CivWiki Newsletter for May 20, 2024

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!

Featured

Featured Image

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Third is Lusitania Harbor, one of the great builds as part of the early server — while they’re no longer active anymore, it’s still a picturesque spot to visit.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.

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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!

• A few bans were issued to CivMC players.
  • SlothInASuit was banned for “doxxing”, although these claims were unsubstantiated and his ban was rescinded hours later.
  • Sdorr was banned on CivMC for 2 weeks after “threatening a player” in the global chat,, he believes that this was intended as a joke, although even with context, I couldn’t see that this was intended as a joke.
• The Temporal Empire, Baile, and the Yuan Empire announced the Peace Protection Pact, committing to mutual defense and non-aggression.
  • Not even a few hours later, Baile announced they would be withdrawing from the Pact citing that “TE has a complicated past and that we are not willing to commit to a mutual defense with them at this time”.
  • PhysicsGamer then posted on reflection on his efforts to reform himself and his reputation on the server, saying that he’s willing to make an effort to reform himself in whatever way possible to the community. The community responded in kind with suggestions.
• Highroll announced his departure from the game, following Icenia’s decision to extradite him to DockerImage, who he had previously had a bounty out for.
  • Highroll was previously pearled last week following his accidental entry into Icenia’s vault.
  • DockerImage’s bounty had been outstanding since April, citing several defamatory issues for the Moria Corporation. Highroll has said he would not fulfill the sentence, as he protests what it stands for along with his allegations that DockerImage raided him.
• RogueX7 was pearled by Cissonius after Rogue raided a Pavian shop filled with axes and attacked Cissonius.
• It should then be said that Pavia’s flag was stolen by Tophat, and was committed of a minor crime in Winterbourne.
• Kallos announced its return with a new claim near Lusitania, with a plan to build a city under the ocean, Bioshock-style.
• The Imperial Federation elected Gidein as their newest chancellor, with a 58% plurality of the vote.
• Another independent poll from ComradeSankara showed wide disapproval of SlothInASuit’s chancellorship, along with a worse economic outlook.
• It’s kind of news but for those looking for PvP practice, the Imperial Federation has been hosting pretty regular Bunkies events, reach out to @butter_villager or @SlothInASuit for more info.
• Meanwhile, Yoahtl’s general election concluded with x1025, Solitaire, Enzo and MechanicalRift being elected to the council with x1025 being elected as Alcuahtl.
• Pacem held another election with Wheaties, peyt1212 and Great_Shamalow being elected to the Council of State.
• Kaprediem announced that the transition to a constitutional monarchy would be moving to the end of the month, after being announced to happen on Sunday.
• Eldoria expanded after claiming they “are running out of space with [their] current claim”, although I cannot verify these claims
• Winterbourne announced Bowing Corporation’s newest division, Bowing Ice, which directly deals with governments and businesses to sell high quality ice. Hey, as long as the ice doesn’t fall out of the sky!

Metagame Highlights

• CivMC pushed two minor updates out this week, mostly fixing critical gameplay bugs this week. Among some of the notable ones were fixing crafting recipes being lost on logouts, and torch flowers being bone meal-able.
  • One annoying bug that hasn’t been fixed yet though, are fossils and essence not getting stacked from previous versions, which they’ve stated they’re working on.
• Shadno, HurinThalion, and Walkers were additionally onboarded as moderators. Congrats Brit, you’re no longer alone!
• Meanwhile, a new self-described Civ server, Realms of Andora, has been announced on VintageStory, launching soon. I know I don’t cover the Vintage Story Civ community that much, but it’s worth at least popping in and taking a peek. See their discord for more information…
• Owain_X provided an update on the ETA of CivRush’s 3rd iteration, saying that it’ll take some time due to IRL issues.
• Raeders is looking for provincial/regional maps of areas around CivMC. Are we going to see an atlas soon?
• There is a terrible trend this past week of posts on r/CivMC that are trying to make provocative meta-game content that isn’t very good, or fundamentally misunderstand why we play. I don’t want to take the Bronnakus position all the time but for this time I will:
  • Civ is not anarchy, and anarchy can’t be made Civ: Civ is a unique genre that is not an anarchy server
  • CivMC needs to have worldbuilding and games like TF2, HOI4, and others don’t have that capability, you’re basically just asking “do any of you want to play Paradox games with me?? pls??”
  • Civ iterations are meant to be long-lasting for civilizations to thrive, we don’t need a new iteration of CivMC right now, thanks
  • This being said, an experimental Civ server is badly needed for the genre to innovate. Come on Reign/Cubed, we need you
• A poll shows that there’s at least 2/3 of people who own their own spawnbook. For those curious, I have absolutely no idea where mine is.
• I’ve updated the Mods page to be 1.20.4 compatible! In terms of wiki content, I’m hoping to also create a page with a list of Civ servers to at least declutter the front page that’s full of mods.

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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:

• Volterra Prime & Shockton’s pictures came out really well with the sunglares, and the night lights.
• Shiroyama Harbor also had a similar effect with the dim lights twinkling through the rain
• Griffin’s canals with the shining rays look really cool as well.
• Yoahtl’s main square with the pigeon looks like a good featured article image to me.
• Danzilona’s main square, even in the rain, looked incredibly slick
• Icenia’s skyscrapers still look like a great Minecraft city
• Of course Pavia’s Town Hall has the sunniest weather and glows up
• I think this may be the first full screenshot of the SPQR Coliseum, Bobby is a fantastic mod, along with their train station looking like vintage photos of Penn Station

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…

• Withervale has some very sexy renders
• Vinland’s town center looks cool with this zoomed-like perspective
• EngineeringBean says that this photo of New Sol looks random but I actually really like the buildings
• It’s high FOV, but here’s a picture of New Callisto from Asgeir that shows the city’s rapid expansion (and vault)
• Also high FOV, but because it’s a panorama view of Winterbourne harbor from the mountains to the sea
• I know LilacTwilight is new in Icenia, so I do want to highlight their Japanese-style trading hall that is a great addition to the city!
• Finally, Drekamor has made another high quality render of Icenia that still shows the great scope of the city

Memes or Cool Content

Which one is which? You’ll never know…

• Forged has an amazing produced ad for his sniffer business, it’s really cool!
• Of the daily Ghas News this week: Chum bucket, Plankton, revamp with too much space, Mr Krabs, potatoes, and Waffle House
• Another daily thing which I will get tired of seeing map reposting but photoshopped badly

Non-Civ Content

• No baseball since nothing happened but you have to watch Summoning Salt Tetris
• For the transport-pilled players (I hope bgbba is looking at this), here’s nearly a 30 minute long interview with Secretary of Transportation of Pete Buttigieg and Viral TikTok Sensation Hank Green
• I tried out using Arc Browser this week — honestly, it feels like a good modern browser that I’ve had some fun with, but be warned, only Mac users will really feel the best benefits of this. Although, it’s also bad because it’s Chromium
• So after I’m reminded of playing Pikmin 4 last year with Schaffrillas’ “review”, I am also reminded of these absolutely unhinged freaks putting Pikmin ads in Times Square

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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.

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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