CivWiki Monday Newsletter

A (mostly) weekly newsletter for Civ servers supported by the CivWiki

CivWiki Newsletter for March 11, 2024

• specificlanguage

Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

With Daylight Savings Kicking in, I think I’m more tired than ever so I don’t think the time change necessarily helps. That doesn’t help that I have to get up early today as I’m going with friends to a different place in New England at this very moment, probably.

Yeah, sorry I don’t have a lot of time to write a big intro, but I do want to say thanks to everyone for the greetings after my announcement last week. I’ll be announcing a couple of plans soon but I don’t have time this week because I gotta go, go, go!

This week’s featured image is of Volterra’s expansive main boulevard right outside their train station. It’s kind of interesting that I’ve actually never put them as a featured image but I’ve done it plenty of times before. The architecture is so detailed and very well done, from the little lions statues, the trims, and the sheer size of these buildings (this picture surely doesn’t do it justice). It was a pleasure to stop by and see the city’s growth over the past few months, and I hope to see more of it in the coming days!

Featured Article

SPQR’s iteration on CivRealms 2.0 was the continuation of the long-running SPQR state, a Roman-themed nation committed to being reflective of Roman architecture and political system. The nation was established after their iteration on CivClassic was obbybombed by NATO forces during the Infinity War, and was aided by Alexandria to claim land on the continent; they would go on to be a faithful ally throughout the iteration. Setting on a mesa, the country would eventually prosper as they built a Temple of Saturn which harked back to their roots on Civcraft as well as a tribute to their CivClassic iteration.

By late June 2020, the country was thrust into the First Hell War following discoveries of bastions placed under their territory by Hell. Although they were late entrants into the war, the country joined the allies on the final vault push later that summer. Other notable events included expeditions to the New World, and encountered conflicts with the Imperial Federation and Norlund. As CivRealms activity declined, they eventually returned to CivClassic and reclaimed their land following the conclusion of the Infinity War.

This week’s featured article image is of the Forum in SPQR on CivRealms. By the way, today’s article is kind of themed for the Ides of March, if that rings a bell.

I’m currently on the road when I publish this, so this may take a while to be on the CivWiki.

This Week Last Year

On the week of March 13, 2023,

The News & More

News & Other Good Content

Aurora flowing above Market Square in New Callisto, the capital of the Imperial Federation.

Editor’s note: I know that a certain someone was pearled the previous night, however I did not have time to cover this story; you’ll see it next week.

To shake things up a bit, let’s start somewhere that isn’t CivMC:

Less Than Good Content

VilyanZ’s castle in Soria, which I’ve been neglecting to post for a while.

Non-Civ Content

Poll of the Week

Last week, there were 65 responses to the poll.

Our first poll question out there was about alternative currencies, that being currencies being used that weren’t diamonds.

I know it’s fairly obvious that everyone generally uses iron as the de-facto subdivision of diamonds, so it makes why it’s so high. However, the second place is interestingly split between Essence and Emeralds, both two very powerful materials, as they’re vital for both factory upkeep and as a general material, whereas emeralds are good for XP. Debris is also an interesting one as it allows exchange for goods and services in the nether.

I included gold and national currencies as somewhat outliers because I feel like although they’re not as good as indicators in general of the economy as a whole, they get used in some circles, and I find it interesting that there’s a good amount of people trying to adopt a local currency, akin to how nether people use debris as a currency as well.

The second poll question was about how people utilize modes of transport for long term travel.

Sorry about the small size if you can’t read the labels. With the new rail update now favoring rails as the fastest transport, it’s interesting to see that ice roads have somewhat fallen out of fashion. It’s nice to incentivize people to use a mode of transport if they buff it.

Too bad for the horses though, the admins tried.

Our last and somewhat controversial question was about what admins should include in the 1.20 update. Responses were all over the place but there were a few interesting answers as consensus:

Mud bricks, mangrove wood, cherry blossoms & trees

Of course, these new blocks would add a huge amount of content for builders, and are desperately wanted for builds in places like Nara.

Camels, desert biome things

I’ve been out of vanilla Minecraft for so long that I don’t even remember them adding camels, but they did. But they don’t seem as useful from a practical standpoint? I guess that’s how Minecraft features are nowadays, lol.

Utilize end islands to incorporate new biomes, warden spawn eggs, raids, ancient cities

I pulled these since they’re interesting ideas out of left field. Sure, these would require a lot of technical overhead, but an opening up of the end could give the opportunity to add a lot of new features not currently present in Civ.

Don’t update, make less bugs, just advertise more. Oh yeah and cannibalism

Yeah, there’s this minority I keep seeing in the comments that are just saying to keep the game as is. You know, it’s kind of funny that this iteration still has the most features and is barely only half the lifespan of CivClassic, and this is a continuing sentiment among mainly oldfriends. The thing is, you gotta adapt for two reasons:

  1. New features are always cool and bring in new players.
  2. You assholes are bored and also entertained very easily

Vote Now!

Please note that all information submitted is anonymous. A red star (
*
) means that this question is required to submit.
Which kind of alliances are most effective on Civ?
Select all that are applicable.
How long does the ideal Civ iteration last?
When you're doing menial work on Civ, what do you like to watch/listen/do in the meantime?

On the Road Again Cry for Help

Pripyat players & Maesters celebrating the opening of their new panda sanctuary; fun fact, this is actually the second panda sanctuary on the server.

I do want to thank everyone for all of the well wishes on my impending departure, and I really appreciate everyone’s support on what’s going on.

There’s a number of people who have been generally interested in writing and although I’ve been busy this week, for those who did reach out and were legitimately interested in writing things, I’ll contact you again and onboard you as soon as I’m available (which means, not this week, sorry. We’ve got a while to go, at the very least!)

If I missed you, I’m so sorry for rushing this week. I don’t have a lot of time to write this week, so thanks for reading! And as always…

EDIT CIVWIKI