CivWiki Monday Newsletter

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


CivWiki Newsletter for February 19, 2024

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Good morning and happy Monday from… the air?

You caught me on a cross-country flight! How the heck am I doing this, you might be wondering, but the majority of you probably know that I profusely write these way beforehand (although, as I’m writing this now, I am doing this at the last minute because I was packing). It’s always weird speaking in future/past tense in these sections, you know?

As many of you probably know there’s a lot to talk about this week, so let’s not waste anymore time. Here we go!

Please note that the below writing pieces will be on CivWiki later today; I am currently busy on a plane.

This week’s featured image is Pripyat, located on the northeastern tips of Alenarith. It’s an up and coming nation, and I do believe the last time I highlighted a new nation on Alenarith it gave them a pretty good boost. It’s a different sort of boost for them though, they’ve mastered the detailed build styles present in vanilla and have done an amazing job bringing it onto Civ, with loads of copper and brick blocks everywhere that make the town feel rustic. Looking forwards to more from them!

Featured Article

Airhaven was a town in CivClassics located in the southwestern part of the map. A snowy, tranquil retreat along the busy HITS corridor, the country prided itself on its builds and peaceful policy. It was built on top of a cave and in extreme hills on purpose to discourage farms ore excessive mining from being made and to focus on builds. The country continued maintaining a peaceful policy throughout its lifespan, enjoying benefits from peace initiatives such as the Order of the White Lotus and healthy relations with nearby Resimere, Pacem and later Yoahtl.

The country benefited from tourism heavily due to healthy reviews from other players, similarly compared to other tourism-focused nations like Lusitania. However, it fell inactive shortly after the Somber War and the country was annexed by Beretia in 2021, but did not change the area. The leader of the country, CaptainKlutz, eventually became a superfriend in 2021 and focused on content creation efforts for Civ afterwards. The legacy of the country lives on in its effort to maintain peacefulness deliberately by its nation placement.

This week’s featured article image is an overview of Airhaven, from RektTangle.

This Week Last Year

On the week of February 20, 2023,

The News

CivMC Update

Pacem’s town square at night.

On February 17, 2024, CivMC released a minor update fixing small bugs. The previous update was on February 3, which fixed the 1.25 update, more commonly known as the Fishing update.

Alenarith Drama Strikes Thrice

Mount Augusta’s Town hall at sunset.

This section comes at you in three parts, for three completely separate drama pieces that have no relation, other than the fact that they are both continuing conflicts from prior drama spits. Apologies if there’s not a lot of links or proof, most parties had requested not to disclose their logs or information.

Did you think a certain Alenarith-related event should have been here? Well, too bad!

Around the Server

Commonwealth’s under-city, featuring several different shops.

If I missed your news, it’s not you, it’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.

Metagame Highlights

The Fun Stuff

A neat little news stand along the canals of Adria, in Griffin from none other than Seekinq.

Builds & Other Cool Stuff

You’ll probably see some of these builds in the coming weeks as I deliberately stockpiled my picture library for the upcoming week. Anyway…

Memes

Non-Civ Content

Poll of the Week

Last week, we had 57 responses to the poll.

The first question was about which of the admin-run events you liked.

There’s two obvious standouts here — fishing competitions added a new dimension to the game and even on a Friday night after the competition people are still fishing for stuff and finding legendaries. That’s not to mention the new decorating options that builders now have.

But double ore weekends, as cliche as they are, do bring numbers. It’s not like mining is so crap these days, but the ore rate is low enough that it’s somewhat of an inconvenience, and a double ore weekend incentivizes more people to come online and go into the mines. I had a meme that I was going to make of this picture, but I just don’t have enough time to make it today!

The second question was, Would you like to see more community-run events or admin-run events?

This feels like a dumb question but it’s worth it to see if people enjoyed one or the other more. I think people just want to see more events, as long as they’re relatively well organized.


Finally, I asked about if you had any comments about how admins ran events. Among the standouts that weren’t just “I enjoyed it” or “GREAT JOB” were:

“The admin events are good, but you can participate in a vacuum. Civ events could stand to encourage more socialization and focus on interactive activities”

“Sometimes I feel like we’re pushing the boundary of admins not getting involved in the server.”

“Overall, I think they do a great job running the events and breathing a bit of newness into the game every once in a while. They strike a good balance in running events that let players get involved if they (or your town) want, but also letting players opt out of participating if they are not interested.”

“Admins need to remember when running events over the weekend that there’s more active timezones on the server than just EU and NA”

“Of all these, fishing is the best, because it’s not just mechanically different---it also engages players with each other in a way that doesn’t otherwise occur.”

“This is one of the few servers where admin-player reactions are actually tangible and fun”

In general, I think it’s generally a good thing that people are pretty happy about different events, and that it just strikes the right balance of admins being involved but not drastically influencing gameplay, which Civ has struggled with as a format. I think in general, these events do a good job of being compelling, but they either want something more interactive than double ore weekends, but as mechanically interesting as fishing. That’s a tough balance to strike, so I’m looking forward how CivMC will deal with the impossible soon enough.

A special unthanks to the stupid idiot that pasted the lyrics to Love Sosa by Chief Keef in the chat, that was not appreciated when scrolling through all the responses because it took up so much space.

Vote Now!

Now, BEFORE YOU VOTE you might want to look at some screenshots for sports in:

Please note that all information submitted is anonymous. A red star (
*
) means that this question is required to submit.
There are a few places that's hoping to host the Olympics next. Who would you rather have host? (Note: this poll is not a binding decision, and consider all variables like stadiums, current sports, community event potential, and transportation)
Which rail navigation systems do you like?
Select all that are applicable.
Any additional comments on your preferred rail navigation system?

Jetsetting Cry for Help

The Vinland Vikings and Malina’s Mandarins face off for another IHL match in Vinland.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter! A huge thanks to ShadySauce, Sakana-otoko, Plrog, X_an, BlueBox92, Mat_Potato_King, NeoTide, MechanicalRift, and BritishWanderer for helping with some news and context this week. There was a lot to get through and I’m in a bit of a rush, so if I didn’t get to you, very sorry.

As a result of me flying around so much, I’m going to have to skip next week’s newsletter because of crazy circumstances around time zones and flying. I’m sure there’s going to be some spicy stuff going on, and it’ll be fun to see. Gotta blast! Until next time though…


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