I have started keeping track of the weekly turnip prices in hopes of discovering a trend. I read somewhere that good turnip prices are the same over the life of your town. Meaning that if the turnip selling price spikes when you buy for 80 bells, then the price will always go high when you buy for 80. Could be true, could be crappy internet rumor, like the one I started about flying your Arwing. If this pattern is true, it will make the uber-rare $$$ post office items a reachable goal.

But the really good news is that Bitty is gone. I've always hated her. I have a low tolerance for the snobby personality types, and when that rudeness is combined with a fat pink monster I am even less affable. (Although I don't mind the attitude on sexy villagers like Olivia.)

So I thought I would share what I have learned about controlling your town's population. There's a lot of worthless information out there on this topic. Hitting villagers with your net, shoving them into pitfalls, and sending them mean letters will have no effect on making them move out. None. That is all a waste of time, except that it's funny. Like most things in Animal Crossing, you have to learn to increase your odds and control the game's random nature.

The first step in selective villager management is to go against your instincts: Talk ONLY to the animals you want to move (or to those you don't care one way or the other.) In my town, I was only talking to Ava, Bitty, Cheri, Anicotti... and sometimes Puck and Billy. What you're trying to do is trigger the random conversation where the animal tells you they intend to move out (or asks you if you think they should move.) I haven't exactly determined which comes first, however: either the game decides randomly who is next to move and that animal confesses, or the conversation causes it. I suspect it is the latter.

Regardless, when an animal you want to ditch tells you he or she intends to move, get on the train and go. That animal will move to whatever town you visit... this is why it is good to run a garbage town, to collect all the losers you're trying to get rid of. Bitty now lives in my garbage town, a miserable hellhole full of weeds. On the less-evil side, I'm trying to get Anicotti to move back into RhondaCat's town because she was one of Rhon's favorites... so when Anicotti decides she's got the wanderlust, I'll send her off to Holliday.

This is still a muddled area. It is possible to talk for weeks and not see the "I'm moving" conversation, so you could have no idea who is next to leave on the train. My next tip is much more controllable, easily remembered by the economics maxim Last In First Out.

Conversations aside, your animal most in danger of leaving town suddenly is your newest one. If you're not travelling yourself (and therefore instigating the follow-along move), you'll receive a new villager about every two weeks. The new arrival always kicks out the "youngest" animal. So in a town with no train-travelling, your bottom 14 villagers (the oldest) will remain the same while the 15th position constantly rotates every two weeks. If you have people visiting your town, their follow-along movers will likewise always squeeze out your newest animal.

If you get a 15th villager that you want to keep, you have to move them further down the list by letting other animals move in. The only way to do this is to travel yourself and have one of your animals move out, and thereby making room for a new animal to move in (as long as your town is in good condition, a new animal will always appear to fill an empty slot.) This will drop your 15th down to 14th, making him or her relatively safe.

Summary:
When you travel to another town...
- A random villager moves out of your town and into the town you visit. You can attempt to manipulate this by talking to villagers and forcing the "I'm moving" conversation. If this is an animal that the second town has never seen before, he or she will be the new #15, squeezing out the previous #15. If this animal has a history with the second town, he or she will keep the old rank... thus bumping #14 to #15.
- A new animal will appear in your town to fill the empty slot as your new #15.

When someone travels to your town...
- The traveller will bring along a random villager that will move into your town, squeezing out your #15. If your town has never seen this animal before, he or she will be the new #15. If this animal has already lived in your town, he or she will keep the old rank and push your #14 to #15.
- The traveller's town will receive a new random villager as their #15.

If you do not travel at all...
- Every two weeks your #15 will disappear, replaced by a new random animal.

I've learned this over the course of some very painful lessons. Like many AC players, I at first assumed that regular conversations and fond letter-writing would create relationships and keep my favorite villagers from moving away. I tested this hardcore on Samson, a mouse I really liked. I sent him a letter a day, talked to him constantly, gave him fruit. He was #15; he moved away after two weeks. I did the same with Dilbert, a geeky duck whose catch phrase was "Derrrrrr." I got Dilbert down to #14, but then a train brought a villager who had already done time in Adamsvil... pushing Dilbert to #15. In two weeks, he was gone, despite all the fun we had at the Spring Sports Fair.

Letters mean nothing. Errands mean nothing. Pitfalls means nothing. It's all about controlling who is in your 15th slot, and dealing with the random nature of the train tagalong.