CivWiki Monday Newsletter for April 3, 2023

Apr 3, 2023 • specificlanguage

Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

I hope you guys all enjoyed the weekend antics, I certainly did (although, yes I did do an average length newsletter for an april fools joke, thank you for asking). Despite everything going on I still had time to do homework, play board games, have brunch with friends and also cook some food this past weekend.

Are we ready for the news?

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is of Griffin’s farms and aqueduct, located around their city of Adria. They’ve been building out considerably over the past few weeks, and these ruins are built eloquently in their style and it’s started to look incredibly cool and give some great character to the country. I can’t wait to see more of this, as per usual!

Featured Article

Otonabee, a nation founded in March 2020 on CivRealms 2.0, was founded by a group of newfriends who constructed the city of Lynn in the desolate southwest region of the server. The city quickly became an important center for trade and transportation due to its proximity to the New World and their rail connections to Olendor and SPQR.

Known for their lighthearted approach to diplomacy and politics, Otonabee quickly gained international recognition as talented builders and grinders. Prior to the Second Hell War, Otonabee and their larger neighbor Varathia formed a union, creating the Otona-Varathian Empire. Additionally, they claimed part of the New World as the Gallagher Territory and joined the Far Seas Alliance.

Otonabee witnessed heavy fighting in both Hell Wars due to its location between the Hell and Ascension vaults, resulting in temporary occupation during the Second Hell War. Following the war, Otonabee and Varathia joined Carbon, which would pull both nations unwillingly into the Great War following the bombing of CivCorp. Today, there is an iteration of Otonabee on CivMC. (Full article…)

This week’s featured image is the city of Lynn on CivRealms.

CivMC News

The Bedford Commons, rendered of RektTangle. The only reason this isn’t the top picture is that Pavia was featured more recently featured than Griffin by two weeks.

The big news this week was that Warmia joined the Elysian Pact.
- The entry comes at a time when the alliance is “refocus[ing] on providing assistance and support to neighbours and members of the Elysian Pact for the betterment of our regional safety”.
- Mark Anthony also supplemented that “the alliance will serve as a platform for cooperation and diplomacy”, adding that the addition was “met with widespread support and optimism” for the global community.
- Opinions outside the EP however, have been generally mixed as while some are happy that Warmia is getting support to be a global power, the Elysian Pact’s efforts to redefine itself may be falling on deaf ears following the Kallosian conflict.
- The announcement has been continually memed upon in other discords becoming a copypasta.
- This does however mean that although Pavia signalled they would leave the Elysian Pact, the country is projected to remain.
Warmia apologized for claiming Nova Pszovia and a military base, as they said it provoked aggression in the region.
PPIS, an organization headed by Warmia also disbanded. I’m like 90% sure that it was an organization with Warmia, Leszneria and Wlazestan but I can’t find any documentation of it everywhere, so I guess it happened…
The Monument Group has posted their shareholder letter for the first quarter in 2023, displaying a full doubling of share value in the past quarter.
Wilson and Gamertime from Gang Shi were banned for literally using a radar mod, continuing the admins’ crackdown following their changing map and radar mod policy.
Highroll has “quit” unlike SpeedyJustice below, and said he would reminisce about the “good ‘ol days”, except he’s nowhere near semi-revered as SpeedyJustice, especially since he backed out for no fucking reason
Commonwealth had to fight off a wither attack this past weekend.
- This actually linked to eleven other wither attacks sent out by Hakr_ for April Fools Day, including some in Pavia, Icenia, and more.
Icarus has finished its parliamentary elections, electing Credix, sdorr, gruebleen, liquidstereo, and Drekamor to the parliament.
A little more context to Coolchacha’s pearling last week:
- IF Chancellor ComradeSankara was pearled in Nara this past week by CoolChaCha97, saying that “all I care about is ruining the IF”. Crossposted from the Federalist Papers.
- Fredhun eventually came from Dalgon to pearl CoolChaCha.
- However, a legal battle is set to occur as the Imperial Federation is requesting extradition of CoolChaCha’s pearl from Nara and Dalgon.
The Grand Western Imperial Line was completed from Petergrad to Grenada.
Elections in the Imperial Federation are also underway, with Potato_Duke set to run against ComradeSankara as a true reformer and opponent for the incumbent chancellor.
Icenia is currently holding their April elections; Forged has announced that he would not be running as a Senator this following month
Due to the April Fools joke going a little too far in Icenia, ChrisChrispie took away Slushhi’s admin permissions and banned Xcios. As a result, he and Bloom seceded from Icenia.
banyough apologized for being inactive and thanked everyone for making Lusitania great in the early days of this iteration.
The Eon Empire annexed all of Iopa this past week. “Couldn’t be me”, says Flags, the leader of Iopa.
Aeros passed legislation that required all citizens to report all infrastructure that ran under the country.
Mount Augusta did have a celebration for the 11th anniversary of Mount Augusta
Domi (aka Cissonius), a Duke of Pavia and Xcios, a senator of Icenia, are set to be married in Pavia this Thursday

CivReign News

The Holy Isle of Brigantia, in Winter. Why are all my pictures that I get are winter themed, we’re literally well into Spring by now…

CivReign continues their continued changelogs, introducing moonsteel pickaxes from steel anvils. See their changelogs for full changes.
- However, there have been additional complaints from players regarding grind as they have argued that admins haven’t done enough to reduce grind for newer players getting into the server.
- They have generally tried to address this with another fix, increasing the rate of tree growth from 2 weeks to 3 days in peak season.
- If it comes down to me, I haven’t been able to dig up that much regarding literally anything on CivReign, mostly because nobody’s really doing anything besides trying to overcome the grind, which is why this entire section is pretty short…
Courron has finally agreed on their flag’s design, and have chosen a new flag inspired by their roots in Alexandria as well as a manta ray representing the great duke.
Laurentia and Courron have agreed upon the CLASS alliance, it commits the two countries to mutual security, defense and trade.
Laurentia has also announced the Merchants Association Organization, or the LMAO, intended to promote commerce and economic development in the region. It currently has many basic goods along with a limited selection of steel tools.
Brewyern has announced Axus and Brewbot as two new Ephors of the country, who will lead the country while Hikoru is absent.

Around Civ

SpeedyJustice has written a large monologue, and eventually decided to throw in the towel after playing on two different servers, while I will not necessarily miss him, I will at least say he did a really good fucking job roleplaying Saul Goodman
Amelorate has announced that they would continue toning down changes for Civ+; although it will continue to be alive as long as possible (a la CivRealms in its last days.)
- However, one last changelog from Amelorate was released on April 1st, and no it’s not an April Fools joke
Recent discussion in Praxis discord has surrounded around Folia, a brand new plugin framework from the makers of Paper.
- Most importantly, it’s multithreaded, and is able to hold 300+ players without breaking (too much) of a sweat.
- The thinking is that Civ plugins could be easily adapted to run on this software. It’s still in early stages, but it’s intriguing to say the least.

The Fun Stuff

Nara’s international train station, built by prawny331. Very impressive.

Builds

Multimedia Projects

New Melonwood has a pretty nice map, I like the color palette
AK has been making pictures of every OneDest station, and they look great. Nearly all of them are on CivMap now!
Des23 has transcribed the story of the creation of the world according to Mery, and is available in Mery and Pavia, along with many other libraries coming soon.
Gang Shi has a new rapper in town, and fastestgrass just released his latest fire diss track
I have to commend the Photoshop job on this and general design of the election results in Icarus
Have to at least commend the blender work, or whatever this took from Tolype_Velleda
A map of all the nations on CivReign’s eastern continent has been published
Another banger video from ACCoker
Gjum made a sankey diagram of all the Monument Group’s profits
While technically this is advertising why Civ is good, if your entire video is “PvP montage and monologue about how I am literally addicted to Civ”, maybe you need to actually get a life like me
Nara is selling a 2x2 map art that has a cool cat

Memes

Fools in April

Non-Civ Content

If you haven’t looked at Overwatch this past week, take a look at their brand new Ultimate lines! “It’s 4:57…”
Average indie game player
3 is a magic number, RIP Dave Jolicoeur
Mariners lost but they’re supposed to be good, and the Red Sox won but they’re supposed to be bad. But that’s just average baseball for you

Foolery Cry for Help

Aldenfult, taken by AK as part of his project to make station pictures of every OneDest destination.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter — I believe we’re on week 48 so we’re truly into nitty gritty time folks.

Thanks to prawny331, Creepi0n, BritishWanderer and Hakr_ for helping out with this issue, big thanks for prawny for making a featured article (so I didn’t have to make one this weekend!).

If you’d like to write a featured article and get a shoutout on the newsletter, feel free to message me or submit a featured article using this form! (take a look at the archive if you have no ideas of how to write one)
If you’d like to write an op-ed or opinion piece, feel free to also message me with your preferred topic and/or pitch.
Finally, if you’d like to financially support me and be a doofus feel free to donate to my ko-fi and you will get nothing except a shoutout

Thanks to everyone for reading this week’s newsletter, and we’re almost to the first year of this wild ride. I hope you’re all having fun, I certainly kind of am.

As always…

EDIT CIVWIKI

< < < Last week’s newsletter (March 27)
Submit a featured article - Yeah, go on, sue me!
View and post comments on r/CivWiki
View a shortened version of this newsletter on CivWiki