in the past 3+ years, i've done a ton of cycling & have learned so many things about the game, so i decided
to share them with anyone that might have questions about cycling or how to do it effectively. i hope to have
covered everything you may have questions about somewhere in this guide, but if you ever have any questions,
feel free to post here or PM me about them and i'll be happy to help! if you have recommendations for sections
to add or your own methods that you think would be worth adding, send me a message with the details!
NOTE: since the november 2016 update, multiple things in regard to cycling & villagers moving out have changed, so some of the things that used to be in this guide don't work anymore! if you see anything that is no longer accurate or have anything you think would be worth adding, feel free to let me know via PM!
if you're looking to TT out unwanted villagers but keep other ones, click here.
if you're looking to make a town strictly for cycling, keep reading.
what is a cycling town? a cycling town is a town that's main purpose is moving villagers out, to either sell/giveaway or to move into one of your own towns. it's what many players with two or more cartridges do to obtain their dreamies without having to look for them from other users. "cycling" itself simply means using time travel to move villagers out, rather than wait for them to move out on their own. what is the best method for cycling? before the november 2016 update, the most popular one was the Foolproof Cycling Method by Karen, but since the update changed how long it takes villagers to go into boxes, that in turn changes how cycling works. luckily, i found a new method on reddit (this, or a similar version, has also been confirmed & recommended by Chrystina) that works just the same! you can see the original post here, but i'll go more into detail about it for those who are new to time traveling in excess or cycling as a whole. WARNING: this method is strictly for cycling, and does not give you any control over who leaves. as you can see, in three steps this method gives you a villager in boxes and a new villager that's moved in. when you see cycling threads in the Villager Trading Plaza, their titles usually consist of "___ in Boxes, ___ New"; this method is how they do that. over time, all of your original villagers will be replaced with a constantly changing town full of new villagers. do i need to make a cycling thread if i make a cycling town? nope! many people have cycling towns that they don't openly advertise, because a cycling thread in itself has the potential to get overwhelming or stressful. cycling towns can be purely for you and your dream villagers, or to sell/giveaway certain ones as they move in. i've recently seen a huge influx of new cycling threads and i wanted to make sure i added something related to this, that way no one felt like they were obliged to make a thread for their cycling town. in fact, i'd recommend getting settled and comfortable with cycling before you start something that can be as time consuming as a cycling thread. it will also give you time to build up a reputation around TBT as well as some wifi ratings -- many people are a little wary of trading with someone that has no wifi rating yet. how do i start one? you can create a cycling town either from scratch, or make one out of a town you already have but are no longer invested in. do not cycle in a town you care about unless you're using a different method -- as i've mentioned previously, using this method gives you no control over who moves out of your town, and you will lose dreamies if you attempt to do this in a town full of them. if you are using a pre-existing town: you're way ahead of the game and are almost ready to start cycling. the only thing you need to do is TT day by day until you find someone that pings to move. it doesn't matter who it is that's pinged, just TT to their moving day as soon as you've finished talking to them. once they're in boxes, you're free to begin cycling using the method above. if you are starting a new town: this is what i prefer to do, although it's more time consuming. it gives you a nice fresh start, you can pick a new town name, get a new map, etc etc etc. it's a nice change of scenery for me. • start a new save file like you would for any other town. name your town, your mayor, play the game as you normally would. it doesn't matter who your starter villagers are, so resist the urge to be picky with them. • complete all the tutorials -- get all the advice from isabelle & get your town development permit. this isn't mandatory, but it will allow you to set ordinances for your town and let you build a campsite. neither of these things are necessary to cycle, but they're nice to have. i'd also recommend paying off the down payment on your house as well, but that's also just my preference. note: some people have not been able to get a villager to ping/move until they've payed off their first home loan. strangely, i've found this isn't always the case; however, if you're struggling to get your first mover out, try paying off that first loan! • TT day by day until you have nine villagers. • once you've reached your nine villagers, TT day by day until you find a mover. this can take a long time or it can take no time at all -- the most important thing is not to get lazy. take it slow, and thoroughly check each day for a ping or for rumors of a mover. after you've TT'd the mover into boxes, you're free to begin cycling using the method above. if you're not careful, you can miss the day the mover goes into boxes and they'll move out without you knowing. if this happens, welcome to hell. you'll have to TT indefinitely until another villager moves in, putting you back at nine total, and begin the process again. while it doesn't sound particularly hard, it's a gigantic pain to do. how do i set up my cycling thread if i choose to make one? any way you'd like! there is no right or wrong way to set up a cycling thread, which is why it's fun to do in the first place. design it however you'd like, add or change rules as you go along, whatever you feel comfortable with is all that matters. browse through other people's cycling threads to get some ideas if you're not sure where to start, and try to decide how much time you're willing to put into cycling before you offer all the bells & whistles like lurking, reserves, etc. what's the difference between the in-game clock & the 3DS clock? the in-game clock is accessed through the game menu before isabelle loads your town. when she asks "shall we get started?" there are two options: "yes, let's" or "i need help first". clicking the latter will bring you to a bunch of options, one of which is changing the time. that's the in-game clock and what i use for all my cycling. the 3DS clock is a bit different, and is accessed through the home screen. from there, tap the system settings icon. then go to other settings > date & time. from there, you can change the time to whatever you'd like. many cyclers use this clock, but be careful -- if you're playing other towns on that 3ds, the in-game time will change with the DS clock. if your main town's date is set at january 1st, 2016 and you set the 3ds clock to may 4th, 2017 for your cycling, your main town will jump ahead a year if you forget to change it back. for that reason, i prefer to use my in-game clock.
when do i begin cycling? this has already been covered, but i wanted to say it again just in case anyone was unclear on it. you can begin using the foolproof cycling method anytime you have a villager in boxes. how do i keep some villagers and cycle out others? unfortunately, there is no guaranteed way of doing this. the only way to let specific villagers move and keep others is simply to wait for pings, and deny or accept whoever it is that wants to move. there are several guides on moving villagers out this way, but i can't guarantee they'll work. always be careful when tt'ing! •  • tt'ing to a moveout date: after a villager has pinged to move and you've denied them, time travel to the day they said they were planning to move out. this will trigger a new mover to ping once you've TT'd to that date. i've also had mixed results with this method as well, but it seems to work better than the previous one. • day by day: this one is the safest but also the most boring. it's as easy as the title says; TT each day after a ping until you find another mover. i do not have the patience whatsoever to use this one, but i recommend you do it if you're new to time traveling or prone to losing dreamies. it's always better to be safe than sorry. unfortunately, i've yet to find a 100% successful way of moving out a specific villager quickly. as far as we know, which villagers choose to move is random, so there really isn't any guaranteed method of getting one to leave. some people swear by ignoring the villager, others by befriending them, but in my experience, it's just luck. again, if you have a truly solid method to moving out specific villagers, please share it with me & i'd be glad to add it in here! do i need to talk to the villagers while i'm cycling? nope! once you've begun cycling, there's no need to talk to villagers and doing so is pretty much a waste of time. before you actually begin the foolproof method of cycling, when you're trying to earn your development permit, i'd recommend talking to the villagers as this will speed up the process. after you actually begin TT'ing, that's when talking to the villagers become unnecessary. can i move in villagers from the campsite? yes, you can. moving in villagers from your campsite won't mess anything up with your cycling; the camper will simply overwrite a random move-in. you do not need to TT a day forward to make the camper move in after you've invited them -- they will move in during the course of your cycling no matter what, as long as they did actually say they're moving in. remember, if you TT to any date other than the three days you TT back and forth from, you will mess up your cycling and need to play day by day until you get another villager in boxes. how do i keep a villager in boxes indefinitely? the first thing you need to know is that in the game, 6am is the beginning of the day. this is extremely important and is usually one of the reasons for accidental voiding. here is a (hopefully) helpful example: say marshal is in boxes on february 1st. you have from 6am on february 1st until 5:59am on february 2nd to let someone come and adopt him. if you need to hold him in boxes for longer than a day, the only thing you would need to do is wind your DS or in-game clock back to any time after 6am on february 1st. as long as your clock stays within that day, marshal will not be voided. if you TT before 6am on february 1st, he will also be voided; any amount of time travel backwards is counted as a day, so the game would still recognize a day has passed. any villager can be held for any amount of time if you continuously wind the clocks back. will picking up voided villagers affect my cycling? yes and no. for the most part, no. it won't mess anything up necessarily, but it will give you a villager that is likely unoriginal and also may be one you've already had. this may bother some people but not others, and that's all based on your preference. many people prefer to buy or adopt original villagers, so having picked up an unoriginal and probably heinous looking villager from someone's void simply takes away an opportunity for you to have had someone better. again, this is all based on you and how you feel about picking up voids. if you'd prefer not to, make sure you have anyone that visits clear their void before they do so. will villagers i've had before ever show up in my town again? yep. this is because of the 16 villager cycle; if you had rosie as one of your starters and cycled her out, you may find another rosie has moved back in months after you started cycling. the game stores your last sixteen villagers in its memory, and once new ones have moved out and overwrited the old ones, the old ones can move back in again. you'll find this happens a lot faster than you think while cycling, and if you cycle long enough, you could see the same villager two or three times, even more. how do i keep my villagers original? many people run into the problem of villagers changing clothes or selling furniture in their houses while cycling. although there's always a chance of them changing clothes or catchphrases while talking to another villager, there are certain ways to prevent this from happening. • buyout everything in the flea market at retail and fill all the spaces with flowers priced at 999,999 bells. this will make villagers unable to sell their furniture or to buy someone else's. • change all of the custom designs in the able sisters to umbrellas. this will keep villagers from changing into those awful default designs that we all love so much. • don't spend more than five minutes in-game while you're cycling unless you're adopting out a villager. after five minutes, the game can trigger two villagers to talk to each other and that can lead to them swapping clothes or catchphrases. this is not always a guarantee, so don't stress too much if it happens. you can always quit without saving if it does, anyway. • don't talk to the villagers. don't do favors for them, don't catch fish or bugs, none of that. these are my methods for keeping my villagers 100% original and i've never had a single problem, so i highly recommend all of them. regardless of your feelings towards villager originality, many people prefer them to be and if you're trying to sell them, you'll want to keep that in mind. what is autovoiding and why is it done? autovoiding is something done in cycling threads where any unlurked or unreserved T4/T5 villager that goes into boxes during cycling is automatically voided without being advertised in the thread first. this is mainly done because many lower tier villagers are unwanted, so most cyclers don't want to wait hours or even days for someone to show interest in adopting them. you'll find that lately many cycling threads have stopped autovoiding because T5's are becoming hard to find, simply because they are autovoided so frequently. it is entirely up to you whether or not you'd like to autovoid or not. what are the "tiers" and why are they important? villager tiers are referencing the first list of villagers based on popularity created by Hound00med. they are used to measure each individual villager's popularity level based on demand. it's very important to remember that this list in no way determines which villagers you should or shouldn't have or which ones are "best" -- it's just a way for cyclers or anyone selling villagers to price them accurately. also keep in mind that this list gets outdated quickly, and you'll learn as you cycle that there are times when certain T5's are in crazy high demand, but a T1 can end up getting voided. it all boils down to being in the right place at the right time, and hoping that there's someone online that's interested in whoever you may be selling. NOTE: Hound00med's list is no longer accurate -- we now use Chrys's lovely new villager popularity chart to price villagers! how are villager prices calculated? villager prices are determined based on which tier they're in. both TBT & IGB prices can change or vary depending on the seller/buyer, so there's no guaranteed way to price villagers. pricing is entirely up to you as a seller and can be anything you want it to be. just keep in mind, the higher you go, the less likely you are to get as many takers as you might if you priced lower. the more often you sell villagers, the more you'll get a feel for what people are willing to pay for each tier. how do i take a break from cycling & resume at a later date? this is actually not as hard as you might think. to take a break from cycling with the intention of restarting again later, all you have to do is take note of what day you stopped. make a note of whatever your in-game date was when you last played (if it's your boxes day, which i highly recommend, you'll probably already have it memorized) and when you decide to begin cycling again, TT back to that day. as long as you don't load the game on a different date than the last one you played on, you'll be able to resume as if you never stopped. what does it mean to lurk or reserve a villager? when you lurk for a villager, the owner of the cycling thread you're on will put you on a list and send you a message when that villager goes into boxes. you usually have a time limit to make an offer on them before the villager is put up for grabs to everyone else. lurking is more or less just a way of getting notified before anyone else to give you a better chance to adopt that villager. when you reserve a villager, that villager is now saved just for you. when they go into boxes, the cycler will let you know and will usually give you a time limit on when you can pick them up as well, but it is much longer than the one for lurking. some cyclers charge a fee to reserve while others don't, and many set a time limit because they'll have to hold that villager for you, which prevents them from continuing their cycling. what if a villager refuses to move out even after 50-100+ cycles? i have actually encountered this problem a bunch of times before, and it's very frustrating. if you have a villager that refuses to move out after countless cycles, (it could be anyone, a starter or a random move-in) there is a fairly simple fix for it. to begin cycling in the first place, you have to have a villager in boxes. the date they are in boxes is considered your "boxes day"; the day all villagers go into boxes while you cycle back and forth from that day. here's an example, if you're unclear and/or i'm doing a terrible job of explaining ➝ marshal is in boxes on january 10th, 2016. to begin cycling using the method above, you will TT back to january 5th, 2015. save & quit. then you TT to january 5th, 2016. save & quit. you then TT back to january 10th, 2016, and you have a new villager in boxes. that makes january 10th, 2016 your "boxes day", as you will constantly be going to and from this day as you cycle. if you TT to any day before or after your "boxes day" it will mess up your cycling. now, back on topic. if you've been cycling for awhile, you may notice that you can't get rid of a certain villager. even though you don't talk to them, this one specific villager refuses to move, even when all eight other villagers in town have changed multiple times. this is because, for some reason, the game apparently cements at least one villager in town after awhile. this may happen to you right away with one of your starters, or this may not happen until months into your cycling. i've experimented with a lot of ways to try and get them to move, but i've found there is only one guaranteed way. you'll have to break the cycle and change your box day. to do so, you'll need to essentially go back to playing the game the normal way, by TT'ing day by day until you get a ping from a mover -- or just a notification from isabelle that someone is moving. it doesn't matter who the mover is; the "anchored" villager should still move eventually once you begin cycling again from a new box day. to do this, begin TT'ing day by day on your SECOND LOAD of the game during cycling. why? because this is when a ninth villager is due to move in the following day. if you begin tt'ing day by day on the first or third load of your cycling, you'll have to TT even longer until that ninth villager randomly moves in, so that another can leave. important things to remember • a day in the game starts at 6am and ends at 5:59am the following day • any amount of time traveled backwards counts as one day • if you have less than nine villagers, you cannot begin cycling • you need two DS's to transfer villagers between towns • isabelle should always notify you of a villager in boxes every third time you load up your game -- if she doesn't, you've done something wrong • just because you have a cycling town doesn't mean you need to make a cycling thread! selling/giving away villagers on your own time is just as fun & can be less stressful • never forget that this is for fun! don't let it become a chore other helpful guides what is time traveling and how do i do it? what is "the void"? what is plot resetting? what is TBT and how do i send it to people? gameplay guides masterpost acknowledgements delia-song @ tumblr bidoofcrossing @ tumblr stardustshine @ tumblr Karen @ TBT dahlialia @ TBT oath2order @ TBT Justin @ TBT Jlst @ r/AnimalCrossing |
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