CivWiki Newsletter for August 29, 2022

Happy Monday morning from New England!

Not too many things to talk about besides the big story^TM this week but personally I had to deal with a significant amount of drama this week which is not desirable by anyone here. Tensions are somehow running extremely high this week and I don’t want it to last forever because the community’s way of worldbuilding and the conflicts surrounding it are what Civ is really about, not the endless namecalling, harassment, and insertion of real-life issues into in-game politics.

Ok, enough doom and gloom for the intro, here’s the news:

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is of the Free Danzilonan Republic, with both apsects of their town pictured in the render. On the left is the old town, hosting the town hall, defense ministry and the hockey stadium (go NDZHL!) and on the right is the DanzShaft, featuring a large moat diving to bedrock; while still in development, it’s reminiscent of a proto-version of Victoria in the Commonwealth and New Yoahtl City in CivClassic.

Featured Article

This week’s featured article was written by Des23.

The international relations between the Kingdom of Grundeswald and New Danzilona (NDZ) were geographically connected yet hostile between the two nations. Relations also included their respective multinational organizations, the Holy Krautchan Empire and the Danzilonan Federation, respectively. The two countries were close geographically and shared a border with each other’s allies. Still, the two countries were not a part of any mutual organizations and were largely hostile to each other mostly on ideological grounds. As NDZ was a socially progressive liberal democracy and Grundeswald a far-right chauvinist empire, their citizenries frequently conflicted with one another

Although the two countries were initially friendly towards each other, tensions mounted from a series of griefings and pearlings throughout the summer of 2014 until finally culminating in the Yurtstead War, sometimes known as the Riverford War, which was a direct military confrontation over their land claims involving other nations such as Istanbul and Gensokyo over large border disagreements. No direct conflict occurred afterward, but their cold war ensued until the end of the server. (Full article…)

This week’s featured article picture is a picture of the frontlines at the Yurtstead War, with the beginnings of a wall and skirmish.

Current Events

This section’s header picture is an overview of Yoahtl’s new citadel, Altepetl.

Somewhat Notable News

This is also known as “news that I kinda have to report on but really don’t want to”.

• Tensions between Gensokyo and Nara came to a head this past week, after a skirmish between Saren_Solaris and two Gensokyojin fighters, Ferro and Asu, resulted in the latter two being pearled.
  • This is a great summary of the ACTUAL play-by-play events but I’m not focusing on these specifics, thanks RektTangle
  • Two main points of the conflict was that
    • fighting occurred after Saren had left Gensokyojin territory, and
    • these pearls were originally held in a Utopian (now Enclave/Butternut) spike, miles away from both countries and near USA.
  • For some legal background, Gensokyo issued orders to PvP Saren after he disobeyed their orders to bar entry to the country while the Estalia-Rhode Island War was breaking out. When Saren chose to /ignore all responses, the issue was ordered.
  • Saren was supposedly investigating the presence of a bunker owned by Vah, however, no particular evidence of one existing in the area has been confirmed.
• The aftermath of this situation reverberated throughout Alenarith:
  • The two countries both have had issues throughout the past two months, with Nara accusing Genskokyo of blatant harassment and vice versa.
  • As a result, Mount Augusta and Gensokyo have both left the “Alenarith Forum” discord out of a protest, a discord dedicated to diplomacy and goodwill understanding on the continent.
  • The Dalgon-Nara alliance released an initial statement on the conflict showing how Gensokyo has refused to negotiate, and Gensokyo released an evidential statement soon after (which I think would have made better had it been a less frantic response).
  • In the aftermath, Gensokyo announced they would be taking a hiatus and their territory would become part of Danzilona; meanwhile many players involved would also be involved in harassment cases and were subsequently banned.

I would give more details on the personal conflicts here, but that starts to reach into opinion, reasoning behind offenses, and slander against the admins. So in other news…

• Titan posted early this week that the source behind much of the USA’s materials during the war was provided by Blockchainistan, which was the rationale for them to fight over the last several weeks.
  • Blockchainistan has denied these claims, responding that they are “peaceful builders” on the server. For context, this was the reason for the Jewish Quarter’s eviction in Mount Augusta and Icenia.
  • Eventually, a Blockchainistan-supported USA operation broke a portion of Titan’s bunker, including Danirague, Adderal and Vanax among others.

Meanwhile…

• The global war involving the USA that is still pending a name has had some relatively minor updates outside of Titan’s involvement above:
  • The Red Cross from Commonwealth completes a large humanitarian mission to Pavia
  • Icenia announced the pearling of TheKingCacti, a USA player present in the Icenia attacks from last week.
  • NovaCaesar has been pearled in Danzilona by Rhode Islander TwigBranch; pearling a random citizen in a country not involved in the war at all.
• Tricon announced the winning entry for its headquarters to be Commonwealth, with its large eco-friendly design
• Upon Zelmisburg’s return after — checks clock — two months, Western Boundary has released a bounty which people will definitely take seriously
• Enclave has merged with Butternut, unsurprisingly bringing all of the non-New Jersey USA splinters into one state
• In a shocking turn of events, BritishWanderer III was unanimously elected as the new Crown Prince of Pavia after Gobblin I died after “tripping on his own beard”. Crossposted from the Pavia Tribune.
• ErrorL has seemingly “relinquished” KOEL
• Icenia’s third round of elections for September’s senate has started, with no major changes to Senate structure, but many returning senators are running for re-election.
• As some of Danzilona leadership is leaving, new elections are starting for September, a first for the country.
• Petrichor has announced two new embassies in the Icenian territory, Mount Augusta, and nearby Pacem.
• Many have started to show fatigue from the current war, but have also accepted that this is the current way of life and Rhode Island is refusing to let up, with Citylion offering to moderate negotiations.
• Development of CivRev’s 3rd iteration has started to begin in earnest, with the sneak peeks of the map being introduced as well as preliminary development on Seasons and expansive tech trees. Owain is hoping to open moderation applications in the near future.

The Fun Stuff

This section’s header picture is of Tricon’s soon-to-be headquarters created by the Commonwealth.

Will this section actually be bigger than the current news? It looks to be a no, unfortunately.

Exciting Looking Things

• A great poster representing the Coalition was created, it looks stunning and reminds me of old WWI posters
• Fier has fully mapped a clean version of the server, as seen during the first weeks of the server (~0-2 weeks after launch)
• Among other submissions from the Tricon Design competition, of course, Commonwealth’s amazing submission but also Icenia’s submission isn’t half bad either
• Tybug released a new discord bot allowing you to visualize snitch hits on your own groups on a discord map, honestly amazing
• Another pretty cool poster backing up Titan
• Lambat’s territory and highways are artfully sketched in their latest map

Memes

• Smash or pass
• As a semi-frequent player in Mount Augusta, I can officially say I am a DC villain
• Exploring Rhode Island and Icenia, I guess?
• Say it with me now…
• Hyperborea has built a flying machine/spaceship
• Don’t even get the meme, but the design is really cool
• Stop Gensokyo, wait who are we stopping?
• Icenia’s levity was playing Crusader Kings 2, and challenged USA to a CK2 1v1 to settle this once and for all
• Gensokyo: Why isn’t it possible? Nara: It’s just not
• You know, you could’ve just said “Dirt!”
• Well yeah, when else are we going to put the restart time?
• super walking bros

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• Lusitania has opened a new banner, map art, and wool store in Lambat
• Tricon, as part of its second and third place prizes, is also planning to open locations in Icenia and Nara.

Metagame Highlights

• ComradeNick highlighted some ideas for the future of Civ. I don’t agree with all of them but it’s at least a nice thought experiment.
• It’s nice to live in the nether, you just need to know how by using this guide by wjkroeker
• Not one brewery clue not two brewery clues but a third brewery clue this week by RektTangle — did they get solved incredibly easily?
• Low key, I really want to talk about this post by someone who hasn’t played the server for a while because most balancing has been focused towards large players, there needs to be at least some decent playstyle dedicated towards them!

This is no joke but I’ve seen a lot of arguments this week, so for the sake of everyone, SirBoss is right and if Civ is affecting your mental state I would highly recommend a break.

Hopeful Cry for Help

This section’s featured picture is a section of a Coalition propaganda poster, highlighting the seven nations currently involved in the Estalia-Rhode Island War.

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter! Again, appreciate the support this newsletter has gotten over this past week.

Once again, I’m asking for new featured article submissions as I’m quite literally out of articles in reserve. If you want to see your article on this newsletter as well as on the front page of CivWiki, please submit this form right here. This is also the final week to submit articles to obtain a special-edition CivTCG card, which will be handed out next month.

Midway through next week, I’ll also be posting the Recruitment Survey to lay the groundwork on how people like you are finding Civ (and most likely, reading this newsletter). It’s a short survey but I do want to hear your own story on how you’ve gotten involved in the Civ community.

Special thanks to Des23 who has provided news, current events, and both this week’s featured article and picture, she’s done a lot to help for this week’s edition. Also thanks to Gjum and Tybug for proofreading this week.

And as always…

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