CivWiki Monday Newsletter

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

CivWiki's Ten Things to Know for September 24, 2025

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Hello from the Pacific Northwest! Welcome to something of a surprise new format for the CivWiki news, which may be easier to read. I’ll explain what this is in a few words, but this is something that I was thinking about even writing last week’s newsletter. Very excited to have this turn around in less than a few days of when I started working on it, and hopefully this will be a lot more sustainable going forward. Let’s get into it, shall we?

1. What is TT2K?

Featured image: the awesome urban development around Katipan station, Lambat (cr: StoryBloom / Kaprediem)

Welcome to Ten Things to Know (TT2K) — something I consider as an ad-hoc replacement for the newsletter. As apparent as it is, one primary issue with the newsletter right now is that it’s starting to become pretty much impossible to cover all of Civ, which is impressive considering it was actually somewhat feasible to do it for a few years.

The newsletter was made to highlight the community as well as provide the news — so this is pretty much that philosophy in a much shorter format. The idea is that we’ll highlight ten things around the community, no more, no less, as we take the highlights of what’s happened with Civ over the past week. The form factor for each of these writeups are going to as small as this, which also makes it much easier to write & contribute. This also enables some more interesting, shorter newsmagazine-like stories that the previous experiment tried out.

Some of the staples of the newsletter will still show up, primarily Polls, since that’s one of the most popular sections. But while the main skeleton of the newsletter isn’t in this format, that doesn’t mean that its goal is gone; my goal for this format is to give a little more light on more community highlights, and make news runs something I gloss over a little more so people can form their own opinions and so I don’t have to do too much research. Few people like a 45-minute writeup on a war.

(ed. note: Also like, it’s kind of nice that the acronym is only 1 letter swap away from ttk2, right?)

2. PvP Queue

Okx's PvP Ranked announcement

Okx

Okx's official announcement of PvP Ranked coming to CivMC

Okx's PvP Ranked announcement (image only)

Non-Discord link of the above

One of the more controversial changes this week on the Civ admin side is the introduction of the PvP ELO system. On first glance, it does look pretty innocuous; a ranked Civ PvP system is something that would be really cool for incentivizing people to play PvP.

However, one issue is the reward for a high PvP system is that the top 10 players with ELO receive priority queue. While a generally good idea to give rewards for high ELO, this decision makes it so that it somewhat encourages PvP grinding on CivMC — a high PvP ELO means you get priority queue, which also means that theoretically better PvPers go quicker to CivMC main; several have argued this gives the incorrect image on CivMC, as it should not just PvP playstyles, but also building & diplomacy playstyles as well, which are equally important in a game such as Civ, and should also have a way to get priority queue.

Okx & the admins are still intent on keeping this up, but nothing particularly will change. One minor suggestion is to offer cosmetic rewards for PvP ELO instead, which wouldn’t affect gameplay. On the other hand, watching people play on the PvP server is kind of cool since there’s stakes now. Additionally, this and other changes are in preparation for a certain expected surge coming soon…

3. Tiny Heist

The Mini Sip

AiounnaeKael

A post talking about happenings on CivMini; although I'm not talking about all of it

CivMini has had its share of raiders lately. On the one hand, because of the slow progression, the server has had a much higher prevalence of raiders than normal, but we will talk about it in a second.

First, a group of raiders named the HMRC also raided several nations across the server, led by BlankestAtlas. I will admit I was led on this group but I didn’t particularly know who or what parts of the world we were raiding, and I’ve since apologized to Jorgo who we hit the hardest. But in general, while raiders are a regular part of early Civ and it’s one thing that they need to be dealt with, a CivMini UN has been brought up to do something about this and the following, to mixed results (which is where I’ve already gotten these screenshots).

On the other hand, there is the Norlund/Octagon/Legion conflict, which has been boiling over for a few days. From what I’m aware, although all three have posted positions regarding their own perspectives on what started this war (Legion, Norlund, Octagon), the short version is that Legion & Norlund were engaging in raids on Octagon, while the latter was pursuing peace. Raids have continued throughout the week including one major one on Sunday while HMRC raids were happening. (img cr: uraumi)

(ed. note: I hope people like the Dimension 20 reference…)

4. Kallos annexes Columbia

Somehow, Kallos Returns (to Columbia)

Lasady

A well produced post announcing the reclaiming of Columbia of Kallos

The flashy video may be very well produced and distracting, but the gist is that Kallos has annexed the former territory of Columbia. For long-time Civ players, this is likely not a surprise, but for newer players, both countries have dabbled in each other’s playerbases.

Originally, Columbia was a country on CivClassic, with Kallos appearing as a separate country late in that iteration. Neither particularly appeared in the initial months of CivMC, but iterations of “Kallumbia” (in a clear nod to Kallos) and “Columbia” eventually appeared in what used to be Rhode Island, initially aligned with Icenia.

Today, the distinction pretty much ends as Kallos annexes Columbia’s primary territory. KnotNSA/Lasady, who made the video, has been part of Columbia in the past and has been recently part of Kallos as part of the previous war. The only concern is Kallos’ relatively large land footprint in now two parts of the world.

5. Master Hackers

Odd requirements for CivHub

xFier

What's behind the email requirement for this new website?

I mentioned in previous editions that there was a new website called CivHub which intended to bring auctions, sales, nation ads, etc. onto a central hub. However, I did say at the time it did have work still, a lot of it relies on trust from the owners and didn’t seem integrated with a lot of Civ systems.

Earlier last weekend, a complaint came out from xFier & adeadhead along with others that the site was retrieving emails connected to Discord. For Civ players this can be highly suspect, as many players attach their personal emails onto the website. In practice, there doesn’t seem to be a major reason for an account besides checking into things on main. However, for frequent web-devs/vibe-coders, you’ll recognize “Supabase” as a commonly used auth and database solution, especially since it’s extremely to spin up. (ed. note: It’s likely that any malware flags were false positives.)

This being said, I maintain a Civ-specific email address exactly for this purpose (although I use it for anything where I don’t want to give my name out), it’s not like it’s that hard to spin up. While on the surface this website sometimes has the smells of vibecoding, if it’s helpful, secure, and it works I’m not going to rat on this too much unlike some other of my coding colleagues here on Civ.

6. Sportsball

Resuming the International Hockey League

Lobster_Bisque

Will they finish a season, for real??

Maybe I made it a little on the nose, but I’d like to give a bigger shoutout to the International Hockey League than I have in previous newsletters. Civ Hockey, for those that are new, is a sport that’s relatively unique to Civ; although analogous to hockey it plays closer to rugby meets curling meets lacrosse, in a few ways. However there’s one thing that’s undeniable: for many, the sport is a point of national pride, and regularly gets played in Olympic events nowadays.

On CivMC, while Hockey has enjoyed a great resurgence of late, it’s become a running joke that even though this is the third season of the International Hockey League, they’ve never been able to complete a season. While previous seasons were stopped due to apathy, this season was stopped because of a server-wide war that’s only finished wrapping up recently. However, if anything hockey matches have been much more popular this season, partially due to better timing, greater interest from other nations across the server, and a much more robust scheduling system and refereeing. I haven’t covered a lot of these hockey games, but when the season isn’t disrupted, it’s not uncommon to see hockey games nearly every weekend.

Here’s to hoping the season will complete, along with a successful playoff round!

7. Great Renders

Render of the Lyrean Commonwealth

jaybirdino

A massive render that represents the whole of the Lyrean Commonwealth's nation portfolio

I kind of have to point out some incredible renders that have come up in the Lyrean Commonwealth — this particular one shows the giant scope and land mass that the LC owns, all thanks to Jaybirdino.

If you haven’t seen the Reddit in a few weeks, he’s the procurer of some insane, long distance renders, of which is this probably his largest. Another render for the oldfriends he’s also well-known for is this widely-spread Mount Augusta render from CivClassic. Dare I say his renders have been upgraded in recent years, incorporating way more detail, dynamic lighting, filtering and texturing, and probably his computer has been upgraded too lol.

Anyway, this is a great showcase of builds and it’s very cool to keep seeing these renders consistently, too.

8. Upcoming Events

Tons of cherry-wood houses located in Rosewood, Bravonia on CivMini. (cr: Jayyveee, Pinknutnut)

This is a (non-comprehensive) list of events that are happening soon. Anything marked with notes that this announcement is a Discord event.

9. Polling Station

A render of Margaritaville on the sea. (cr: Jaybirdino)

Well, the poll section is always a fan favorite, so I can’t make this go away.

Last week, we had 40 responses to the polls. So, I think this is a matter of long writeups which therefore give less attention to things further to the bottom. Given this new format is intended to be short, response numbers should be a bit better?

The first question was about what kinds of newsletter sections you readers actually read. I try to do this to see what I should focus on, but as you can see below this question is quite useless.

In particular, most people of course care about the longest news writeup I’ve ever done, but I would say a good number of people balked at the length of it. Although compared to the last time I ran this poll, the numbers on the lesser sections, such as the Community Highlights, was up, so that’s a plus.

The second question focused on how CivMini is working as an experiment:

This had a much more negative sentiment, and it’s clear to see why:

Civmini was cool until I realized how impossible defense was

I have been raided SO many times. I try to channel my sadness from being raided into making a new build, but then they come and grief me once I’m done. My farms are public and free to use, yet they get vandalized for no reason other than the sick pleasure of the people raiding me.

One of the problems is the fact that unless you have many players or you no-life CivMini, raiders have a free hand to raid anything they’d like

My problem with Civ Mini is that you need to grind it to get going, but where is the fun in it when I can just play on main and do my projects

I’ve mentioned this earlier but slower progression means that raiders have a lot more free reign to do whatever they want. Look at me, I’ve done it myself (ashamedly now). But that kind of reflects how Civ functions at the SOTW. Usually, there is a big rush to climb the tech tree as fast as possible. With the lack of bots and other mechanisms to get rich quick, it does become way more of a slog for the average player.

Meanwhile, the other problem identified is:

CivMini breaks the fantasy of Civ being one single living breathing world where everything is intertwined. If the server population continues to grow beyond what is currently manageable, then I would rather see sharding or a map expansion within the same universe (if at all possible).

I like the feeling of a new server, and getting to create the first roads and having that baggage-less feeling of a new settlement, its really nice! Too bad the player count isn’t really there tho :(

Now, this problem I think will get solved once a certain deluge of players comes by…

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10. Community Highlights

Kitsunekawa Peak, located in the country of the same name (cr: LunarModule1997).

This section is basically everything I can’t muster up three paragraphs about, but want to mention.

News

Not News

Thanks & Last Calls

Kahina’s estate located in the countryside of Lambat (cr: Kahina)

Thanks for reading this FIRST Ten Things to Know! This is essentially an experimental “what if the newsletter was different” and simply an experiment to see if something like this would work and be effective, especially since I think few people want to slog through a 45 minute newsletter read. Though, I have gotten feedback that people will read whatever I write.

One thing also I’m experimenting with is if mid-week newsletters actually are more effective, because now it gives people a heads up on the weekend ahead rather than a summary of the weekend prior.

Anyway, please earn your “I was here before the YouTube invasion” badge here!

Thanks for reading once again. Until next time…

EDIT CIVWIKI