Guide for Moving Through the 16 Villager Cycle

[Charcolor]

Please keep in mind that this is just a method that works for me. It may not be preferred by everyone. It's kind of built off of this guide for moving out unwanted villagers, but this thread is specifically for moving through the cycle to get a villager back. If you're just cycling and you don't care who moves out, this isn't the method for you, I recommend checking out this thread.

I've used this method to get back 3 of my dreamies that moved out due to time traveling accidents. If you try this and feel like there's something that should be added, feel free to tell me.

1. This is entirely optional, but I like to keep a list in my game notes (the pencil icon on the home screen) of which villagers have moved out after the dreamie I want to get back. If something goes wrong and you accidentally lose a villager you want to keep, put their name in red (or if you're already using red, just use a different color than the rest of the list). After you complete the cycle to get the first villager, erase the names up to and including the one in red and keep cycling to get that one back.
2. Before doing anything, enact the Beautiful Town Ordinance (this is optional but strongly recommended if you care about the state of your town), and make sure you have 9 or 10 villagers. If you have 8 or less, time travel ahead until you have a 9th villager. I recommend doing this 5 days at a time, but you can do less if you like. Make sure to talk to your villagers (the ones you want to keep) each time you do this; they usually don't ping you if they think you're ignoring them.
3. Introduce yourself to the newcomer. Then, completely ignore them. Even if they ping you, just ignore them. (If the newcomer, by any chance, happens to be someone you want to keep, then keep talking to them like one of your normal villagers, then start from the next step.)
4. Talk to the villagers you want to keep. Spam talk each of them (talking to them until they say they want to be left alone) until someone says something that either confirms or denies that someone is thinking of moving. Use this guide to help you remember what a villager will say if nobody is thinking of moving. The lazy one is missing, so I'll provide it for you: they bought an extra thing, but now there's a rumor they have a world famous collection.
5. Time travel day by day and repeat the above step until a villager tells you someone is thinking of moving. If you want to keep the villager, run past them to trigger a ping. If this doesn't work, try pushing them a little. If there's an important event and they can't ping you, time travel to the soonest time that the event is over. After the rumor of them moving starts to circulate, the villager has 5 days before they're in boxes, so make sure not to travel that far. As I said before, villagers are less likely to ping you if they think you're ignoring them. So if they don't ping, speak to them just to make sure you're on speaking terms.
6. If you don't want to keep the villager that's moving, time travel to 5 or 6 days ahead. 5 days will put them in boxes in case you want to give them to someone, but 6 days will have them out.
7. If you're keeping a list like I do, add the name of the villager who moved out to the list. Once you have 16 names, you're good to go!

Some tips to remember:

• As the Villager Moving Rumors guide says, a villager who is thinking of moving may say one of the statements that they would say if no one is thinking of moving. To make sure things run smoothly, you can either get this kind of statement from more than one villager a day, or get it from a different villager each day.
• The guide for moving out villagers says you can safely travel ahead 4 days after a new villagers moves in. While it's true the game doesn't move out a villager within the first 4 days of a new villager's presence, I strongly recommend you do not do that. Villagers can start pinging you to move as soon as someone starts unpacking, and it's better to have 5 days than 1 to convince them to stay.

If you have anything helpful to add, please tell me! This is the first guide I've ever made so I've probably made a few mistakes.
Also ask questions if you have any! I'm horrible at explaining stuff, so if you explain anything you're confused about I can clarify it in this guide and make it better!

I hope this helps anyone trying to get through the 16 villager cycle.

 

[Red Cat]

This is a pretty good guide and I'll add it to my guide list. I'd just like to make some suggestions. If a villager tells me another villager who I want to keep is going to move, I usually look for the moving villager and if that villager doesn't ping me, I talk to that villager just in case it's been a long time, then I save and quit and find that villager again and that villager always pings me.

Also, if I stop a villager from moving or if I confirm that no one is moving, then I TT 4 days ahead since no one will move out before then since the soonest someone could ping is the next day and then that villager won't be in boxes until 5 days later, so I have at least 2 days to stop a villager from moving if I need it which is more than enough time since it only takes about 5-10 minutes to find out if someone is moving and stop them.

Another suggestion I have is that it's usually best to repeatedly talk to the most recent villager to ask you to move out if you denied that request since the same villager will never try to move out twice in a row as far as I know.

 

[leftTBT]

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[Red Cat]

Dang it, I was writing one I guess i'll still finish it, though.

You may as well finish it. Some guides are better for some people and some are better for other people, so if you know something about cycling that other's don't, then you should share it.