CivWiki Monday Newsletter

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


CivWiki Newsletter for May 20, 2024

• specificlanguage

Good morning and happy anniversary (for real this time!) from New England!

Even as Minecraft celebrates its 15th anniversary, this newsletter is celebrating its 2nd! Sure, it may have only been like 30 newsletters since the 52-week flurry last year, but I did take some weeks off as you know. I will be honest, the Minecraft anniversary came as a surprise, as I don’t think people really remember when years for such a long running game like Minecraft…

Although CivMC hasn’t reached two years quite yet, it’ll be coming very, very soon and the server couldn’t be in better shape. I’m very glad that people have been reading this stupid dynamic wall of text for multiple years now, and it’s very fun yet daunting seeing it become a great source for news across Civ. Thanks for everything, but it’s time to prove my worth: let’s get to the news!

For this anniversary’s featured article image, I wanted to pick a few nations that have since gone to a better place, whether their players are still active in the Civ community or no. Starting from the left, we have the trident statue along the taiga coast in Venne, looking outwards towards the sea in a quest to hunt the ocean. Second, we have the town square in recently passed Meracydia. I was just a little too late before their discord was deleted to deliver them this picture, but it’s here!

Third is Lusitania Harbor, one of the great builds as part of the early server — while they’re no longer active anymore, it’s still a picturesque spot to visit. Finally, we have HEGS Corp Tower in Blacklight, Gang Shi, although you’ll see it’s unfinished, it’s still the landmark spot in all of the city. I picked all four of them due to their lovely builds that would stand out among the crowd, along with some historical significance to each of their countries. Although they’re no longer here to read this message, I wish them all well in whatever future endeavors they work on!

Featured Article

Civcraft was a Civ server that is widely regarded as the pioneer of the Civ genre. Self-described as an “experiment for communities, political ideologies, debate and discussion”, it focused player-driven civilizations with minimal admin intervention, a wildly experimental format for its time. Launching its first iteration in 2012, its admin, ttk2, introduced many mechanics and design decisions that modern Civ takes for granted today, including Citadel, Bastions, FactoryMod and NameLayer, amongst a whole host of different plugins.

Civcraft’s main policy was to never interfere in in-game policies unless in drastic measures, only banning when breaking out of game or hacking rules, and attempted to never reset its world. However, several events forced them to reset the server twice. Civcraft 2.0, launched in 2013, is generally regarded as the most famous Civ server, having a considerable amounts of activity and media coverage and for a time, was the longest-lasting Civ server. Although they launched two further iterations, Civcraft would close in 2016 due to the retirement of its founder, but its mechanics, gameplay, and design would continue to live on in future servers such as CivClassic and today, CivMC.

This week’s featured article image is of the thumbnail to the Civcraft trailer. I can’t remember exactly the city’s name, but this was definitely circa 1.0/2.0. If anyone can remember, I’d definitely appreciate it!

This Week In Civ

You’ll notice this item has slightly changed. Now that I have two years of newsletters to work off of, at least for the next couple of months, you’ll be seeing news that happened in 2022 and 2023, along with some things that happened in the past that I can manage to find from the wiki.

On the week of May 20 - 26 in…

2018:

2022:

2023:

  • Nara announced their withdrawal from the Independent Southern Powers, citing power issues [including the Dalgon incident from the previous week.]
  • The Imperial Federation has elected its first parliament, with the United Constitution Party winning six out of its seven seats.
  • After voting for independence from a referendum last week in the Lesneria-Wlazestan region, Achiuwa reformed their country as a republic.
  • Lambatan President Kaprediem announced he would end regular play of Civ, with a semi-farewell post to wrap it up.
  • Return of the Civ was updated several times with improvement, but has stayed put at version 1.18.4.

Sand for Sale!Are you in need of sand? Well deep ocean mining is selling sand for only 18d per CS! That’s some of the cheapest prices on the server! Either message @radiant_banana for orders or visit us in Roma.

To place an ad here, take a peek at the ads & pricing page.


The News

Twilight along the coast of Shockton, Volterra.

Around the Server

Ironically, there’s actually not much news this week, so I guess that’s good!

Metagame Highlights


Open a Monument Bank Account today!Opening your own Monument Bank account is as easy as pie, head to discord.gg/civpavia to get started with no initial deposit required! Earn Interest, Trade Shares and Transfer freely to over 260 other players, businesses and nations!

To place an ad here, take a peek at the ads & pricing page.


The Fun Stuff

The classic Japanese harbor in the rain in Shiroyama, Nara.

Builds

Alright, I have a bunch of pictures from my travels with brand new shaders, and I’m here to give you the best ones:

Now, I have a lot more pictures from Vinland, Amboise, Meracydia, Lusitania, Venne, Gang Shi, and more but couldn’t get them off my Minecraft instance in time — I’ll throw them in here next week! But for now…

Memes or Cool Content

Which one is which? You’ll never know…

Non-Civ Content


To place an ad here, take a peek at the ads & pricing page.


Poll of the Week

The great pigeon in the center of Altepetl, Yoahtl.

Last week, we had 60 responses. Kind of hovering around this number for the past few weeks.

World Wonders, Part 5

Yes, yes, we know the drill with these world wonders right now, ok:

I know Margaritaville is quite loved by many people, so it’s great to see it got a lot of love here. Also great to see that Volterra City got a lot of love too, after I think last time it definitely underperformed. Shiroyama, of course, is really good as well. I’m only disappointed in Southshire because while impressive, it’s hard to reach and very few people have access to it.

This is how it’s stacked up so far, with Margaritaville being one of the first reaching the top 7 in weeks!

Swimming

Well, this next question is about if people could swim. I thought, hmm, this is a more complex question and more involved than just “touching grass”, so it’d be fun.

I’m pleased to know that the majority of Civ players do know how to swim at a basic level, which is kind of what I was getting at. And sure, there are some who can’t, which is OK. No judgement there.

For the one person who was so vocal in the open response section and believed this was a racially motivated question, what? Although this question was suggested by Xcios, he asked this because he’s a lifeguard, and I added the question because I thought it was funny. I will make people aware that this problem does exist but if you believed this was the intent, I sincerely apologize. I’m all for more representation within the swimming world. I watched Tunisian Ahmed Hafnaoui’s Gold Medal 400m race, live at the Tokyo Olympics a few years back, and it’s really impressive watching him beat all these white, probably highly educated, incredibly trained Western guys in the lanes above him. If you thought racism was the intent, shame on you.

Well, that was incredibly sad and/or pathetic but let’s move on to something more fun…

Favorite Civ Memes

I did ask for people’s favorite Civ memes, for this last question, and here’s a fun trip down memory lane. As a slightly inactive meme maker myself I thought it was time to take a look at the memes we once remembered. Here’s a few memes that were most responded.

The Civ Political Compass

Keeping its title as the top post of all time on r/CivClassic, the Civ Political Compass is an absolute masterpiece from Swordmaster with tons of detail that transcends memehood into legend.

They lost to Yoahtl

Even though it’s been nearly seven years since the Laconia-Yoahtl wars, this remains a resounding battlecry to the entire nation, not to mention it was well worth the $100

Boar, Sneed, etc.

I will say that despite most people not understanding Icenian culture, it’s great that they’ve developed their own memes after CivClassic, and has its very own unique identity that I really appreciate, even if, as a citizen, I only get maybe 60% of the jokes

Pissdog

Oh boy, what a mistake banning pissdog actually was for the CivMC admins. It’s so funny that something that is generally inoccuous and happens in at least 20% of all American homes that house dogs is considered NSFW by the Moderators. I can’t wait for this newsletter to be banned!

CivMC slander

It’s always nice revisiting these memes and seeing how incredibly accurate they are still a year later, great job from MtFuji

the Stonato Rant

It’s a thing where I don’t like people getting completely mentally deranged on Civ, but it’s still funny after nearly 10 years of Civ, not to mention the house remix. This is however, something that if you’re a newfriend, you definitely shouldn’t dig into.

add gun

Fun fact, this meme is technically a reality. Unlike cannibalism…

There’s way more, but one floating meme idea I’ve had in my head is to create/finish a Civ iceberg meme - although I have a draft but it’s definitely not good enough to fit in the newsletter…


Let’s Vote!

Here are your pictures for the sixth bucket out of eight world wonders on the server. I’ve managed to cut down a couple that don’t feel good enough and it’s gone down to eight rounds instead of nine.

Please note that all information submitted is anonymous. A red star (
*
) means that this question is required to submit.
Which of these places do you consider as world wonders?
Select all that are applicable.
Which do you consider yourself most like:
What's your favorite/funniest moments on CivMC (so far)?

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Inside Look Cry for Help

A grand look at Pavia’s Town Hall from the courtyard. In full view, too! (credit: speclang).

Something a little different for this week in celebration of the anniversary: For a behind-the-scenes look on how I make polls, featured articles, the ad sections, and gather pictures for the newsletter, I’ve recorded nearly an hour and a half explainer on how this part of the news works — it’s quite long, so you could just use this like a podcast or something. I’m working on editing a second part that shows how I write news, but that’ll be coming out hopefully soon.

I’d like to thank PhysicsGamer, Kingstell, ArtificialDriver, BritishWanderer, tybug, RedDevel and Soundtech this week for some great support this week on various things going on. There’s also the staff once again that I have to thank, Lodish, Xcios, BritishWanderer (again) and the many others sticking around for a while.

Of course, it’s an anniversary, but I really don’t want to make it a big deal this year. That being said, I do want to thank all of you for reading to the end, sticking around after 82 weeks, ticking your polls, and being so, so supportive of whatever the heck this thing has eventually turned out to be. Thank you all so much for making this newsletter the “publication” it is today, and for the outpouring support you’ve shown me over the past year.

I’ll probably have more words in the future, but I can’t think of it right now since I’m writing this on Monday morning with like, maybe 4 hours of sleep. The celebration, regardless, will keep going as the CivMC anniversary is in a couple of weeks, with Olympics happening? Who knows?

Well, I think that’s all the blabbering I’ll take out of your day this week. Until next time…


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