Alliance hopping is the practice of moving between multiple alliances in a short period of time. Alliance hopping as a practice may occur for a variety of reasons, such as a person attempting to find a community which suits them or switching alliances due to one alliance's sphere proving not to offer enough trading opportunities. Despite this, the term generally has a negative connotation, and is often used to denote the practice of a nation joining an alliance, receiving financial aid, then leaving the alliance to repeat the process somewhere else.