CivWiki Monday Newsletter

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

CivWiki Monday Newsletter for November 20, 2023

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Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

It’s once again the Monday before Thanksgiving which feels much earlier than I usually feel it comes. I’ve given myself a bit of grace the past couple of weeks and hopefully will be a bit better on working on things that might be a little more productive. Civ can be a good distraction

This week’s featured image is Pacem’s main square. I’ve mentioned it a few times in the newsletter before, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen the area very built out, and I’m super excited to see what’s in store for them. Going back to that ’20s style architecture from before that’s Pacem’s bread and butter, it’s amazing to see them start working on the city they’ve promised for more than year now. Really great to see, and I can’t wait to see it built out a lot more.

Featured Article

Realistic Biomes is a plugin commonly found on Civ servers to adjust crop growth times. Used normally to balance experience production, Realistic Biomes adjusts crop growth and breeding to be dependent on biomes, and light visibility, as well as adjust crop growth times to take hours or days for a crop to be fully harvestable. Optimal growth times usually are around three to eight hours, but are lower in less corresponding biomes, for example, potatoes grow well in winter-themed biomes, like taigas or tundras, but do not grow in hot biomes, like deserts or jungles.

Originally debuting on Civcraft, it became a mainstay of Civ servers to this day, as it slowed player progression down to prevent quick enchantments. Clay can be used to speed up growth times to up to 33%, and glowstone or lamp-like blocks can be used to simulate greenhouse-environments underground. Crop growth is also persistent, meaning that it will continue to grow while chunks are unloaded. Development on the plugin continues to this day and has been used on every mainline Civ server since Civcraft.

This week’s featured article image is a display of the Pavian farmlands. (editor’s note: i literally died for this image)

The News

A luxury box overlooking the new Yoahtl Ice Rink in the jungle.

Thinner Ice

Last week, as many readers are probably aware, Icenian Senate Speaker Quanton_Biscuit posted accusations of Gang Shi targeting Icenia for frivolous purposes. Gang Shi leader Gwua posted a rebuttal within a few hours, which I now have the pleasure to summarize (after it was thankfully posted after the news cutoff the previous week)

Gang Shi claims they are doing this out of self-defense and protecting their interests, claiming “We have not routinely lied, bullied, or attacked anyone. What we have done is routinely defended our interests and our friends against opposition such as yourself.”

Most users in the comments were not very appreciative of this response, mainly due to the lack of original proof of the claims, (not even joking, every link in the above section was from its predecessor) and just general dismissive language from in the post and comments.

General Icenia and Gang Shi conflicts this week eventually resulted in a subreddit PvP war for public relations, mostly triggered by memes in poor taste. I won’t cover them too much because, they’re not only not funny, but come on, it’s really just the same things being yelled over and over again.

Happenings Around Civ

Metagame Highlights

The Fun Stuff

Gobblin looking over the Pavia skyline.

Builds

Cool Content

Memes

We All Scream for Icenia

Anything Else

Non-Civ Content

Poll of the Week

This week we only had 16 responses, a new low. What the hell is going on?

The first question was “Are you participating in the CivWiki competition?”

There’s not much to say but if you want free diamonds, go and edit CivWiki. I know there’s some issues right now with images, but I highly encourage you to work on something for the benefit of the server and documentation of history for future generations of newfriends to come. I swear, I don’t advertise CivWiki well, but goddammit, I want it to be good, so you gotta do your editing as much as I have to do it, too!

The second question was “What poll questions would you like to see?” I only got one, which isn’t worth asking about, so it’s not worth talking about it too much. Maybe a better open response question will trigger some people?

The Actual Poll

Please note that all information submitted is anonymous. A red star (
*
) means that this question is required to submit.
Are you travelling for thanksgiving this holiday?
Do you enjoy seeing art on the subreddit?
If you answered no (or a variation of no) to the previous question, would you like to elaborate why?

Bawk-Bawk Cry for Help

DesertMelons’ version of continents of the Map of the World.

Of course, this is the last newsletter before we head into the Thanksgiving season, and I still want to thank everyone for reading, especially you all for allowing me to take occasional breaks on the newsletter when I desperately need to. We’re heading to the end of the year and I know I haven’t done much, and there’s still a lot to do, but I know I can do it.

Thanks to…oh wait I was the only one writing the newsletter this week, oh well. Well, dear reader, thanks for reading it anyways. Always worth liking that someone reads my content.

If you’re in the US and celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, please spend this time with family, friends, or both, and don’t come into Civ. It’s one of the few times you probably will be able to get together to help. I certainly won’t log in or look at the subreddit. If you’re not celebrating Thanksgiving, take a minute to say thanks to your close ones, because they’ll always appreciate it.

Thanks one last time for reading this newsletter and supporting me for all this time, one of the few constants in my life for the past year and a half (which is honestly shocking to say). In other words…

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