CivWiki Newsletter for May 19, 2025

Good morning and happy Monday from the Pacific Northwest!

Haven’t seen this in a while, huh? This is both a return and celebration newsletter! About three years ago, the very first newsletter was written and ever since then, I’ve continuously written about Civ for around roughly a year. Even to this day, I’ve heard people really enjoy the newsletter and use it as part of their weekly routines, and I’m so glad that I get to be a part of people’s lives that way.

For long time readers you may be wondering what’s going on here, why return after a nearly 5 month hiatus? I hate to keep you on the edge, but I will explain a little bit later; but the new plan is to put less pressure on me to try doing this bi-weekly instead — and hopefully with a little more support in writing the news, which is still a bit optimistic.

Let’s get to it then, shall we?

Featured

Featured Image

Staying on the theme of return and revival, this week’s featured image is Mount Augusta, which after nearly an entire year of buildup has seen some pretty tremendous growth. There are quite a few skyscrapers here that were barely present last year, including the quite prominent Monument Bank branch that towers over the main square, as well as the pine tree garden in the lower right of the picture.

Dare I say this is starting to look closer to CivClassic Augusta? Really great work from Jaybird and the team, really excited for this to become the urbanized fantasy that Augusta was destined to be!

Featured Article

This week’s featured article is slightly abridged for length!

Pavia, officially the Empire of Pavia and Griffin, is widely regarded to be the pre-eminent economic hub of the CivMC. With many of its players hailing from Gabon on CivClassic, the architecturally dense nation builds upon the Victorian build styles in its predecessor. The capital city of the same name serves home to a prosperous market street, which plays host to shops that hail from across the server. It is also home to several Pavian companies such as Monument Group, as well as CivMC’s only stock exchange and bank, both widely used and critical institutions in the present Civ economy. Among some of its other settlements includes Adria, the main city in Griffin, which is built in a European style reminiscent of Venice.

The country has infrequently been involved in military events on the server; its primary involvement was during the Generic War in the server’s early days, where Rhode Island obbybombed the city, marking a turn in public sentiment. While the country is rarely involved in military affairs nowadays, it was previously involved in the Elysian Pact and was one of the founders of the Lyrean Community. Most of its previously surrounding nations are now protectorates of Pavia, and much of their foreign involvement today primarily consists of Friendship agreements with a number nations across the server.

This week’s featured image is a nighttime view of Pavia City looking towards the Town Hall. Sort of looks like London in a way…

This Week In Civ

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The News

Bamboo shoots among the administrative buildings in Warmia, Volterra.

Withering Away

• Withervale was raided by Groveheart on May 15.
  • Withervale’s post consisted of painstaking detail on the raid, including factories being destroyed and several homes raided.
  • The raid was originally Groveheart but was also supported by the SSDC, a “self-proclaimed Anti-Raider Alliance” supported by neighbors Groveheart, Salerno and the Imperial Federation, two months prior.
  • Attempts at negotiations were met with hostility, after Groveheart wanted to claim Withervale’s land due to inactivity, and had attempted to exchange materials for a large chunk of land. (ed. note: I have heard this argument used before, but I cannot find it anymore)
  • After several efforts to negotiate with Gidein and SlothInASuit to return their raided materials (the latter of which was delegated to negotiate on behalf of the SSDC), Withervale discovered they had no rationale for their actions.
  • I must remind people that Sloth is still banned from the server following his actions during a Citadel outage in February.
  • It is worth noticing Withervale and Groveheart were previously part of the Great Western Bay from August 2024, and were easily friends prior to its founding as well.
  • Groveheart eventually made an announcement apologizing for their actions, with Gidein taking full responsibility for the situation and returning their materials as soon as possible.
  • (ed. note: opinion) One thing left to be addressed however, is the overstep that SSDC played in this situation; I personally think that part of the issue was that, in Gidein’s words, “a bunch of guys in the military got pissed off”

Around the Server

• Hakr_ was announced to be the newest admin on CivMC!
  • He would later clarify his primary work for the time being to reduce the infamous ticket and modmail queues.
• Icenia celebrated its 10 year anniversary this past month, with an award ceremony that celebrated Icenian achievements as well as individuals across the genre.
  • Chris also posted this reflection post giving his own thoughts on the game.
• One idea I’m proud to see come to fruition is a live Civ radio show, complete with mods and music triggers. The radio show is such a good idea.
• The rare post on r/CivEx has brought another “Civ server”. I put that in quotes because it’s… not really one from what I’ve read
  • Named Shattered Crowns, the website and discord describe a Foxhole-esque war between two main factions. But it’s pretty vaguely worded and, notably, is still in development.
  • Sure, it can say it has Citadel, but the discord is more heavily focused on pre-defined wars, and an entire TWO (2) civilizations and admin intervention — very far from the initial vision of Civ that I think many reading this newsletter would have.
  • So, it’s basically closer to one of those YouTube Civilization experiments in my mind.
• Pavia elected a new prime minister, BritishWanderer, following the sudden death of CedarValiant.
• Kaiyaukuta placed a claims post for PhysicsGamer as he was pearled on May 17, although this bounty is literally for nothing besides an apology, for crass and hurtful remarks.
  • Now, lynxgirlpaws, the leader says that this is not an official act of the state, but supports the allegations that have been made (which, honestly have been confusing to me).
  • However, considering there have been continuous posts regarding Kaiyaukuta and “conflicts” between their states over the past few months, some have said that they’re particularly drama-prone compared to past newfriend nations.
  • PhysicsGamer eventually posted a more robust statement where explained and also regretted his actions, as he explained these were references to Stellaris which were understandably not taken well. However, he was disdainful of the attacks and pre-emptive actions Kaiyaukuta took to pearl him.
• Sheeve has attempted to claim Blockchainistan — a nation that hasn’t been claimed since the start of the world.
  • He claims it has “personal and historical significance to [him]”, however the last time I visited it is still pretty intact with bunches of random blocks and particular German imagery.

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The Fun Stuff

A redwood forest located near the Temporal Empire.

Builds & Images

• Kaltsburg has been very quickly developed the last time I saw these pictures, very nice development of their market (cr: deyan)
• The new mosque in Ila’Kyavul is one of those where there’s so much going on, but in a good way, like the Maryland flag; the sparkles and gems compliment each other well (cr: Fendrell)
• Finally they decided to remake Drug and Alcohol Abuse Park in Icenia! Finally enough of that Christmas tree lol (cr: Quanton_Biscuit)
• Speaking of which, ChrisChrispie personally redid my house in Icenia, which I’m very grateful for since it looks super nice and better than anything I can make, unfortunately that’s the only picture I have which looks like garbage to me
• The expert builders they are, Pavia recently redid their underground train station area, making the approach much more naturelike (cr: Gobblin)
• Ok sure, the world is flat but the render distance is incredible seeing all of Deluvia in one render (cr: Banana_Blu)

Cool Content / Memes

• I guess this is a cool comic & song coming out as a memorial in Withervale (cr: TheKingCob)
• I wonder how people haven’t really thought about bringing a zodiac calendar into Civ! (cr: (Dr.) Urzork)
• Always appreciate a good Civball, this is centered around Kaiyaukuta (cr: lynxgirlpaws)
• Quanton_Biscuit is calling all bookkeepers to help compile books for the new Icenia library
• Wow, I can’t believe Orinnari got CGP Grey to write an entire meme video for Civ about some city about Basalt!

Non-Civ Content

If it were me, I would definitely stuff this section with as much as possible, but I’ll try my best to keep it to a minimum today:

• With the Seattle Mariners leading the division this early in the season and their offense being insane, you would think they’ll make the playoffs this year… right?
• I am in love with Andor Season 2, such a well crafted season even with the time jumps. Really great showing from every ensemble actor/actress, and I’m really going to dread going to back to garbage Star Wars writing

Poll of the Week

The Torii Gate in Mount Augusta as the sun rises.

These poll questions were originally made back in January with the intent of doing more questions, since there would be less polls. Obviously, this will no longer be the case, but we had 52 responses for this poll.

How was the Newsmagazine Format?

I will say that for the single edition I did this for, I think I was pretty proud of what I was able to deliver — that being said, I know this it was a slight shock from what people expected from the news, so there was still some changes of what was expected.

Although I don’t plan to make another newsmagazine in the future, I think it was a fun experiment; I hope a newsmagazine somewhat akin to Empty Promises could rebound in the future.

Country Playstyle

I like to think of country on a spectrum of “roleplay” to “optimization”, but maybe that’s not entirely clear? There are extreme roleplay-heavy nations like the Mery and the CCP nations or like any random CivEx nations, but there are others like Estalia, Gang Shi, or any Devoted nation, that aim towards hyper-optimization. Interesting that this poll ended up on a bell curve.

Now I realize there’s a second dimension that has been missing here, a government aspect that involves things like democracy in Mount Augusta or the IF, to an aristocratic government seen in more closed-off leadership-style governments like in Winterbourne or Amiticia. But, maybe that’s a poll for another time.

Weekend Wakeup

Either this is really funny that everyone wakes up at the same, relatively reasonable time, or you guys are all lying about when you wake up because you guys aren’t crazy?

What Makes Civ Different?

One thing that I wanted to figure out is what makes Civ… Civ? It’s pretty hard to define, and even we on the CivWiki have a tough time defending our own definition. With a lot of fakers out there claiming they are a “Civ” server, how do we differentiate ourselves from like Anarchy, or Factions?

A strong desire to quit every day you log in

Well, I guess that’s true…

Player driven consequences and maintaining one’s reputation

This answer I’m not convinced of. You could say the same of any anarchy server.

It’s quite good at optimizing the fun out. Not to say others aren’t, but Civ has really refined that for people who want to lean into its unique mechanics.

So… EVE Online?

The freedom of anarchy, but without [really messed up stuff]. The rp is cool as few servers have anything to cater towards that ni[che] anymore.

Somewhat older playerbase, more of a mix of different

It’s a geopolitics server, NOT a world building server. World building comes second ever[y]. Single. Time.

Civ servers are defined by a distinctly organic and social and political environment that emerges from more simple mechanics. This makes it the most natural genres I’ve ever players, with well-developed mechanics and player cultures, but it’s also among the most volatile…

Other [non-]Civ[?] servers offer one-dimensional gameplay: Civ offers a world that thrives on allowing playres to make their own gameplay…and rewards creativity that no other game does.

There were some great responses for this question, but for length sake I’m going to cut it and put some more responses in the Reddit posts later.

Vote Now!

We’re So Back Cry for Help

An overview of the Commonwealth’s builds, including the Capital, Verdant Valley, and the Tricon building (cr: jaybirdino).

Thanks for reading today’s newsletter! I hope you’re excited about this return.

So, here’s the deal. Organizing a full newsletter is a quite tedious. Part of writing it this week is to properly calculate how long it takes to write a newsletter. According to my calculations it has taken at least:

• 1 hour on Friday (not counting running around getting pictures)
• 3 hours on Saturday
• 1.5 hours on Sunday

As understood, writing the news takes quite a toll, but I still like writing and want to use this as a way to keep it up. So my goal for the second third time around is to have a turnaround of every two weeks or at least two editions per month. There are also a number of improvements I want to make; these are mostly backend changes such as:

• An update to poll consumption (the tools are still very hacky!)
• Streamlined news processing (likely through a Central News Discord)
• Remove some tedious manual processing steps
• Outsource some writing (again! Please let me know @specificlanguage on Discord if you’re interested)
• Staying consistent, long-term (always a challenge)

I’ll try to explain more about why I decided to do this later, but I hope you enjoy this over your midmorning/midday coffee. I’ll see you next week for CivMC’s third anniversary edition!

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