CivWiki Newsletter for April 2, 2024
Good morning and happy April 2nd from New England!
I hope you all enjoyed a way too high effort April Fools joke yesterday, which is literally just actual news. Mayhaps a proper IRL news newsletter could happen once I’m finished with this one?
In the meantime though, we’re back to doing the normal news about Civ that we all know and love, with no real expectations from me and all the expectations from you, but hopefully there’s enough fun things in here that it takes your mind off whatever’s going wrong in the world.
Are we ready for the news?
Featured
Featured Image
This week’s actual featured image is still Icenia — more specifically on its North Side with a collection of newly renovated high rises, especially with the Monument Group (formerly Bank of Icenia) taking center stage in the photo. Great to see some new buildings come up and these vacant skyscrapers finally seeing service!
Featured Article
The Valex Corporation was a consultancy company on Civcraft 2.0. Founded from refugees from SPQR, the company was uniquely founded as a company but acted like a country that held territory. Within a few months of its founding, it gained mass revenue through material sales, but quickly switched their focus to investments. The country was a member of the North Eastern Alliance, bordering neighboring Iria.
Their capital, Remnant, was a cyberpunk-themed nation with a layer-like structure, inspired by dystopias like Blade Runner. Their pioneering shareholder system allowed any shareholder to a dividend in their revenue, and the company obtains profit through plot sales as well as consultancy services for developing nations. Although their CEO, Logic_Man still plays today in Mount Augusta, their company’s structure has been lifted into other Civ-based companies in CivMC such as the Gabon Corporation and the Monument Group.
This week’s featured article image is of Remnant at night.
The News
The pyramid walls at the Xolotl Temple in Q’barra, Nara.
Longer News
- Yoahtl announced another Olympic event! It’s set to be held on the weekend of June 7, and it’s set to be an exciting time. It’s the first Olympics since the Nara Olympics late last year, and the first Yoahtl’s hosted since 2018.
- After Lysika’s post regarding claims for Ez2Clutch the previous week, Icenia posted a formal announcement of their claims on Clutch the next day.
- The post was generally well received, much so that I honestly can’t read the subreddit PvP in the comments as well, but it does seem generally quite civil; albeit some contrarians exist.
- The Imperial Federation elected a new chancellor, SlothInASuit on March 31. The results, believe it or not, are real and this isn’t an April Fools joke.
- Prior to his election, Potato_Deity made a post on his reflections as Chancellor of the country, reflecting on his many achievements and thanking the citizens of the country.
- ComradeSankara also released results of an opinion poll regarding politics in the country, including questions on foreign policy, taxes on factory usage, and if they will “eat the bugs, sleep in the pod, or drink from the tube”.
- Tacked onto the end of the post was also the fact that states such as “Thoria, Pride Isles, Surmadri, and Grenada” would be rejoining the country.
- Many states noted above were notable for seceding during the coup d’etat attempt and constitutional crisis, which coincidentally, new chancellor Sloth played a part in.
- Highroll posted a large list of grievances against the Moria Corporation with accusations of the company sanctioning raids of their factories, double crossing from Augustan mayor Sakana_otoko, and portal griefing amidst Highroll’s ban sentence. Read the post for more information.
- This post is quite dense and hard to read, so be warned.
- Moria spokesperson DockerImage posted a response here, claiming much of this was made up and the claims were invalid.
- Sambonusg posted a reflection on his experiences throughout CivMC, from his experiences Mount September to his stewardship of Lambat.
Not-So-Longer News
- Exyria and Yoahtl signed an Non-Aggression Pact, relatively soon after brokering another NAP with Icenia.
- Despite increased protection, the Cathedral bells in Pavia were stolen once again, and it was up to Pavian scavengers to find where it went!
- Volterra and WishingonaWendy announced a Book Writing competition, challenging players to make books about the country to “promote education, culture and literary excellence within our esteemed nation”.
- I don’t think it’s so important, but a new nation named Karaya claimed nearly all of Gang Shi’s old land. For me, I’m just keeping a close eye for drama in the region because, who knows.
- Coolchacha97 announced Apex Industrial as an Exyrian company, hoping to reform as a person and selling compacted potions. Can’t wait for their IPO to be the most volatile ever.
- Seldomshock was impeached in Volterra… only to get reinstated as Lord Paramount literally 19 minutes later.
- Volterra also added a travel advisory for their line to Pavia as the rail passes through Estalian territory.
- Icenia, at the time of writing are (but by publishing, they will have) electing/elected their new Senate for April.
- Tortuga and Reggio is connected up to rail, connecting the territory to the IF-line near New Callisto.
- JPM_Stalin has announced their reclaiming of Santiago, Cortesia Del Mar to become a nation seceding from Aurellia, hoping to revive and rebuild the city.
- Darth_Chini was elected as the newest consul of the SPQR, and his victory announcement hopes to continue to work on transparency and continuing Rome’s legacy on the server.
- Mount Augusta elected current mayor Sakana_otoko to the Council of Mayor Emeriti, joining the likes of the past mayors currently playing in the country.
- Going out on a limb here, but Shiroyama’s castle now exists… but who knows, they haven’t released a picture.
Server Happenings
- I successfully gaslit RedDevel to basically will a Civ event into action this weekend, which will go down as my greatest achievement in Civ
- As of writing this post, CivRush is holding their second event, but only has a little time left as of publishing this post!
The Fun Stuff
New Callisto’s market, in the Imperial Federation.
Builds
- Northfort’s newest gay bar, the Sub Club is one of the first on CivMC and it looks actually really good interior-wise
- Technically, Paddington’s Pirate Ship is an April Fools joke but it looks good
- Cicero posts Shockton castle, and it’s a really good piece of architecture
- reffelruz unveils the completion of Commonwealth’s new Parliament building that’s set to be their new seat of government
- Mercutio has some cool new ramps up to a nice garden
Cool Content
- There’s no joke here, I just like this vintage picture of all of the old civvas that I miss 😢
- I successfully got my friend Jenna’s work to be in the newsletter yesterday, but as a backup, I asked iinkuu and butter_villager for their IRL work as well, and I don’t want my requests to go to waste. Don’t worry, it’s not even close to Civ-related, it’s just legit good art.
- Imperial Federation posts a brand new poster of their full united territory
- Baile has a new map to navigate their complicated nation
Obvious April Fools Jokes
- Estalia warns that anyone around Quagmire will be pearled — except that it’s not Walkers posting this one
- Sloth declared war on Spenduh and Exyria for no reason
- Metallic overthrows Temporal Isles again for how many times now?
- Icarus announces that they would be seceding from Icenia, despite the fact they’ve been really good friends
- This then resulted in, you guessed it, another Icenian Civil War since this was technically illegal
- Drekamor was quickly pearled, and Xcios sent an ultimatum later that day
- Kallumbia, now Columbia, announced their secession from Icenia, as if they didn’t have enough problems
- I love supporting dumbasses in conflicts
- And in the spirit of creativity, the Imperial Federation set off another war, especially on Sloth’s first day as chancellor.
- There’s more in the discord, and there were so many announcements, there’s a second part to this madness…
- Ghas_ News has returned for a new edition, god bless and probably did a better job reporting on this than I have
- I’m not going to go and summarize this one but I’m sure someone in the IF who’s less brain damaged can
- Estalia actually engaged in schizo posting to announce that Donut Day is going to stop
- The Temporal Empire gave aid and is really attempting to be the new world order
- bgbba tries to make a joke about Chanada but everyone remembers that Chanada isn’t very fun
- Hakr_ calls out the admins on their “funny April Fools” wither joke, which I’m like pretty sure this is just Hakr_’s doing again
- Vinland is enlarging their penis today
- The High Kingdom of Griffin? The Low Kingdom of Goblin.
- Yoahtl is demanding payment from Icenia after they did pretty much none of the things they mentioned
- BritishWanderer has had enough of this bullshit, and so have I, so let’s move on…
Memes
- Hey, being above Tier D on any respect tier list is a win in my book
- So, like everyone on Civ does, the “post claims meme” was ran into thr ground:
- first by overposting,
- then by surrealposting,
- and then by overposting the surrealpost
- Art repost shaming memes are already at an all time low
- Stonecutter War loss means donating to charity, right?
- There was an Icenian Civil War before the Civil War, but VilyanZ you gotta provide more details man
- Chop, chop!
Non-Civ Content
For the sake of keeping this newsletter shorter, I think you better look at the April Fools’ newsletter instead this week.
Poll of the Week
Get ready, because we’re doing two poll segments…
Last week’s poll had 61 responses.
Our first question had to do with whether you want an ore weekend, specifically last weekend.
Yeah, this was like, an April Fools joke ahead of the actual April Fools joke, I literally did this to gaslight RedDevel into doing something but hey, at least it actually worked lmao Can you tell I’m running out of questions to ask?
Our other question has to do with what kinds of games people play outside of Civ.
The high number of people that pretty much exclusively play Minecraft for Civ is so high, like abnormally high for something where you need to know tribal knowledge about a game on top of tribal knowledge about a game. To be fair, this game does take up a lot of mental space and admittedly I do play a lot of Hearthstone in my free time, so I guess that’s fair.
Among some responses I got:
JUST minecraft is boring, have to have some other simulting my brain which isnt blocks
After playing things like anarchy and civ exclusively since 2016, I’ve recently been trying to reconnect with casual single player / smp type gameplay… It’s been a long time since Minecraft hasn’t been… oddly stressful to play
Everyone who plays grand strategy games are either tankies or unhinged monarchists and I’m tankies.
CivMC completely ruined my enjoyment of Minecraft in general.
Bunkies brings people together <3
I play warthunder and leak classified documents online
The Other Poll of the Week
For the sake of transparency, here’s the results for the poll for the April Fools’ edition, cause why the hell not, I don’t want to collect data for nothing. There were 41 responses in yesterday’s poll.
The first question: Do you sneeze?
This question is a reference to a vlogbrothers/Dear Hank and John bit, where there is some doctor for a listener that professes she never sneezes. So it’s clear about half of you either actually never sneezes, or is in on the joke.
The second question: How many books do you read a year?
Interesting to see there’s a lot of people that actually read a lot of books, especially considering a lot of people don’t read for classes as well. Glad to see there are at least some well-versed people who read this newsletter.
The third question: How much do you read the news?
There was an error with this question where there’s checkboxes, but it’s interesting to see that most people are generally keeping up with the news in general, with a small minority being outside. I’m not going to do too much analysis here, but it’s at least cool to see at least people are generally well versed.
Voting Time
The first question is a little unique: only check one checkbox per category.
Hopefully for this last question, this may be for this round, I’ll gather some responses, and use the best ones for next week!
As a note, I’ll also read responses from what you’ve think improved in the open response section.
Actually Not April Fools Cry for Help
Thanks for dealing with this week’s newsletter — hope it wasn’t too much hassle! A big thanks to Gjum, Shadowvdark, and hkl for entertaining me through this and another big thanks to iinkuu and butter_villager for graciously sharing some of their IRL art pieces.
As always, if you’re interesting in contributing to this newsletter, please reach out to me @specificlanguage and I can probably find something for you to do.
There’s not much to say this time around, so I think that’s all from me and I’ll see you all next week, until then…