CivWiki Newsletter for June 10, 2024

Good morning and happy Pride Month from California!

Wait a second… that doesn’t look right…

For realsies though, I’m now on the West Coast, and staying here now. It’s actually over for newsletter cels in Europe. As a result of moving on the West Coast, the publishing schedule is going to change quite a bit. If you’re an early reader next week, you’ll notice that the newsletter is extremely early than usual, especially for this amount of content. Hopefully, this will be the standard going forward.

On the plus side though, you get an early newsletter!

Well, that’s enough logistics blabbering, it’s time to celebrate Pride on Civ! Let’s get to the news!

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is of a view from Fempire’s Rainbow Bridge. As I didn’t celebrate Pride Month specifically last week (for obvious circumstances), I decided this newsletter would be the best time to do so! With Fempire’s support of LGBTQ+ culture as well as its colorful rainbow bridges it was basically a perfect fit. From the background you’ll see lanterns, the NoTruePunk memorial, a giant ship, and the Rainbow Bridge’s full extent. The only thing I couldn’t quite get in the picture was the Ice Hockey arena, but it’s quite bedazzled with rainbows too! Great work and I can’t wait to come back.

Featured Article

The Entrana Republic was a nation on CivClassic 2.0 that intended to be a successor city to Pacem. Founders of the country travelled to the southeastern quadrant of the server for more populous players in summer 2018, constructing a German-like government. Consisting of mainly oak and stone structures in European styles, the country eventually took shape around Freelands, another country in the region which merged later on.

Entrana had build considerable relationships with other nations, formalizing an embassy row and completing a long sought-after rail connection to The Commonwealth via the Entrana Transcontinental Express, and built a modest XP and brewing economy revolving around agriculture. The founders of the nation eventually moved back to Pacem in the later part of CivClassic. The territory eventually became owned by Cortesia Del Mar in the server’s later years.

This week’s featured article image is a view from the wheat fields of Entrana, looking towards the town.

Starter Guide Bounty

No “This Week In Civ”, this feature will return next week.

The News

The three remaining LGBTQ+ flags in Pavia’s Courtyard outside of Town Hall. A little dark, sorry!

Sloth Antics, Part 1

The first one isn’t the one you probably came here for, but because it was chronologically first. However, this section is important for context for the following section.

• A conflict between PhysicsGamer and SlothInASuit became public once again.
  • A few weeks earlier, SlothInASuit messaged Nara government of their presence at a bunker, and was pearled for it. The pearl containing Sloth was only released last week.
  • PhysicsGamer announced a 100d bounty on SlothInASuit and Jarlatos for violating Temporal Empire’s tree farm access.
  • SlothInASuit posted later that week, alleging that PhysicsGamer had been intentionally deceptive against him when dealing with Nara from the incident above.
  • This post saw significant backlash against Sloth, with Bronnakus accusing of withholding conversations from them, as well as others dismissing his strategy.
  • PhysicsGamer eventually responded to this post with another post. It’s short enough I can summarize it:
    • Sloth thought it was Naran, but it was an incomplete bunker; Physics notified Nara and dispatched players to pearl him (resulting in the above)
    • Later investigation saw it was impossible and claims were dropped against him.
    • The tree farm issues were unrelated, and as a side note the bounty was raised.
  • The post also saw confusion about a debt still in Doom City, which was ultimately cleared up as, again, was unrelated to this specific conflict.

Sloth Antics, Part 2

As a reminder to what we know at this point, there is a 300d bounty on SlothInASuit.

• SlothInASuit and Jarlatos skirted by Estalian territory on Sunday afternoon. Both logged out just off the coast, signalling Estalia, and fighters became active to claim the previously mentioned bounty.
• After quickly logging back in, both players went opposite directions to split their pursuers.
  • Jarlatos was headed towards Exyria, but was pearled just before entering Exyria territory.
  • Sloth instead headed and successfully reached a bunker in the Imperial Federation. Although Estalia entered the territory and some reached the bunker, they did not intend to pursue Sloth after entering.

The above is pretty much all I can say about the conflict without anyone getting mad at me. Most of the evidence is locked up in DMs, and I respect their privacy.

• The Imperial Federation made a statement following the incident, reaffirming their stance on bounty hunters and locking down Vanaheim.
• Although no other statements were released other parties regarding this incident, the Imperial Federation, Estalia, and Temporal Empire are currently in talks with each other to discuss next steps.

Important News

Eire in Amicitia, a farming district on the sea with beautiful views! (cr: BlueBox97)

Bad news guys, the news isn’t over yet.

• While not directly Civ news, Mojang had significant problems with logins over the past week.
  • However, CivMC admins received numerous complaints about this issue, compelling them to make an announcement later that week to not report this issue.
  • Ironically, earlier this week admins had noticed the server had crashed for some reason, but supposedly nobody had pinged an admin for this issue.
• The Pavia Reform Act was passed last week in Pavia, signalling major implications for the country’s government.
  • The government’s transition to a democracy had major implications for the country’s affairs including the arrival of many political parties in the country.
  • Additionally, one Pavia Finance has been launched by creepi0n, a financial interest group that intends to maintain the economic status quo in the country.
  • A very short campaign period occurred over this weekend, which had tons of polls, campaign speeches and interviews.
  • Finally, Pavia elected CedarValiant to become the country’s prime minister after two rounds, while retaining paagf as the country’s emperor.
  • He made an appointment with Toaxbis becoming the country’s first Secretary of State, as well as fulfilling a day one promise, formalizing a bounty hunting ban.
• However, after just under 48 hours in the position, CedarValiant unexpectedly resigned as Prime Minister, causing the Nobility to call upon Emperor Paagf to install an emergency government.
  • Emperor Paagf announced his appointment of an acting Prime Minister in Cissonius, who will govern until the next elections on June 15th.
  • Prime Minister Cissonius quickly made a swath of appointments, with SirFrenchie, GetSkinny and BritishWanderer all being appointed to cabinet positions. They were further joined by appointees Seekinq & Hitobashuru.
• In related news, OreStraya is selling his 300 share stake in Monument Bank, representing ~30% of the company in a few weeks.
• In other financial news, Sirboss posted an idea of a proper insurance company, and later posted intro polls on initial insurance assessment in Pavia discord, as Pearl Protection Insurance.
  • Editor’s comment: while I have been joking about Civ credit cards in discords, I don’t think we’re that far away from something like that happening!
• A leak on Reddit outlined recipes on how to make various drugs, a later post eventually reposted this same info.
• While a large argument occurred in the comments that has since been removed, supposedly this conflict spilled into in-game affairs involving pearls in Heikki, although I did not have time to confirm or research this conflict.

Still Important News

• Icenia announced the return of the Jah Day Celebrations on June 18, with exclusive map art and a small PvP tournament.
• SpeedyJustice announced the Patriot Transportation Company, planning to develop roads, stables and a GPS system for CivMC.
• Zatoka announced another revival! Let’s hope this one sticks around.
• The_Orange_Lord was pearled. This meme might have to do something with it, although once again I cannot confirm
• Hayastan announced a new nation in the Southern Sea to succeed the previous countries in the region.
• Darth_Chini announced his departure as Consul of SPQR at the end of the month, opting to return to life with friends in Vinland.
• A new nation, Artonia was announced in the far northwest, although banned Baile, Vinland, and SPQR citizens from their territory; all three countries are located nearby.
• Volterra, at the time of writing, is wrapping up its elections, with a special election being held for Cicero to gain another term as Lord Paramount
• A midterm poll of the Imperial Federation showed a very mixed reception on nearly all positions of power, from the Chancellorship to the Senate, even while Gidein was in power.
• It took them forever, but the ASN formally announced their extension of associate memberships to Baile and Vinland. I totally didn’t leak it two weeks ago!

Metagame Highlights

• What are the most “powerful countries” on CivMC?
• Among the things that Realms of Andora is developing is a comprehensive disease and diagnosis system to enhance gameplay.
• I need to commend Quanton_Biscuit for the immense amount of content and changes that were made to the Grasslands Gambit page!

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The Fun Stuff

A sunset arrives through the buildings of As’Kuyea, Baile. (cr: me!)

Builds

I would have time to research more builds this week but I did not.

• Nidaros from above looks reallly nice and it’s really cool to see it grow! (cr: ObtainableSpat)
• Potato_Duke has been showing off a few builds in San Pietro, a new town in a far northern territory of the Imperial Federation that look fantastic
• Amicitia shows off Eire, their farming colony that looks like if the Dutch transported their farms out to the sea (cr: BlueBox97)

Cool Content

• While yes, it is a meme, I think it is worth commending the effort that mTfUJi puts into CivMC slander.
  • I do find it funny though, that I basically leaked Baile and Vinland joining the ASN from Icenia chat, and they didn’t formally announce it until days later and that made it in
• Tophat put out a post for those interested in Mineinator creations, and made a post for them later in the week. Unfortunately I don’t think people found that Tophat also decided to take a break from Civ for his mental wellbeing, safe travels!
• TheJmqn posted their perspective of the Imperial Federation Constitutional Convention, which I didn’t put in last week but is still cool

Memes

• I’m gonna call Yoahtl “Russian” (although this joke is so dead)
• Ok, but this Nara post does have a point
• Not to say this isn’t an accurate newfriend experience, but yeah…
• Finally people are realizing why talking too much with low content value is a bad thing
• It’s only a coincidence that I rediscovered the “Tom Scott Introducing Places” meme and OneDest is a very good application of it

Non-Civ Content

• Those with keen eyes earlier this week probably already know I’m in Seattle, it’s fun but hopefully I won’t be frozen
• My earworm this week, courtesy of Doctor Who
• Let’s hope that Civ 7 doesn’t fracture the community like the last two games and is also good
• I cannot be a harder shill for Dropout since Game Changer is parodying “The Circle” with the most absurd characters, I’m repping for Adjustable Side Table, Walnut

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Poll of the Week

A star fort in San Pietro, Imperial Federation, a new construction project courtesy of Potato_Duke.

Last week, we had 52 responses.

Wonders, Part 8 (and the final results!)

We’ve finished working through all the world wonders! Last week’s results looked like this:

Vinland and Imperia, very good choices for the top scorers this week. But here’s how it shaked up in the grand scheme of things:

I’d like to proudly give the unofficial CivMC’s eight wonders of the world to:

• Town Hall, Pavia
• Vetranio Castle, Pavia
• Suramir, Estalia (aka 0,0)
• Rainbow Bridge, Fempire
• Coliseum, SPQR
• Margaritaville
• Adria, Griffin
• NoTruePunk Memorial, Winterbourne

(Picture credits are in order: speclang, speclang, Shadno, speclang, SlothInASuit, MaybeGravy, Seekinq, and Princess__Bow.)

Yes, it’s eight, but these were far and away the top vote getters — the next section were in a cluster below this. Also, I excluded Main Street because Pavia would just have too much stuff and I’d like some varied wonders, if it were me.

This is, of course, a pretty subjective and non-comprehensive list and was pretty much just a fun experiment so I could fill questions within the polls. Be glad this set of questions are over now!

Travel Length

Interesting to see that most people do travel a fair amount, and also interesting to see this is actually a bell curve of responses. Travelling across the server is as easy as ever and people do it fairly often. I don’t really have a lot of insights here, it’s probably because there are just a lot of economic centers in each region that have their own specializations, so people travel to these places a lot looking for bargains or special goods. Or just a tourist!

Catchphrases & Copypasta

The open response question last week was about favorite catchphrases and copypastas that people have. Let’s start off short and sweet and go with:

gm

If you’re not a regular in Pavia chat, I personally don’t know why you see so many “good mornings”. As a West Coast resident now, I personally find it extremely funny when the first Good Mornings come around at…11pm Pacific time…

Peace in our time

Mercutio’s rallying cry, as always. We should all aspire to have peace in our time, whether it’s a war, a cold war, or whatever.

They made Imperial Truidence 15 blocks higher

Of course, Truidencia looks amazing now, but in CivClassic when it was frisbee time, bgbba could not be malding harder.

addy and vanax have the respect, trust, and autonomy to do these kinds of things first, and justify it to leadership so we can disseminate the information publicly

Remember when toontasker actually used this in an unironic sense to try and salvage even the slightest bit of Rhode Island public opinion? That was fun.

In case anyone is confused, there is a tradition of having BritishWanderer make these posts, since he has the best individual relations with the community. It was likely written by somebody who would have been shat all over had they been the one to actually make the post, and I doubt BritishWanderer even read it before he copypasted it here on their behalf.

Yeah, even I used this one for ads. While this copypasta’s context has been long gone, I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that Brit has some of the best relations with people in the community, so it’s not only funny, but accurate.

It was hard to believe that 8 months ago my life changed…Somehow, the admin of that server got her phone number… mom asked me if I could call him dad, just to make him feel more welcome…A few months later my mom came in. She was glowing. They had an announcement, they were expecting a baby!…Usually they locked the door but I was lucky this time. “Hey, dad… wanna play some Bunkies with me?”…He smiled and jumped out of bed.

We both logged on together for the first time. I was so happy to see:

Adderall has joined the server Ian_X12 has joined the server

I don’t know why but this copypasta always gets me, no matter how fast or slow I scroll for these things. Gosh darn it.

Vote Now!

For this first question, although I’m asking about pronoun usage, this is merely a poll and is not going to be reflected in any way.

When writing the news, I try to use they/them pronouns when referring to players — unless I’m familiar with a person or their pronouns are stated/obvious. But if I misuse them, please forgive me! It’s something I always make mistakes on with these long writeups.

Prideful Cry for Help

A flock of birds surround x1025 at the Olympic Stadium.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

What a nightmare this one actually was. I was writing this one while zooming all over the country this week. A huge, huge thanks to the following people for their messages, whether I said I read them or not:

• DockerImage
• PhysicsGamer
• Zalvv
• Cissonius
• BritishWanderer
• Xcios
• Forged
• Sdorr
• ChrisChrispie
• Jaydon
• SlothInASuit
• Quanton_Biscuit
• Potato_Duke
• Jalhf
• ShadySauce (especially for turning my PFP into an emote)
• Walkers
• Gregy165
• Gray
• Hakr_

Phew, I think that’s it unless I left anybody out for information.

As usual, if you’d like to help me in any capacity with these newsletters, I greatly appreciate it (considering I am going to only get busier over the next few months), and you can message me @specificlanguage on Discord for more information.

Otherwise, thanks for reading, and I will see you all next week! Until next time…

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