[Guide] Cycling & Cycling Towns ➝ (UPDATED 12/6/16)

Dumb question, but does the 3-step cycling method by Dahlia work when a villager is in boxes because they just moved in?
 
Dumb question, but does the 3-step cycling method by Dahlia work when a villager is in boxes because they just moved in?
I'm not sure what you mean. cycling is moving villagers out, so cycling only works when a villager is moving out (aka in boxes). hope that's what you meant! :)
 
updated a bit, added an entirely new link just for moving specific villagers out, and i'm planning on revamping things some more throughout the week. c:​
 
Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but if I want a villager to ping me but I don't want to go ahead of time too far, can I just go 1 day forward, check, then 1 day back, check?
 
Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but if I want a villager to ping me but I don't want to go ahead of time too far, can I just go 1 day forward, check, then 1 day back, check?
you'd probably be safe going two days forward and then one back. that method really only becomes unsafe if you do it multiple times in a row without getting a ping in between. :)
 
It's amazing! I came up with the exact same method by myself more or less at the same time this guide was written :) after using it with my cycling town countless times I wanted to write a guide about it on my tumblr but I guess it's pointless now ahaha :D

What really amazes me is that I skip the exact number of days starting from the real date because of the same reason you do :D I find it extra convenient (as a busy wife and mother) to be able to tell at which jump I left off just by looking at the date :)

I have one suggestion to add, this is something I realized just recently. In my cycling town I have villagers I want to keep, so I make sure to talk to the villagers at the second jump (5 days behind the real date) to find the mover. If the mover is the villager I want to keep, I tell him to stay and I skip 1 year forward and someone else will ping me to tell me he wants to move. Then skip to the moving date, and back to 1yr 5d behind the real date to start a new cycle.

In short, there are two cases that give you a "grace" period, meaning you can do a long jump in time or just take a break from the game (I've used this a while ago to take a month break from my main town and kept all of my villagers):

- one is when a villager is about to move (you can jump forward or take a break anytime between the day he decides to move and the first day after he moved, jump/break can be as long as you wish, he will be the only one to move away);

- the other case is when someone tells you he wants to move and you make him change his mind, just be sure that the day you stop the villager from moving is the *last day* you play before the jump/break and nobody will move away from your town 100% guaranteed. Just be aware that the very first day after the long jump/break some villager *will* ping you to inform he's moving. So speak with everyone, save and quit, re-enter the game and walk by every villager roaming around town.

I hope this helps :)
 
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It's amazing! I came up with the exact same method by myself more or less at the same time this guide was written :) after using it with my cycling town countless times I wanted to write a guide about it on my tumblr but I guess it's pointless now ahaha :D

What really amazes me is that I skip the exact number of days starting from the real date because of the same reason you do :D I find it extra convenient (as a busy wife and mother) to be able to tell at which jump I left off just by looking at the date :)

I have one suggestion to add, this is something I realized just recently. In my cycling town I have villagers I want to keep, so I make sure to talk to the villagers at the second jump (5 days behind the real date) to find the mover. If the mover is the villager I want to keep, I tell him to stay and I skip 1 year forward and someone else will ping me to tell me he wants to move. Then skip to the moving date, and back to 1yr 5d behind the real date to start a new cycle.

In short, there are two cases that give you a "grace" period, meaning you can do a long jump in time or just take a break from the game (I've used this a while ago to take a month break from my main town and kept all of my villagers):

- one is when a villager is about to move (you can jump forward or take a break anytime between the day he decides to move and the first day after he moved, jump/break can be as long as you wish, he will be the only one to move away);

- the other case is when someone tells you he wants to move and you make him change his mind, just be sure that the day you stop the villager from moving is the *last day* you play before the jump/break and nobody will move away from your town 100% guaranteed. Just be aware that the very first day after the long jump/break some villager *will* ping you to inform he's moving. So speak with everyone, save and quit, re-enter the game and walk by every villager roaming around town.

I hope this helps :)
thanks so much for your suggestions! i actually didn't create this method of cycling, two users on here (Karen & dahlialia) were the first to post it in march of 2014; i just put all this other stuff together to make it a more broad guide on what cycling is altogether.
i do actually already have that method you explained in my guide already (checking for pings on the second load of the game, if there's specific villagers you're trying to keep from moving), but i do have a question about the whole "one year forward" thing you spoke about.

Maya said:
If the mover is the villager I want to keep, I tell him to stay and I skip 1 year forward and someone else will ping me to tell me he wants to move. Then skip to the moving date, and back to 1yr 5d behind the real date to start a new cycle.
what exactly do you mean by the "real date"? i don't personally cycle this way, i just dedicate a town strictly to cycling and move any villagers i might want along the way into another one of my towns, so this is not something i'm too familiar with. do you mean the initial "boxes day", or a year and five days from the date you end up on after TT'ing to the villager's moving date? i will definitely look into this and make a note of it somewhere in the guide, but i'm a little unsure of what exactly you mean. i'd just like to be 100% sure i understand you before i add it in here! :)

as for your info on the grace period where no one will move out, i have never been completely positive about the first, but if you've had experience with it and can confirm no one will move out if you TT one big jump right after someone is in boxes (which is, i think, what you meant) then i will look into adding that in as well. as for the second grace period about denying a ping & then TT'ing however much, i'm very familiar with that, thank you for reminding me! i need to add a few more faq's into the cycling without losing villagers section, and that is absolutely one that i think would be good to add. however, i don't really find that either of them are necessarily relevant to regular cycling, which is really the main focus of my guide; cycling consistently following dahlialia's method and no regard for who moves or who stays. my initial plan was only to focus on that in my guide, but i know many people are looking to get rid of one specific villager or keep certain ones in their cycling towns, so i've been expanding. with the "grace periods", although super helpful for regular play & for trying to move one specific villager out (or just to take breaks from the game), i just don't think they're really relevant to the rest of the material i've got in here. but i definitely plan on looking into everything you've suggested & finding a spot for the majority of it somewhere in this messy post, lol! thanks again!​
 
i do actually already have that method you explained in my guide already (checking for pings on the second load of the game, if there's specific villagers you're trying to keep from moving), but i do have a question about the whole "one year forward" thing you spoke about.

what exactly do you mean by the "real date"? i don't personally cycle this way, i just dedicate a town strictly to cycling and move any villagers i might want along the way into another one of my towns, so this is not something i'm too familiar with. do you mean the initial "boxes day", or a year and five days from the date you end up on after TT'ing to the villager's moving date? i will definitely look into this and make a note of it somewhere in the guide, but i'm a little unsure of what exactly you mean. i'd just like to be 100% sure i understand you before i add it in here! :)

I think it's easier if I make an example :)

Today is August 6th 2016. I have a villager in boxes.
  1. First jump, backwards, to August 1st 2015 (1yr 5d in the past). Save and quit.
  2. Second jump, forward, to August 1st 2016 (1yr forward). This is when you have to check if some villager is thinking about moving.
    • The mover is someone you don't care losing. Tell him goodbye, save and quit.

      OR

    • The mover is someone you want to keep. Tell him to stay, save and quit. Jump 1 year forward to August 1st 2017 (this is what I call a long jump in time). Find the mover. If - again - it's someone you want to keep, tell him to stay then save-quit-long jump again (1 yr) and repeat until the mover is someone you want out of your town - then tell him goodbye, save and quit.
  3. Third jump, 5 days forward, to the moving day, in our case August 6th - the year depends on what happened with the previous step. Just jump 5 days forward to get the villager in boxes, that's it.

The cycle is over!

At this point, you can start all over again with a new cycle. Whatever the year you ended up to, just jump to the same date of the first jump. Ideally it must be 1 yr 5d in the past, counting from the *real world* date :)



as for your info on the grace period where no one will move out, i have never been completely positive about the first, but if you've had experience with it and can confirm no one will move out if you TT one big jump right after someone is in boxes (which is, i think, what you meant) then i will look into adding that in as well.
Exactly. It's kind of the same situation you get after the first jump in the past, in other words it's the very first day after the "boxes" day. With our cycling method, at this point, we jump 1 year forward and nobody else moves.

I hope I was able to explain everything properly, this is not my mother language as you probably can tell :) If you need more information on anything, just ask :)
 
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I think it's easier if I make an example :)

Today is August 6th 2016. I have a villager in boxes.
  1. First jump, backwards, to August 1st 2015 (1yr 5d in the past). Save and quit.
  2. Second jump, forward, to August 1st 2016 (1yr forward). This is when you have to check if some villager is thinking about moving.
    • The mover is someone you don't care losing. Tell him goodbye, save and quit.

      OR

    • The mover is someone you want to keep. Tell him to stay, save and quit. Jump 1 year forward to August 1st 2017 (this is what I call a long jump in time). Find the mover. If - again - it's someone you want to keep, tell him to stay then save-quit-long jump again (1 yr) and repeat until the mover is someone you want out of your town - then tell him goodbye, save and quit.
  3. Third jump, 5 days forward, to the moving day, in our case August 6th - the year depends on what happened with the previous step. Just jump 5 days forward to get the villager in boxes, that's it.

The cycle is over!

At this point, you can start all over again with a new cycle. Whatever the year you ended up to, just jump to the same date of the first jump. Ideally it must be 1 yr 5d in the past, counting from the *real world* date :)




Exactly. It's kind of the same situation you get after the first jump in the past, in other words it's the very first day after the "boxes" day. With our cycling method, at this point, we jump 1 year forward and nobody else moves.

I hope I was able to explain everything properly, this is not my mother language as you probably can tell :) If you need more information on anything, just ask :)
okay, I understand now. thanks for explaining! & your English is actually flawless :')
 
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