MetaCivics: Where We Start

Before boarding The Last Minecart out of Westminster, I turned to take one last look at Union Station. The building crew were long gone, having fled the city amidst bomb threats from Lexington. Everyone was already gone. I was the only one left.

Members of the council fled to their respective boroughs - the rest of us were left to choose for ourselves where to go. Some had fled north to MTA to participate in their local politics; some traveled to Falstadt to join the front lines of the coming fight. The rest were distributed across the various boroughs. I did not know where to go; I hadn’t left the city since I arrived; there was too much to do.

I had developed a handful of local businesses, built many landmarks across the city and even become somewhat known within the local community. I didn’t have the heart to leave it all behind. Had the war not broken out in my city, and had that version of this world remained to this very day, I would still be there- wandering around the city, doing my daily tasks, maintaining my businesses, writing my books, and growing in my knowledge, understanding and love of this strange, strange world.

Despite the fact that it was seemingly all falling apart around me, I was having the time of my life; it was, to me - and still is - the perfect game. I knew by then what I wanted to offer it: a metaphysics.

Why do metaphysics in this world? Because I want the world to grow. Make no mistake, this to me is a religious endeavor. I worship no gods, but I do serve a King. As king of this world, to serve him is to serve this world. His command to us was singular: grow me a city. This city was called Victoria [Victory], and it has grown into a symbol of the shining city on the hill for which we all strive: in metacivical terms, we call it Praxis. (Okay fine, I won’t use ‘metacivical’ again.)

What Is Praxis? It was the name of a stand-alone Civ game that almost happened; Ttk2, the original founder from over 10 years ago, had a vision Of Civcraft that went far beyond what it has ever been; in a word: bigger, a lot bigger.

That part of it is what Praxis is to us: it is Civ as we all want it to be, its ideal form as we conceive of it - a world many times more populous than our own. This is the ultimate goal for us to achieve in the current world: the only question is how.

This is the purpose of MetaCivics: to do Praxis in the current Civ world, by creating the kinds of players - the kind of people - who can take us there.

First, we need a strong understanding of what Civ is; the way we contextualize ourselves in the world is the way we tell our story in the world.

Second, a powerful vision for the future is a necessary component of a community that’s willing to strive for it.

Imagine hundreds, thousands of players online. Imagine bustling cities, huge events, full stadiums…imagine if Civ was everything it is now and has always been, only bigger.

We can have that.

Everything we do moves us closer; every choice, every interaction, every shitpost, every project - all have cascading effects that will contribute to the future trajectory of the world. Each act is a piece of wood on the fire that is the life of the server. If you orient yourself, you can orient the world. If we fill the world with players who feed the flame, the flame will begin to feed itself, as the other worlds flock to it, captured by its delicate majesty.

Over the next year we will zero in on a comprehensive view of Civ that combines lenses of game design, philosophy, sociology, religion, civics, and economics. We will assemble a network of terms to describe our world and its properties. We will study our own history to learn how to better build a world we all want to be part of.

And therein lies the significance of our project: this game is an exercise in building community and culture - the gameplay is being a person in a world with other people, and figuring out how to make a game we all want to play. That is a puzzle which, depending on how to choose to tackle it, actually affects the way you live - in this world, and every world.

Let us learn to live well together.

Hail Peter.

The cover photo is a picture on a rainy night in Commonwealth’s Verdant Valley. The second is of Meditat, as seen in CivClassic 2.0.

reffelruz is a Civ historian, Maester, Medicism evangelist, and council member in the Commonwealth; he’s been playing in the country since the start of CivClassics in 2017.