CivWiki Monday Newsletter for June 19, 2023

Good morning and happy Juneteenth from New England!

We’re so back on the weekly grind.

I’m sure there’s people who have no idea what this is after a month being AWOL, and it’s a weekly newsletter (which although it was not weekly last week, is going to be weekly once again) that just wraps up all the events that have happened on Civ, along with historical context and highlights that save yourself from the misery of the normal news cycle, which you’re probably going to see this week.

For returning people, the newsletter may look a little different. It’s a brand new website that’s built from the ground up by me. For more information about how I built it over break, take a look at the about page.

You can kind of tell I’ve been stockpiling news, polls, and ideas since a month ago. I missed so much over the break that this week it’s going to be quite a read. We have to cover so much, so let’s not waste any more time.

Are we ready for the news?

The News

Another War, Another Indiscernable Name

Several Icenians ready for combat during the Butternut conflict.

I’m sure you guys were waiting for this one.

I know I’ll gloss over quite a few details, but that’s what you get when you’re away for a month and trying to condense two weeks of a war down to words. This is especially the case since information during a war is hard to come by. I happily encourage corrections and will do so as soon as humanly possible.

Why did Butternut claim they were starting the war (although, it’s been a while since the real “start” of the war):

• One of their main reasons was because Icenia refused to build a statue of Bewsiej who helped to tear down obbybombed grief in Icenia post-Generic War.¹
• They also claimed Icenia took over their shared nether portal in the region.

But even though nobody’s saying anything about it, I highly suspect it’s just a war of revenge against Icenia:

• For one, Butternut may feel as if SoundTech, an admin supposedly associated with Icenia, had a say in their removal not just recently, but also with their friends at Rhode Island in the Generic War.
• Additionally, Gang Shi is an easy ally since, you know, Icenia basically won their war against them a couple weeks prior.

Butternut on the Offensive

How does this war start? I would begin at the dawn of man but we can start talking about stuff from maybe three weeks ago.

• Ez2Clutch, a former Rhode Islander, was surprised to learn he was unbanned in early June. He was banned during the previous banwave as part of the Generic War.
• Upon rejoining the server, he began raiding with chosentwicelol, who had a history of raiding Icenia.
• Their new supporters were Butternut. There’s stuff to talk about that, but we’ll get to that in a few minutes. Ez2Clutch and chosentwice eventually started raiding areas in Icenia through early June.

Throughout the next couple of days, Icenia and the SEC as well as Estalia and the EP attempted to pearl the duo.

• On June 4, Zolo and Jamiemie were pearled by the duo and moved their pearls to Butternut vault.
• On June 6, Raeders, JuniorTide and Yodabird were also pearled; this was thanks to the help of an extremely interesting tactic of deconstructing and reconstructing Icenian traps to be under the raiders’ groups.
• On June 7, Mushroom_Cultist along with SapienFrfx and Spoonce were pearled in Icenia.

But before going forward we need to talk about Butternut, as it came with a bit of resurgence in their playerbase.

• SoundTech eventually banned several Butternutters for association.
• In response, ComradeNick made a public post asking “Why are Butternut banned?”, citing frustrations with the admins about their policy of association bans.
  • Although these were very damning arguments, a legitimate concern for many comments was that NONE of the points did not necessarily have any evidence put forward publicly.
  • After talking with ComradeNick about the post, it did seem a lot of the issues were of the timing and admin policies surrounding bans.
  • Keep in mind, even accusations of collusion could be turned down pretty quickly
• These bans were seemingly reversed the next day after the post. One of the people that also got unbanned (around that time) was Kicky.
• This is partially the reason why some of the pearls you see in /ep showall are banned Rhode Island players, as Kicky was already pearled but previously banned to prevent a bug with health loss. As a result, admins returned the pearls to Estalia.

Once again, this surely had nothing to do with the war or what’s going to happen at all.

• Ez2Clutch was also pearled following falling into a sand trap. However, this was almost wasn’t the case:
  • On June 7, when Mushroom and Sapien were attempting to pearl him, Ez2Clutch fell into a sand trap. Usually, that would be it, until he used his One-Time Teleport (which was added last week to aid newfriends) to get to Butternut and escape the trap.
  • This became the first documented use of the One-Time Teleport in combat. There are quite a few ethical issues with this in regards to raiders, such as Ez2, but for later circumstances SoundTech confirmed they used the version used on CivReign, which was not entirely sound.
  • After discovery of the utility of One-Time-Teleport abuse, both sides utilized it to their advantage on the various skybunkers to quickly get fighters from one place to another.
• However Ez2Clutch would fall into another sand trap the following day and be pearled by Lagiacrus.
• Ez2Clutch, now basically perma-pearled, decided to leave Civ.
• June 8 also saw PhysicsGamer and Fastestgrass get released from the Arsenio Pact vault after getting insided by Red_Steel. Red_Steel was ultimately kicked out of the SEC while both released players joined Butternut² in their efforts against Icenia.
• As Gang Shi fighters were getting released, other unpearled Gang Shi fighters eventually came out of the woodwork to contribute to the cause. Additionally, they recruited PvPers from Loka to join the cause.

A Quick Run to the Store

Sirboss001 in the skybridge towards Butternut’s Vault.

It took them about a week, until June 11, before Icenia’s main vault, dubbed the Whole Foods, was attacked. An attack bunker (dubbed Trader Joe’s because, it’s a food war) was created first and eventually a skybridge quickly approached the vault.

• Haxxor, a log-on PvPer for the SEC, betrayed them and abused his access to let Butternutters from their skybridge into the WholeFoods skybunker.
• Complexii was pearled by chosentwicelol, and President ChrisChrispie was pearled by Haxxor during the fighting.

So if you’ve been reading up to now, the SEC is down a vault.

• The next day (June 12th), Perc_Jackson outlined “new guidelines for Icenia” after it being “liberated”. However, besides a few raided houses, the city remains under Icenian control; they haven’t obbybombed it to hell like during the Generic War.
• Small skirmishes continued in known bunkers in Icenian territory; Gwua and several friends attempted to break Cane Corp’s bunker on June 14 and 15th, but the latter attack resulted in his pearl.

So the next logical step for Icenia was to go and skybridge their vault.

• Icenia and the SEC then attempted to skybridge the Butternut vault on the 16th and 17th, but were quickly stopped as Butternut had insiders on the attacking skybridge.
• Seared, Awesome_Daniel, and Jessie_Jinx were then pearled that day but not before Butternut lost Fur and Highroll later on that day.
• Most recently on June 18, another attempted attack on CaneCorp resulted in a pearl of SlothinaSuit, after he tried to 1v1 Slushhi.
• Unfortunately, Butternut attacked the CaneCorp bunker and have since taken over the area.

The situation is still evolving, and Butternut is continuing their offensive on the country for the foreseeable future. When asked about the war, Elithys said:

We’ve endured the Generic War where we were viewed with suspicion from both sides, and at the end of that war one of our members, bewsiej, happened to have the Icenia grief groups…

…Since then we’ve lived relatively peacefully although tensions with our neighbor, Icenia, have always been there in the background, over various things - petty territorial disputes, ownership of a nether portal, grievances over what Butternut builds in their own land, jabs toward Butternut in public channels, etc. If we were a smaller nation you’d almost think that Icenia was trying to intentionally bully us for their own entertainment, knowing that we couldn’t retaliate. And as it just so happens, over the months, we’ve heard the calls for help from Temporal Isles, Gang Shi and other small nations, who have been labeled “shitters” as an excuse for a huge nation like Icenia (and even larger alliance - SEC) to bully and even completely destroy them.

Well no more, we say. Butternut has joined forces with the survivors of Icenian oppression, both belonging to a group completely wiped by SEC and also individuals, to put an end to the Icenian terror. And to be completely clear, we have no intention of destroying their community or wiping their Civ nation as they have done to those they’ve targeted. We recognize that the vast majority of Icenians are innocent citizens, trying to survive the daily abuse by the Icenian government. As such all we ask for is the leaders of Icenia to surrender, face a trial and serve their time, and for the citizens of Icenia to stop misguidedly trying to protect their corrupt regime and to lay down their arms against the Liberation Forces. Many Icenians have already rebelled in support of us (and faced harsh punishment and even abuse from the Icenian leadership) and we are heavily moved by their bravery and courage.

Please note that all war information was provided by Icenia, as Elithys has stated that “I cannot currently comment on the specifics of operations, I’m sure you understand.” I do.

War Propaganda

So we’ve pretty much covered about everything that’s happened in-game, let’s engage in a little drug called subreddit PvP…

• Butternut’s Daily Nut returned releasing their version of statements prior to the Whole Foods bridge
• Ch1pr asked the server their opinions of the war., with a good amount for the SEC and a good amount for Butternut, as well as a hearty amount just so tired of fighting.
• Nova_Kaiserin, the founder of CivCraft’s Icenia, denounced Icenia. That’s it.
• SpeedyJustice made a very poorly received post wishing for positivity in Civ, except prior to the edit it really sounded like it was using clout about Punk’s death for optimism) rallying around support for the SEC.
• The Imperial Federation and the Blue Cross announced aid and refuge for pearled and buildfriend SEC fighters.
• Sdorr pointed out in his own post about the hypocrisy of Butternut’s statements and their possible future
• JuniorTide posted about his history with Icenia
• Quanton_Biscuit from Icenia released a statement on Icenian discord moderation, and said that the accusations of admin collusion and VPN players, are false.
• Justitiaria squashed any and all rumors that Volterra would be entering the conflict.
  • I have heard rumors that the other EP nations, such as SPQR³, Estalia, Pavia were supporting different kinds of sides, but honestly I don’t even know if they want to get involved.
• PresidentofYes12 posted about how Butternut’s aggression should be punished as these actions seem a little heavyhanded
• NovaCaesar appointed fastestgrass as the third Director of the Transport Union, as congratulations for removing Icenia. They had issues with their portal in the past.
• And finally, most importantly, bgbba came back with the milk and then he remembered what kind of house he left and decided to leave again

And bgbba is right. I hate myself for spending four headings on this and spending a whole Saturday trying to understand this mess. Like who the fuck names this war Butt Sex? I need another, much longer vacation…

Footnotes

• ¹ - fastestgrass was in negotiations to be released normally, which involved residency in Mercutio. He eventually regretted joining the war. I’m leaving a few steps out for clarity’s sake.
• ² - Icenia were supposedly willing to construct the statue, however were still determining a place to determine the city. I’m sure Butternut were willing to be patient enough to find a decent place that made the city work, right, and totally not warmonger their way to have a casus belli right?
• ³ - This screenshot was taken from The Daily Nut, in context to the mass banning of Butternut. This however, is not the case for the other two nations mentioned in this bulletpoint.

CivMC News

Hold on to your seats, guys, there’s a lot of extra news that happened in the span of a month that isn’t the war…

Please note that some events are ommitted due to this covering four weeks of information, and minor news from that timeframe may not make it here.

Lyrean & Northwest

Sunrise of Pavia from Beford Commons.

• Pavia…had a lot going on during the last month…
  • During an anniversary parade in the city during early June, Crown Prince BritishWanderer IV declared himself Emperor BritishWanderer, turning the country into the Empire of Pavia. This was, suffice it to say, unprecedented.
  • Despite the shock announcement and the missing disappearance of Jimmy the Jester, as time went on citizens and dukes were welcoming of the change.
  • BritishWanderer continued his longevity as emperor with improving the state treasury, regularly assemble the dukes for advisory purposes, and implement the new Guides system to help newfriends within the state.. He’s also creating a new way for the electorate to expand from dukes to high-ranking citizens.
  • In completely tone deaf news, Pavia also released their latest census, completed in mid-May.
• The Monument Bank has also presented its financial statement for May 2023 recently as well.
• Lambat are requiring any future projects in the territory to submit a project proposal to prevent any future infrastructure incidents in the territory. So much bureaucracy…
• Achiuwa was denounced by the leaders of Lesneria-Wlazestan, not before saying that Warmia was not behind this denouncement at all.
• Not that it’s that much of an issue now, but the SEC announced who would get the former Gang Shi territory:
  • Most of the land would be freed; several major nations surrounding the territory would also get a share of the land as well.
  • However, there would be an exclusion zone around the vault to prevent anyone from using the vault, as well as to expedite cleanup.
• Subsequently, Zatoka announced they would be moving into former Gang Shi land a couple days later.

Alenarith/Southeast

A render of Mount Augusta, one of the telltale signs to see whether a Civ server will have a good longevity.

As we continue our trek across the server, did you not think we’d see news from the quadrant that’s most known for taking things out of proportion?

• Mali has found an old flag of Lusitania’s and inquires them about bringing them back here
• Continuing up the coast, Ila’Kyavul declaimed a bit of territory.
• Cortesia Del Mar passed several decrees during the past month.
  • First, on June 1, the start of Pride Month, to affirm themselves as a safe space for LGBTQIA+ individuals
  • Second, on June 7, announcing a Condemnation of Obbybombing. That will be very effective!
• Additionally, Cortesia also held a game of extreme hockey, a new experimental version of hockey on Civ.
• Nara’s colony, Mali, have published two editions of newspapers to highlight happenings in their corner of the world.
• In more important news, Nara is now in the Elysian Pact. There is nothing else I can say about that.
• Transylvania had a lot of stuff this past month (but I’m not covering everything)
  • After a rapprochement of relations with Plrog and Miday, he was banned from the discord after griefing and discord drama. There’s a little more pettiness in this situation than I can handle today so here’s just a link with a summary from the guy
  • The Transylvanian president stepped down only days after getting re-elected, with four candidates now running in the race in the snap election (well, now it’s three after Katz withdrew, but who’s counting)
• Mount Augusta reelected ASomb as mayor — with five votes to none for his opponent? What’s going on over there?
• Danzilona have elected new coordinators for its cooperatives.

Rest of the West

Aetherix’s hotel in Imperia, ready for wandering tourists in the Imperial Federation.

We’re heading clockwise around to the warzone guys, don’t worry.

• The Imperial Federation and DonFuer signed the Frostlands Treaty, which binds the countries to a mutual defense treaty.
• Prime Minister King_Cupar also announced a slew of territorial changes for the IF, along with a new Treaty of Myra which gave them several security guarantees from the SEC.
• The Imperial Federation (along with Venne) have announced the Summer Olympics, set to occur sometime in August.
• The United Tribes of the Southern Seas joined the IF and also posted a cool paper
• King_Cupar apologized for pearling Plupsnup, all over a 9/11 profile picture
  • It’s just disappointing that it’s come to this and he quit following this drama
• The CCTT started seeing blocks that didn’t render;, it just took patience to be able to fix them. It turns out this was the least of their worries.
• CredixYt was deposed as the Icarus’ prime minister with Jamiemie taking the helm. Although now I look at the post, it would be successor, not predecessor.
• Eon was deepslate bombed for some reason which is unrelated to the war, I think
• The Commonwealth held a poker tournament this past weekend, through an automated poker machine at the Thousand Years Horseman. Everyone had fun, and there was a big pot for everyone to win.
• Pacem is holding a build night — oh look at that it’s this Thursday!!

Server Updates

A slew of updates came running through CivMC throughout late May and early June.

• Wordbank was finally added by RedDevel on May 22, with a large amount of contributors to the final list. I’m very proud of the person who put in, “Jesus Saves, Squareblob Shaves”.
• RedDevel was also the mastermind behind the anniversary celebrations (although there wasn’t that much.)
• As a “reward”, RedDevel was promoted to be an admin the following week.
• With a new moderator position opening up, CivMC also opened up new moderator applications that are still open today.
• The anniversary celebration, held on the weekend of June 3, included
  • Doubled ore rates
  • More city spawns
  • An update to netherite pickaxes to bonuses
  • Adding amethyst to the HiddenOre drop pool
  • A lored cake that was given to all users online on June 4th, to celebrate the occasion.
  • And also, One-Time-Teleport, allowing players to request a teleport once to a location that they prefer.

One-Time-Teleport has been present on other servers, but because it was added midway through the server’s run, everyone on CivMC was granted a single one-time-teleport. There were also additional bugs from dimension teleportation, especially considering it was the implementation from CivReign.

As was already stated, this was used to controversial effect during the war, as users would regularly use this to easily teleport people in and out of fights during the war.

Other Servers

The Joja Winery on, fittingly, Joja Isle.

• SouthernBloc has hinted a return to VintageCiv after nearly a year out of the game, with a “whole idea board” to work on
• Nickflik oversaw an overhaul of Return of the Civ from adding several new mods and a full world reset throughout late May and early June
• Nobody really paid attention but I assume that people only know that Cortwade left the CivReign staff to play full time on CivMC in an Acadia revival. Ironically, this is the only news I’ve heard from Reign in a very long while.
• As much as I can say for CivCubed, Mochas has joined the staff on team, and Janet Blackquill has been working on sigil slimes, essentially pearls 1.1

Metagame Highlights

• In the wake of the war, Xcios posted his perspectives on Civ, and also really hates the circlejerk of the past six years of the same old war with main character syndrome. Nothing in the post mentioned the war, so guess what it’s here!
• Solitaire returns with more advertisements for CivMC!
• You’re now obligated to say whether you’ve finished these projects or not
• People keep finding this server through Ish, this is not that type of server where we have a big YouTuber with millions of 9 year olds willing to participate in “social experiments”
• Just the fact that someone has been pearled for 12 hours as a newfriend is a bit absurd…
• This guy is super confused about everything going on, and you know what man? Me too.
• map.civmc.tk has been updated with information about towns and settlements.
• Sirboss has some ideas about war reporters but I think the reality is that it’s very hard to be in the middle of the firefight. Especially if you don’t know the battle is happening beforehand if you’re outside the loop.
• RektTangle continues his quest to tell everyone to touch some grass because this conflict is extremely pointless
  • I think Henderwicz has the best view on this because I can’t be entirely cynical about the state of Civ
• Speaking about cynicism, I’m very sad that nobody is taking an actual, unironic request for information about the war seriously. This is literally why people complain about the CivWiki having no content…
• Several people announced they were quitting, either as a frustration with the political landscape or being permapearled.
  • Two people mentioned earlier, Ez2Clutch and Plupsnup were both banned after being pearled.
  • Prior to the war, one of those quitters was SlothInAsuit, for which there was an outpouring of support. He would be unpearled at the start of the Butternut War, and then pearled only a few days later for getting in a 1v1.
  • RektTangle did another quitting post later this week, mostly due to exhaustion over the lack of recognition over his effort — I will say that despite his (and my) jadedness, I definitely think it’s true he never got appreciated for all the work he’s done since I met him several years ago, and I’m going to miss you — all the best to you!
• Finally, Rinvincibl3 realizes that everyone is getting so dramatic over virtual e-block wars, like I loved touching grass too and I think more people need to do it too

Please keep reading until the end of the newsletter, there’s a quick poll and CivWiki-specific updates towards the end!

The Fun Stuff

It was the highlight last week, but here’s The Enchanted City of Aeros, by ItzHoover.

Builds

• First, we got a sneak peek of Aeros from Hoover, and then we get a full blown advertisement from them. Exciting!
• The Joja Corporation displays the full breadth of their build collections throughout the server
• Like I said, Mount Augusta needs to have a render for every successful iteration or else the iteration isn’t successful, but the specific buildings in the city are increasing in quality
• Cortwade is showing off Port Turing, and more importantly, his shaders
• The Imperial Federation has been on a tear this past month, from their new Tower Bridge in Imperia and the row houses next door.
• A build collection picture is not complete without Pavia
• Griffin, of course is pulling out banger after banger, and I hope they never stop!
• I’m sure Commonwealth is going to ask me to highlight the Tricon building, but something a little more quaint like the Thousand Years Horseman is better this week, especially since I’m not highlighting entries in the competition quite yet!
• While it’s stuffed in the annals of the Fox and Dino posts, I like Mercutio Sweep, but also blob has some good foliage there too
• Transylvania has some looking cool stuff too, I can’t deny that
• Wheaties24 has built a brand new shop exchange in Pacem, and fits perfectly in the landscape

The Cool Collection

• Necmettin, from Wlazestan performs the anthem of Warmia
• I missed about four Fox and Dino editions, but they went to Concord, Cortesia, Suramir Market in Estalia, The Commonwealth and Mercutio Sweep, along with an interesting plot through the next few editions…
• I can at least compliment SpeedyJustice for putting together a mixtape for his everlasting Saul Goodman roleplay
• TheJmqn showed how many times a certain piece of land had changed hands, which looks crazy considering how many wars we’ve ever had
• I just like the poster, and can’t wait for Diet_Cola’s spawnbook to be available
• After a long break, ACCoker is so back with content from their CDM and Danzilona world tours, along with another trip to… It’s a well needed relief from everything going on.
• Earyx has published a new book to highlight Shiroyama; going to assume it’s really cool even though I’ve never read it
• I like the general creativity of all the Imperial Federation flags; would be amazing to see them all in a gallery in the Parliament building.
• Of course, you know my kink for pastel colored maps and that extends to Akawija, Acadia the Third and the Imperial Federation’s newly simplified map
• Nara likes zoning laws and I do too

Memes

Port Turing in Akawija, the new Acadia. Taken by Bloof.

• There is a call going out for “Peace in our time” (ex.) from several people, which, I know you want peace in our time, but you aren’t doing anything to bring peace!!
• I bet Janet wants me to put these poems in the cool collection but ehhhh i’m not feeling it today
• While Kibbles is technically right, he’s being way too dramatic about it
• Yes, I’d like to claim this piece of land please
• SogChamp
• Remember that time when everyone thought the next war would be an SEC-EP Cold War? hahahaha good times
• That’s it? A fucking cake for an anniversary?
• Since Janet wrote poems and someone wrote a poem for the Frostlands Treaty, it’s only fair…
• It’s not nutting on the butternut unless you actually butter your nut and nut on the butter nut…wait what?
• Did they kill the reaper yet?
• I deserve to die!
• “How do you enforce war?” “Just be a YouTuber”
• What is this landclaim?!?!?
• Damn, someone made a knockoff Lambat Post huh
• CivWikistan is the REAL winner of this war

Who Wants to Meme About the War?

• Bro just hear me out I just wanna be friends
• chosen literally eating shit
• Hg_80 has the correct view of the war
• CivMC and World War III have the same syllables by the way
• I know people are throwing the “Butt sex” name around but is this the image we want to show to the community at large
• I will say that the editing on this meme is way too much for the effort
• I am blaming everything on my life on Icenia
• I think putting it in this meme format means it’s a bad deal though
• Tvman throws stuff in chatgpt volume 1
• Now that it’s at least three insiders you’re legally not allowed to use this format anymore

Non-Civ Content

Paramore “posing” for the music video of This is Why.

Reminder that this didn’t have to exist except for the full reason of “I just want to tell you guys what I did this week besides writing about Civ”

• Finally, I’ve been waiting for like a month now to gush about Paramore in public. FYI: Links to Spotify, but you can find them anywhere online…
  • I’ve recently rediscovered them after a few years off the map after they released This is Why earlier this year, which, does have its bangers including its title track.
  • But I always keep coming back to After Laughter from 2017, because it’s literally depression but the 80s and it slaps. Don’t worry, I’m seeing a therapist.
  • I’m weirdly a much bigger fan of their later albums (starting from Self-Titled), but of course I still know about Misery Business and Brick by Boring Brick, but they’ve really grown up out of that Punk Rock early 2000s phase, experimenting in different genres. They still perform those at their electric live shows though…
• In Oakland, California, 33,000 brave fans went into the Oakland Coliseum to protest the Athletics’ proposed move to Las Vegas, and you could hear them. It was the most fans watching the Athletics since the 2019 playoffs. Only two days later, they signed off on it. Rest in peace to Oakland sports fans, they a real G.
  • Even worse, the Athletics’ 2024 season will still be played in Oakland. This will be the most pathetic year of sports for the East Bay.
• Hey y’all, I just want to say that touching grass is so fucking amazing. I went to Hawaii and California for vacation with my best friend this holiday.
  • I tried surfing (which is more work than you think), went on a hike, rode an electric bike, did an escape room, met up with more friends and family for brunch, and did a whole bunch of shopping. You guys should try touching some grass too sometime…

Alright, that’s enough about me, what the fuck is everyone else doing around the Civ community that isn’t Civ?

• The past couple of days, I’ve been playing Goblin Mode Civ VI with friends, which is essentially just Civ VI, with the significantly added difference of Squareblob going goblin mode as we start playing at 4am
• Metriximor sneakily released a very pre-alpha version of CivVictoria3, with the goal to remake the entire world of CivMC in Victoria III along with a brand new tech tree and more
• Owain hasn’t been working on Rev because he’s been working with Aidan to make Bottery.ai, a new startup they’ve been working on that “lets anyone easily create and deploy custom AI agents”. This isn’t an advertisement, it’s just kinda neat
• For some reason so many people in Civ joke about Ted Kaczynski who died this past week but not that many people care…
• It wouldn’t be a summary of the past few months without a mention of the Fractureiser malware propagation incident in mods. I’m sure everyone knows at this point, but please follow this article’s instructions if you haven’t already.

Poll of the Week

Cluj, in Transylvania.

Last Week’s Poll

Now, we’ve got another poll this week, but I do want to call your attention from the results that we got last week.

The first question was asking whether CivClassic, CivMC’s predecessor, ended at the right time. For oldfriends, many know this was abrupt as TealNerd seemingly announced the server was shutting down as the server kept chugging, even as new nations kept coming.

Interestingly, a good amount of people thought that CivClassic ended at the right time. There were a good amount of people that thought they wanted new space for new ideas, anyway.

We’ve been running a lot of featured articles about battles lately, and I’m getting tired of them. I’ve noticed this list and the last two featured articles have been more culture based. I’ll try to follow this in the future; I always try to keep the featured article a little more lighthearted than the rest of the newsletter.

So obviously, we’re doing more polls.

If you’d like to fill out this week’s quickpoll, look no further!

The Actual Poll

We got 19 responses from May 22nd’s polls, which is pretty pitiful. I didn’t advertise it too much though and it was hard to find… But I highly encourage you to participate, it’s good for feedback and the newsletter!

Uncertain Futures

Meracydia’s rail station, as photographed by AK.

Reddit

Last week I never made an announcement for it but I wrote a whole article about the Reddit blackout, and then immediately regretted it.

I’m hoping to decrease my involvement on Reddit and Civ in general, since a lot of my social media consumption has been taken up by friends on Discord. I won’t stop posting these newsletters on Reddit because pinning increases the readership of this newsletter — it’s actually 2/3 of the viewership.

However, I’m mostly going to stop responding to comments pretty soon, and just post newsletters only on my account. I can’t quit entirely yet but…

CivWiki

Early this week, we had a scare that CivWiki was in threat of shutting down. On Thursday, Miraheze, our host, announced they are going to shut down operations at the end of August.

I’m happy to report that CivWiki will not be shutting down. A few high-ranking Miraheze volunteers will be taking over the Miraheze non-profit within the coming months, ensuring the future of CivWiki in the near future. If you’d like to read more about the situation, please take a look at this message.

We were very concerned at the time and were attempting to hatch alternative schemes (such as alternative wiki farms, or self-hosting on the cloud) to prevent future disruption, but thankfully this did not happen.

Regardless, at the time of writing, I am doing another full wiki dump for archival purposes, as I usually do. I would normally do this quarterly, but there were a few things that prevented me from doing so last quarter.

Postponed Cry for Help

A promotional image for the upcoming 2023 Summer Olympic Games with the Imperial Federation and Venne.

PHEW wipes sweat that was a lot of work.

It’s 9:30pm on Monday night, and I believe I’ve finished writing this massive newsletter and covered everything I wanted to.

I know very few people are probably going to read this segment, but if you made it this far, thank you reading four weeks worth of crazy news, highlights, sob stories, triumphs and everything else in between. This is really what Civ is about, content about players, by players, for players, and I want to thank all of you for reading this far in.

• I hope you liked the new look of the newsletter! As this newsletter had to get out in a rush and delay, many of the newsletter backarchives are no longer present on the website — I will be adding them back in within the week.
• The screenshot competition has completed entries, and the team will be reviewing them within the next week with prizes given out shortly after that! (Although, I will turn a blind eye if you haven’t submitted something yet…)

I want to give a big thanks to Gjum, Xcios, ShadySauce, ComradeNick, hitobashuru, Elithys, AKJanklin, Metriximor, RektTangle, SwordMaster, Cortwade, reffelruz, and D_Loaded for helping me out with stuff this week. Please read D_Loaded’s op-ed on Civ as an Outsider if you haven’t already.

Lastly and not leastly, here are the plugs:

• Submit a featured article or a featured writing piece, like you saw today…. If you want to write something for the newsletter, but don’t know what, feel free to message me @specificlanguage and I can find something for you.
• Donate to my Ko-Fi because if you like what you see, it just helps me suffer and do more of this but also you get a shoutout down here for donating

I promise next week’s newsletter won’t be nearly this long.

Until next time…

EDIT CIVWIKI

• < < < Previous newsletter (May 22)
• < < < Last (two) week’s highlights (June 6)
• Submit a featured article - Advertise your nation!
• View and post comments on r/CivWiki
• View a shortened version of this newsletter on CivWiki