CivWiki Monday Newsletter for March 20, 2023
Good morning and happy belated St. Patty’s Day from New England!
I’ve lost my sleep schedule this week not because of the partying around me but just because it’s been a stressful week and I’ve been playing stupid stuff that isn’t called Civ lately. There’s a lot going on in my life right now and somehow I still find the time to put in 4 hours a week to make this newsletter, so I guess that’s pretty cool don’t you think?
I still find it impressive that I’m keeping up in the Civ community despite not having played regularly since early September, so I guess it’s nice to have an unbiased view of the world since then?
Alright, then let’s look at the news.
Featured
Featured Image
This week’s featured image is Gâí’ádôr’s capital Vâlêmýth. If you don’t recognize that name, you might more easily recognize it by West Virginia (no relation to Ohio). As many of you know on CivReign, the seasons change globally which means that a lot of the textures change and make things a little more beautiful every single change. By year two, people have started getting used to the seasonal change and the scarcity and have adapted their build styles to make something amazing like this. Great work from these guys and looking forward to more in the future!
Featured Article
The New Danzilonan Civil War was a political struggle for power in New Danzilona on Civcraft 2.0. In Danzilona’s previous iteration, the country was an agrarian, socialist, and democratic nation, which followed onto their second iteration. However, when an NDZ monarchist leader, neodan99 attempted to make a town within the Danzilonan Federation. This triggered a socialist counter-revolt by Lowtuff and Gant2000, taking control of the capital, Melonwood.
Over the next few years until the end of Civcraft 2.0, Dan made several attempts to bring the monarchy to power, including writing bills that attempted to bring multiple people to power. Following the monarchist and socialist truce during the Riverford War and the Aeginan independence movement. Socialists eventually won out when Des23 introduced a bill that brought “full communism” to New Danzilona. While a short-lived second phase of the civil war occurred, New Danzilona’s successor, Nova Danzilona, became communist in Civcraft 3.0. Full article…
This week’s featured article picture is the Socialist leader Des23 seen cooperating with Monarchist leader neondan99 during the Riverford War truce.
CivMC News
A view of Pioneer Village (and the surrounding area) in Lambat, made by AKJanklin. I can see my “house” from here!
For the first time in a while, CivMC news was actually extremely quiet this week. Is that a problem? Who knows?
- More Olympics happenings wrapped up this past week, with
- Lodish is re-releasing a version of the Beginner Set of CivTCG.
- Icenia attracted a series of obbybombings this past week. (not again!)
- This came as a result of Icenia busting a bunker of a raider group located near Winterbourne. They eventually made a post on Sunday afternoon, claiming that the group, self-proclaimed Kibblestan, were conspiring against Yoahtl.
- Early Saturday morning around seven people came and lightly obbybombed the city once again, until SEC forces were able to stave off the fighters.
- By Saturday, they advised their citizens to log off and contact SEC forces.
- However, by midday on Saturday, they had already prison-pearled one of the convicted raiders, Dawsonisrainy.
- North Africa in the Commonwealth seceded to the Imperial Federation throughout this past week.
- Following the controversial coronation a few months ago, OakShelf “reaffirmed” that TheFinalGoat was the true king of the territory.
- After an instigation by the North Africans and a short trial, the country successfully seceded from the country.
- That short-lived independence lasted one day as Chancellor ComradeSankara announced that North Africa would enter the Imperial Federation under a brand new treaty of accession.
- ComradeSankara visited North Africa following the accession and looked to welcome the area in the coming weeks. Crossposted from the Federalist Papers.
- They further increased their friendship by announcing a new direct line from Petergrad (the capital) to Grenada to improve rail infrastructure in the region.
- OakShelf has said that he sees that the move to the IF will result in a more active community and more subsequently newsworthy events to happen.
- And it’s totally not fitting at all that Southshire previously seceded early in the Commonwealth’s history last iteration and that it was on Commonwealth Day of all days…
- Wlazestan was founded on the newly-dubbed Phoenix Coast, with the founder being a former Warmian, alongside Lesneria.
- The three countries also founded the Protection Pact of International Security, which might be one of the most unfortunately named pacts ever
- Players in Icarus founded the Social Democratic Party, with CredixYt winning the top spot of President.
- Pavian Duke BritishWanderer washed up on Pavian shores following a supposed shipwreck from a diplomatic mission. Courtesy of the Main Street Journal.
- Pavian Crown Prince Paagf also did a number of legislative efforts this past week leading up to his first dice day, including shaking up the Privy Council and passing bills that established a foreign council, noble societies, and chamber of commerce.
- Yoahtl elected a new council with Flora_Borealis, Mokotowski, and ArkenX elected along with NeoTide becoming Alcuahtl with a plurality of the vote. Crossposted from the Yoahtl Times.
- South Bruma was renamed Aeros, citing a need to match their fantasy style with their name as well as have something easy to pronounce and remember.
- Coolchacha97 has been delusional with everyone looking to pearl him, including suing King_Cupar in MtA for something really unrelated to the country. It’s not personal dude
- The Transport Union released a statement that condemned the use of nether gates (portals) for PvP purposes.
- wjkroeker initially made a trap and farm outside of Icenia’s nether portal and some Icenians have voiced concerns that the infrastructure in the nether is inaccessible by any Icenians.
- Icenian officials in the comments have argued that TU’s “infrastructure” at Icenia’s nether portal was “illegal” and not under Icenian purview, and argued that the Transport Union were too far reaching in their regulations.
- Iria and Margaritaville facilitated a rarely-seen rare animal trade between the two territories, with Iria transferring two pandas to Margaritaville for two Mooshroom cows.
CivReign News
The wheat farm in Laurentia at Calenardhon along a very sweeping landscape through the mountainous forest.
- While the scarcitycraft has generally subsided with relatively fewer updates this past week on CivReign, the current attention is on balancing the economy and general quality of life improvements.
- Speaking of the economy, Laurentia announced early in the week that they would cap the price of tin trading to 4 copper to 1 tin.
- While it seemed reasonable to put a cap at the time, some pointed out that the price was too competitive that they would run out of tin, as the market rate was closer to 6:1 or higher.
- In the short term, Laurentia affirmed that they didn’t expect anybody to be able to match this rate at the time, and that they accounted for this policy.
- Petoria in response stopped all trading of copper and tin in the country until tin and copper prices stabilize. We all know autarky is the answer.
- Later that week, Laurentia reraised the tin-to-copper rate back up to 6:1, citing that there was “unverified and incorrect information” and apologized for “increasing tensions” in the region. So far as I was aware there were no tensions.
- Okx and Doom_Weaver disappeared off the server late on Saturday (Sunday?) night.
- Generally, claims of the duo being banned cannot be verified, as some sources say it was due to violating the “King of the Ashes” rule that prevents users from raiding excessively to deliberately make people quit the server.
- However no specific evidence or concrete claim from the admins can establish this. I also probably don’t even have the time scale right for this.
- It was eventually confirmed from Okx that he was banned due to the KoTA rule.
- A rogue Courronite raided Aethenia and LunaaCatt in Laurentia before being pearled by King_Cupar this past week, he is currently arrested and awaiting trial. Crossposted from the Laurentian Dispatch.
- Speaking of Courron, after nearly a month of server time the Duchy of Courron is still determining its flag design after crowdsourcing designs from their citizens, so hopefully they actually get to do something later!
- ThePayman has announced the CivReign Infrastructure Alliance, striving to foster global cooperation on the server. In addition to their Civ Mining Counter, they’re hoping to build an intercontinental rail and horse tunnel.
- With a world map being published by KingoftheMochas on Tuesday, several nations were eager to finally claim the lands they had, including Mount Ida, Norlund, Hauthollia, The Brigantines, and the CCTT.
- These were all ultimately compiled by Pandastical giving us a full claims map (sorry man, you’re now the defacto claims map guy)
Everything Else
Other Civ Servers
- If there’s already four Civ servers in the mix, why not another one? Owain_X quietly announced a new project, CiVanilla on CivRev discord, with the aim to be a shorter iteration time with no prison pearl but on 1.19 in order to test those plugins out.
- It’s essentially acting as a double beta test for CivRev since the plugins for the server will eventually upgrade to 1.19 by the time CivRev leaves beta.
- I’m personally not even sure how active CivVie actually is anymore? When I attempt to query the server, there aren’t many people online…
Metagame Highlights
- See I thought I would make Vaults the featured article this week but I already featured it several months ago, but I still asked Estalia which ones were the best vaults anyway
- There are quite a few people doing Jackbox or Gartic Phone games from the past few weeks from CivReign to Estalia to Dr_Bacon_Hair to Gensokyo. What the fuck is going on do people not want to play
- Gjum’s website, civmc.tk, now has player count tracking features for the past week for both CivMC and CivReign. Now you can bash on how your server is better!
The Fun Stuff
The Coronation Hall in Regentsburgh on a dark snowy evening in the Imperial Federation.
Builds
- Destro really do be out here building spaceships which is impressive in itself
- How about a brand new records deals store in Margaritaville? One step closer to Santa Monica Pier once again
- It’s not particularly as impressive but the effort to make this grand hall in SPQR by mummybundles is still worth talking about
- Mount Augusta (on CivReign, mind you!) has another city and I will say, it’s already looking better than CivMC MtA
- Brigantia’s temple is quite something that is really interesting and well decorated for such a small space
- How about a few more Edius pictures on their white coast?
- Sirboss is doing some good ass work in West Icenia
And the featured images…
- Big thanks to ComradeSankara for literally remaking an image provided to him on the Federalist Papers
- Very well framed image of Laurentia’s farms, and totally not deliberately obscured or stolen from the Laurentian Dispatch
- Haven’t got a good render from Lambat in a while and with their Lazuli tower slowly being completed it’s about time…
- See above for general praise about West Virginia and optionally Fallout 76
Multimedia Projects
- Once again Henderwicz pulls out this illustrated map of Nara and it looks amazing. He’s doing a great job and I love this style! Really reminds me of those local maps you see on small East Coast towns sometimes.
- I will finally put DonFuer over here because it’s actual builds on their server and it’s still a good advertisement
- While it is news, Brewyern’s constitution is the nicest looking constitution I’ve seen from any nation so far
- What a sign from Madame Spell
- Another map from Laurentia but this time it’s well designed and feels Lord-of-the-Rings themed
- Lambat is really showing why they love rails with all the station codes
- Mercutio meme is not quite as funny as the Game of Thrones meme but it looks like SonicFrost did a lot of AI stuff and editing so well done
- Special shoutout to Paddington_Bear
- Cannot stress enough how the pixel maps of the Phoenix Coast and Edius are just so satisfying from my point of view
Memes
- Hg, why did you post a bunkies PvP on CivMC it’s literally useless
- Currently the best use of the Presidents Playing meme ever, good job Slushhi for making something so dumb it made me laugh out of my nose. Also Gjum is an angel not just for Icenia but for all of Civ
- “If Somebra eject button is your best weapon you’re fucked”
- I for one am getting my Not-Logging in Party membership in the mail in 3 business days or less
- Demanding hot takes but getting no takes at all
- Maybe people didn’t quite notice Adamantium is an element for their nations?
- Septic system president
- Olympic doping scandal turns out to be internet connection issues
- Nobody said 0,0 was going to be good
Non-Civ Content
- Out of aliens, bigfoot, and Nessie, which one do you think will legally be real following this Splatfest?
- Once again why aren’t you watching the World Baseball Classic?
- I won Trivia Night last weekend by two points, all because my team went through the effort to do an integral and also know how many World Records Tommy Tallarico had
Succinct Cry for Help
A small portion of Nara’s illustrated map created by Henderwicz.
Thanks for reading newsletter number 45! Only 24 more weeks until I quit!
It’s honestly really showing how many times I’ve been doing this, especially since that I actually proposed not one, but two articles that were already featured to be featured, so my memory is not doing very well…
Thanks to Gjum, Thraldrek, Hoover (I’m hooving!!!), and everyone else who helped with the newsletter this week!
- If you want to write your own featured article, contact me or feel free to fill out this form! I will DM out of the blue if you don’t, you may not think your history is interesting but it definitely is.
- If you just want to rant, feel free to write an op-ed, even just a retrospective on the past. Always good to have cool content on the newsletter.
- If you’d rather just throw money at me, donate to my ko-fi and you get a shoutout in return all he got back was this shoutout.
I believe that’s it, see you next week! And as always…
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