CivWiki Monday Newsletter for October 31, 2022
Good morrow and a spooky Halloween from New England!
As you can see, this week’s edition is Halloween themed because it is Halloween today (shocker, I know), so I’ve highlighted some spooky pictures some of you have been giving me the past month. I’m super glad seeing all of the fun events on the server for people to enjoy, shows that Civ is alive and well nearly four months onto the server.
I hope everyone’s have a right and spooky time of year! Right, are we ready to get onto ghastly news?
Features
Featured Image
This week’s featured image is of Southshire’s city, Samchester, on an autumn rainy night. While not particularly Halloween-ish, the creepy vibe is kind of there. The area is inside the country’s citadel, and the build style is similar to their iteration on CivClassic. The country is also heavily investing in Civ culture, as the country is currently hosting a Halloween CivBall competition in their discord. Looks great, can’t wait to go and see it soon.
Featured Article
Devoted Hell was the most recent iteration in the Devoted franchise of Civ servers, run by ProgrammerDan and Convoy. The server was unique in that the Nether was the only playable dimension, forcing players to innovate in order to survive and thrive build cities in the new environment changed by the Nether update. On launch, the server had four shards arranged in sequence, varying in difficulty and plugin makeup. Another new feature was the inclusion of the Jobs plugin, tying progression through the server’s tech tree to several MMO-like skills.
The server launched in January 2021; the server was planning to use a subscription model for users to play in order to fund the server’s expenses, though a rough launch left the server with rampant TPS issues due to faulty hardware. The server also attempted a tutorial system in its lobby before players joined the server. Among the most notable nations were Inferno and Helios, the latter of which winning a building contest on the server due to its massive scope. As the novelty wore off and the server’s issues were laid bare, the server died after a couple months, with Devoted teasing a fourth iteration shortly after.
This week’s featured image is Helios, located at the northern end of Deracinate shard, the last shard on the server.
Current Events
Jorvik’s Halloween celebration in their capital city. Thanks to ItzHoover for providing this picture!
The Territorial Conflict
- On Monday, Juliana was founded, claiming over Zatoka’s territory. The country gave thanks to Mount Augusta, going as so far to say “[we] have based our government on the values we discovered in Mount Augusta”.
- Mount Augusta governor wFangw did not endorse Juliana, despite them calling them the “mother nation”
- This became all the more tense as Zatokans commented on the post saying that they “will fight until the last straw”, posting only hours later
- Zatoka posted soon after on Monday backing their claim, despite their inactivity (which, honestly, I get, real life is a thing)
- Several comments on that post (and one specifically toxic one) were disgusted, reinforcing the belief that people should actively play in their claims should they claim it
- Eventually, a settlement with some territorial land claims, but the claim of Juliana’s standing, with Zatoka moving to Florence.
Other “Irregular Phenomena”
- CutePastelStars has announced a Halloween celebration at Halloween Town’s unveiling in New Jersey, along with the announcement of a build contest happening at the same time.
- Along the same vein, Nara announced the mysterious death of TolypeVelleda, asking players to investigate the death and recount a sequence of events like a detective until November 2.
- Icenia did a long extended joke to visitors from the Temporal Isles and those visitors are pissed about it. To be fair, both reactions are completely overblown and Icenia should at least learn to be slightly nicer
- After two rounds, Icarus elected CredixYt as their new president (although in a really terribly reported graph)
- BigMik511 was pearled in Pacem, being convicted of raiding factories in both Pacem and other countries.
- Stros M’Kai in the Imperial Federation have drafted a new constitution as well as a new party and government.
- Additionally, elections for the Imperial Federation proper have begun, along with various improvements to their rail network, flag and anthem for the capital. Crossposted from the Federalist Paper.
- Pillagers have arrived in Lambat, with 6 dead and 1 injured. Crossposted from the Lambat Post.
- R1ckGrimes was pearled for raiding Tortuga, the pirate port. Isn’t that funny?
- Icenia is in the process of electing its new Senate for November; many Senators are running again.
Meta-Server News
- Owain_X, founder of CivUnion, has announced a closed Civ content creation server, CivSMP.
- you know like those YouTuber SMP servers, like that shit Jschlatt plays on? what the fuck is it called SMPLive? DreamSMP? OpenTTD?
- The idea is to create enjoyable Civ content as well as bring advertising for Civ in the process. He’s imploring existing Civ players to apply to play on it at the link here
- Many comments below are hesitant about the goals and strategies this server is going to execute, mostly because that the SMP will feel more contrived, a long time commmitment on top of regular Civ and not really feeling true to Civ itself, with many saying that “why not just advertise Civ without the SMP?”
- In my opinion, it’s an interesting idea, but the ideals and style of SMP servers are geared towards solo play with infrequent encounters, which isn’t really geared towards the Civ “build your own nation with others” playstyle
- CivMC announced its restart time would be pushed back to make it better for European players’ playstyles.
- CivReign’s latest teaser hints at an overhauled PvP system, with improvements to autopots, Brewery, and chorus recalls.
The Fun Stuff
The city of Akheron, also known as the Naran Nether Outpost, a safehaven for pearled players.
Honestly I thought I was hoping for more stuff for this week, but I think there’s
Spooky Builds
- The Synagogue in Petergrad is completed, as a worshipping place to King Peter
- SirBoss has been mentioning this for a while now but I figured at this point it’s about time: he’s been building the Icenia Capital Stadium, a massive stadium for all sorts of sports.
- Several banyough tour pics, such as:
- Commonwealth
- Gensokyo
- Icenia
- Estalia
- and much much more in the #builds channel on the CivMC discord
- Alright, let’s make the rounds of all the pictures I highlighted today
Haunting Works
- The Commonwealth posts a propaganda poster
- Southshire makes a nice green map of all their shires
- The Nara Scream as part of participation in the Southshire CivBall contest, closing today!
- A general compilation of all the Generic War (I can’t believe that’s the name now) fights
Shivering Memes
- Next thing you know, Lonnik will become the new Anburon frisbee — is that what they’re going to dress up as today?
- Oh, Mount Augusta is going as Amogus? Have they been preparing like that for the whole year?
- You know what? I’m going as a disillusioned miner this halloween
- My non-civ meme addition this week: “Phillies”
- Glory to Icenia
Chilling Essay Posts
- ChrisChrispie reminds everyone that you need to consistently play and do things in order for your claims to be recognized and be a big player
- Just a quick reminder for you to install Prism Launcher instead of PolyMC, if you are using the latter
- Looks like the diamond vein isn’t as biome biased as it was
The Spookiest Cry for Help
Halloween Town in New Jersey, built by CutePastelStars, who’s holding an event tonight!
Thanks for reading this Halloween newsletter. It was only touched by me this week apparently, so thanks for everyone else for providing spooky pictures this week, from Hoover to Tolype and especially prawny for helping out with the featured article this week.
As always, I highly suggest recommending an article to highlight in the newsletter and the CivWiki each week.
Have a spooky and happy Halloween. And as always…