[tinkthank]

My guess is that the plopp can and sometimes will travel great distances.

Have you ever noticed games where in turns 1-6, where most of the map is still undiscovered, you may have, say, a dominion strength of 3 or 4 in your capital, a dominion strength of 1 in, say, two neighboring provinces, and a dominion strength of 0 or below in those further away .... BUT ... you will see a candle 9 or 10 provinces away somewhere in Independent Land out in the middle of nowhere.

This seems to indicate that plopps need not even necessarily travel through adjacent provinces, nor that those provinces through which they travel need be anywhere near "full".

... Or that something entirely different is going on...