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*Multi-Hunting Basics*

eRepublik Multi-accounts:
A user can only control one Citizen account at a time. If a player has more than one citizen account under their control then these accounts are referred to as multi-accounts or multis. The Terms of Service state: A user can create and administrate a single Erepublik account. Multi-accounts are illegal and will result in a ban from the game.

Users generally use Multis to gain the gold received from invites, increase productivity of a company, or to vote in elections.

Account Sitting
Account sitting, or taking care of another person's account while they are away is also considered multi-accounting.

Call it what it is: Cheating!



As Minister of National Security, I felt it was important to provide a guide to some of the basics of detecting Multis. It is a subject that I do have some familiarity with. With the new Adult and Young Citizen change, this article will describe ways to find Multis based on these new changes as players will no longer be able to donate gold or vote in elections until they reach 50 strength. They key now will be to take a closer look toward players with little more than 50 strength and no social or military activity (depending on their "Multi Mission").

Cheaters is the correct term also for people who run multiple accounts. When all is said and done, this is a game, and they are breaking the rules for their advantage. Think about any other game you play, do you want to play with someone who deals from the bottom of the deck, takes an extra $100 from the bank, or enters cheat codes when they are losing?

Remember, in this game, banned is the only real way to kill someone.

Detection of Multis:


There are many way to find Multis, in some areas it seems you can't help but find them, I won't mention countries by name but we know who they are.
To know what to look for, one thing to keep in mind is that there are a few different goals that cheaters have for creating multis.

The basic reasons are wealth, fighting, politics, thrills, and accidental.

Accidental (whoops):


Let's start with the most benign, the accidental.

Someone starts a new citizen, once they are done, they realize they messed up something. They go and create another citizen with almost the exact same name and possibly the same avatar. What you will see with these types is that the first account generally will have zero experience, maybe a little. The second account will be born the same day, and will be the one that gets a lot of experience. As long as the first account does the slow descent to death, these generally are not worth reporting, we do keep an eye though and if that first account starts gaining experience the report goes in.

What the player who makes this error should do is submit a request to Admin to cancel the first account, which will take 7 days. Why 7 days? I honestly can't say.

The Worker Multi:


Money is the root of all evil, and a lot of Multis. Someone wants more gold and isn't adept enough to make it in any of the legitimate ways, so they resort to multis.

Basic scenario, cheater creates one or more new accounts using the invite friend option, gets the new accounts to 50 strength and collects the gold from both accounts. A variation includes just collecting the gold given to the main account.

Alternate schemes involve running the characters higher to collect hard worker gold, and training gold, along with all the currency they can collect from working. The most ambitious version involves setting up a company and having all of one's Multis working in it.

Things to look for:
- Lots of friends who seem to drop off at around 50 strength, especially friends who do not have avatars or use the generic Windows/Google images.
- If they seem to be hard workers but never really get involved in combat, that is usually a sign to look closer.
- If you notice that a company's employees all seem to not work the same days of the week, that is an indicator that it is likely a Multi company owned by the parent citizen.

The Fighting Multi:


These multis are used in a similar fashion as the worker, except instead of being used to generate wealth, they are used to generate damage. The work they do will just be used to keep them in food and possibly weapons. There really isn't anything that distinguishes this type of multi specifically from other types, things to look for with these and generally all multis will be a lack of any social activity. There will be no shouts, no postings, no newspapers, no political party. Fighting multis are probably the toughest group to detect, since they bear much in common with two-clickers.

The Political Multi:


These multis are generally created to assist in a Political Take Over (PTO) of a smaller country. North Korea was a prime example, when it came back onto the map, there were a slew of new citizens, all who displayed typical multi traits, no social activity, no avatars or avatars that were linked, repetitive names (John1, John2, etc) or names linked by a theme (often these are amusing to our investigators; we appreciate a little creativity).

Usually these multis will all be born with a certain number of days before an election to make sure that they are capable of voting. These multis are perhaps the most dangerous. Given that they only have to reach 50 strength to vote, it is possible to create a swarm of Multis to take over a small country that will not have a way to defend itself with standard ATO techniques. To combat these multis it takes vigilance and proper reporting to Admin. Sure, the Admins will review elections, but a good Multi-Lord can conceivably out-wit the Admins.

The Thrill Multi:


For all that we may enjoy about erepublik, there are many limitations to the game. One of the one that many of us have encountered is the lack of things to do, especially early on. You create a citizen, you work, you train, you might buy food, you read some news and try to figure out what is going on, you are done. "But why are so many people busy?" "Maybe I did something wrong when I created this citizen." "Let me try making one somewhere else." The lack of initial excitement can lead people to create Multis, along with the desire to see if they can pull off some large network, or maybe to see if they can put one over on ______________(fill in the blank). These Multis are often very difficult to detect, since the person may actually be playing each citizen as a legitimate character (with the exception of the large network types). Difficult, but not impossible to detect.

Take for example, Misanthropist. Rather experienced citizen, highly active, and yes, a Multi-Lord. I was surprised to find that he/she was permabanned especially since he/she once wrote a proposal to the eBelgian Congress saying we should offer rewards to Multi-Hunters, etc. Again, some people will surprise you!

All multis suffer from the same inherent weakness...


The person controlling them will come to see them as a chore. As with other chores, people fall into patterns and get lazy. When this happens, that is where people who know what to look for can make the difference and get these cheaters banned.

Conclusion
Now what I have told you here is a brief summary. The Ministry of National Security and others throughout the game have dedicated their time and effort to combat cheaters. I know that MoNS and other affiliated agencies has many other techniques and innovations (not fully detailed here) to help uncover multis, and are constantly looking for ways to improve and increase their efficiency.

Some basic things to keep in mind if you think you have found Multis:
1) If you don't know what to do or don't want to go through the work of preparing a ticket for the Admins, then contact someone who can assist.
2) Do not write a paper asking everyone to submit a ticket. (All this really does is clog up the Admin review process, since they have to respond to each ticket) Plus you may wind up getting reprimanded by Admin for making a public accusation.
3) Don't presume that someone else will take care of it.

It is up to each of us to make this game world better.

I hope that this was informative.

Kylero
Minister of National Security