4 could do with re-wording to be a little more clear on this, as it seems to be a common misconception. Pushing is a completely separate rule from multi-accounting. The majority of pushing cases don't involve multi-accounting, especially when you use additional rules to augment catching/defining it, like we did on EN125. So it really should be more clear about what pushing is and is not. By and large, pushing cases involve using a separate, friendly player, who you know is going to quit the world, or join your account later, to benefit your account unfairly.

How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting? -Complex scenarios where a tribe is bleeding to the enemy, gifting should be allowed within the tribe.

How would you define "bleeding to the enemy"? Note that it can be very difficult to define, from an outside perspective, what tribes are friendly and unfriendly with each other, especially in cases where a formal ingame war has not been declared.

125 should've had merges extended to 90 days minimum if not 180

This is unfortunately not feasible for technical reasons we can't really get into. I'm not sure how much longer than 40 days we can really do - it would take some discussion to find a maximum we're comfortable with, but I'm fairly sure it's less than 90.

Pushing is really only a *huge* deal on non pp worlds. which is every 4 years. surely you can get a better guideline and ruleset before 150.

The additional rule we trialled on EN125 was a substantial increase to our workload and thus we would need to have a much larger moderation team to handle this for a future milestone world. It would be pointless to have such a large team if we did not apply the rule to other worlds - therefore it can't realistically be done just for the occasional milestone world.

then explain how our reports aren't pushing because theres very clear pushing that is ignored in tickets and no ability to understand why support does not view it as pushing. and the secrecy does nothing but make it seem like inno is unable or purposely not banning players.

We've discussed this before on Discord, so I won't repeat myself too much here - there are several reasons, in many cases not ones we can change on a server-to-server basis, why we can't do this. I would also, however, raise the concern that frequently, being open with players has backfired on us as a team, even when it is done with the best of intentions and with relatively innocuous statements. Players tend to find things to be outraged about and take them out of context to support their own narrative. In that sense I remain unconvinced that being open with players about whether action was taken and why would change anything. It seems to me many players already decide whether they believe something is a rule breach before sending a report, and nothing we can say would ever change their mind.

Well if we could easily report multiple message (aka conversation) it would be way easier to make em public for you?

Reporting a message sends us the entire conversation already.

No, i don't think that village gifting should be banned, it all depends on the context. Was the player actually playing but just quit the game? Did the player join the world to pp farm like thousands of others player?

How do you know what the context is, from the outside?

 

[One Last Shot...]

Reporting a message sends us the entire conversation already.

It actually only sends an extract from the conversation (a few mails on either side of a reported mail). Long conversations don't get the full chain flagged up when one mail within it is reported.

 

[Deleted User - 848983838]

If we go by twstats alone, the sheer number of worlds mean we will find multiple players who regularly noble the same users. It became a running joke at one point as I'd found and nobled the same user on 4 consecutive worlds. Never knew the dude or had any contact.

i'm pretty sure your example would be a lot less obvious if you posted it compared to all the ones i'm thinking of that fit this case either in account pushing/merges. heck im pretty sure i've got accoutns i've nobled across 2-3 worlds and again it's going to be pretty obvious it's a different situation than actual pushing.

To play devil's advocate, this would almost certainly encourage spies/backstabbers/traitors.

can you elaborate?

How would you go about proving this? And how would you differentiate between your example and a rimmed player who joins a friend's account elsewhere in the world?

first part is related to my response to your IP follow up.
2nd. Simple. If you get rimmed you are done on that world. I'd rather not let people who get rimmed join and coplay their friends than to let people move from push account and push account to real account there's no need to differentiate.

For technical reasons on the way IPs work, this is physically impossible. I'm not the best person to explain it but @DaWolf85 is a good person for explaining the more geeky stuff

But, what that boils down to is that this would instantly prevent a significant number of rule-abiding users being blocked from ever playing

yea i don't know the IP stuff im guessing this is related to work/school sharing same networks? is there not device id's like a imei or mac address that does the same. to prevent it from ever being allowed on a second account ever.

 

[Deleted User - 848983838]

This is unfortunately not feasible for technical reasons we can't really get into. I'm not sure how much longer than 40 days we can really do - it would take some discussion to find a maximum we're comfortable with, but I'm fairly sure it's less than 90.

sounds like then the whole point of this thread is moot if you can't even extend *legal* pushing past 40 days when 40 days is still early enough to provide a massive advantage. i said from the beginning 40 days was terrible.

The additional rule we trialled on EN125 was a substantial increase to our workload and thus we would need to have a much larger moderation team to handle this for a future milestone world. It would be pointless to have such a large team if we did not apply the rule to other worlds - therefore it can't realistically be done just for the occasional milestone world.

i feel so bad for poor inno who makes no money and can't afford staff to eliminate cheating in their game.

We've discussed this before on Discord, so I won't repeat myself too much here - there are several reasons, in many cases not ones we can change on a server-to-server basis, why we can't do this. I would also, however, raise the concern that frequently, being open with players has backfired on us as a team, even when it is done with the best of intentions and with relatively innocuous statements. Players tend to find things to be outraged about and take them out of context to support their own narrative. In that sense I remain unconvinced that being open with players about whether action was taken and why would change anything. It seems to me many players already decide whether they believe something is a rule breach before sending a report, and nothing we can say would ever change their mind.

and im pretty sure i said before, then I don't feel bad when you guys have to deal with people being outraged when you also be secret about it and being accused of incompetent or corrupt. sounds like you have to deal with it ether way so again sorry by not sorry.





basically seems like stopping cheating is not worth the money to inno and will just rely on people to keep spending money and either being fine cheating themselves or that enough people will put up with cheating to make it worth not putting much effort into stopping it.

at this point i do not believe it possible with limitations from inno to curtail account pushing and all forms should be explained and detailed so everyone can partake. instead of tw staff acting like they are enforcing pushing rules.

again pushing rules really aren't a huge deal on non milestone besides merges+farming as it will never be enough to overcome pp in 99% of cases. however pushign is still terrbily enforced on pp worlds.

 

[DaWolf85]

yea i don't know the IP stuff im guessing this is related to work/school sharing same networks? is there not device id's like a imei or mac address that does the same. to prevent it from ever being allowed on a second account ever.

Still not possible. For ease of gameplay reasons, we can only really afford to block this on speed rounds, where speed of moderation is important (and we do). Many people enjoy playing from the same device as another player (and even have to in some cases, for example playing from a public computer), and this is something we do allow on normal worlds.

 

[One Last Shot...]

i'm pretty sure your example would be a lot less obvious if you posted it compared to all the ones i'm thinking of that fit this case either in account pushing/merges. heck im pretty sure i've got accoutns i've nobled across 2-3 worlds and again it's going to be pretty obvious it's a different situation than actual pushing.

How would you go about identifying the differences? And more importantly, would/should that be concrete evidence in itself? I'm not convinced it is possible to separate out the innocent and deliberate cases confidently enough to have rules based only on twstats.

can you elaborate?

Of course Your suggestion means I could spy on my tribe, and when caught out stay safe as they aren't allowed to noble me. I can join another tribe with full protection because my old tribe would get bans for nobling me. That would be terrible for gameplay.

if you get rimmed you are done on that world.

The problem with this is the impact in mid/late game when player retention/bringing older players from the world back is essential for activity. Putting a policy in place that tells returning users 'no you can't play' would drive people away from the game.

 

[Seven Devils]

I will work around as "How do i get around the rules you apply so i can continue to push"

It's, Very easy to go around rules.
* You say "Oh you can't help eachother" Well, its a tribal game. Thats just a bad way to enforce it, so you can't do that honestly.
* 40 days or 90 days for merges won't do much, i will simply trade villages with another pusher. Problem solved. (For me)
* Not being able to merge or internal. Thats just a shitty way of doing things for something that is not so severe.
* ODA - Pointless, as said before. What if the enemy just doesn't make troops or SENDS THEM OUT to get you banned.

There is literally no way you can stop me from pushing, if i wanted to do it. I just have to be smarter all the time. So instead of wasting your time and doing a bad job at moderating bans. This account had sitt on a account that had 3 villages, he sent troops out from the village as owner had quit.
Punishment? 2 days attackable, result? from 20 to 2 villages. The pusher? 24h attackable and 3 villages lost for pushing. If any other player would have recieved such punishment for what everyone does, i'd imagine the community would be very small very quickly.

So, if we shouldn't chase pushers - What can we do?

Well, how about removing the option to invite friends near you? Thats the best way to push if you ask me(Not that i ever would.. )
If you can't remove it - Put up measures such as - Needs to get an instant invite to the tribe, this would secure that the player is there for the tribe. I would also force the tribe to keep him for at least 7 days under 1000 points & if he passes 3 weeks. The one who invite can NEVER noble him. This would make it much more difficult to make accounts and have them build villages near you, as your tribe needs to committ to the player.

Could even add the shared connection rule to the accounts for the first 6 weeks, he can not attack the same target as the one who invited. Sure, i'd bypass that with another pusher, but it would make it harder.

Why do you keep a push account? I did say you do it for 4 diffrent reasons;

* Spies in other tribes to gain information & later internal.
* Build a nice village for you to gobble up/Tribe gobble.
* Build defence for you so if you are backtimed you have troops able to defend you.
* Build offensive troops to clear noble targets for you that may have morale issues for the main account.

Morale is another issue that makes you keep pushing, why would i send 3 nukes to clear a village when i could have a push account with full morale do the same job? Morale is a big issue later down the game, w125 has a GREAT rule that morale is de-activated after 100 days. I would LOVE to see morale be much less effective and played around with much more.

For example, morale is only effected at 10;1 size and perhaps max's out at 60% at a 50;1 size - De activated after x days.

Just a few thoughts of my own, i will keep doing my thing just like everyone else will. Make it more difficult and less useful to push & people will perhaps ease up on pushing...