CivWiki Newsletter for July 8, 2024

Good morning and happy Monday from the Pacific Northwest!

If this week seems a little rushed, it probably is, as I’ve got a lot going on in my life this week. But hopefully I’m going to deliver you a good enough newsletter, there’s a lot of crazy stuff that happened this past week, and no we’re not talking about that election, we’re talking about the other one.

Are we ready to talk news?

Featured

Fun fact, last week was very unceremoniously the 100th newsletter. I didn’t even realize until I counted just yesterday. And look at me, I’m doing absolutely nothing to celebrate it, not to mention even reusing a featured article that week! I don’t even have anything to celebrate the newsletter turning 100, though.

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is a shot at the main capitol in Danzilona. It’s one of the oldest builds on the server (that isn’t highly publicized), and I love the small, old-version feel of Danzilona, it’s very nostalgic in a way. If you think they aren’t active anymore, you’d be dead wrong. On my visit here I had so many people around and saying “hi”, even in late night West Coast timezones. It’s such a wonderful place and I always have a great time visiting. Can’t wait to come back.

Featured Article

This week’s featured article was written by dcruzy.

The Industrial Workers of the World (commonly referred to as the IWW) was an organization of leftist nations on Civrealms on the northern continent of Napistan. Founded after a union between the nations of Vescau and Tolstoy on January 23, 2020, the IWW would expand throughout Napistan with the formation of new communes and groups joining their ranks. There was no definite central government as the communes would exercise great control over their lands.

Despite its anarchical structure at first, the IWW would slowly become more centralized throughout its existence, resulting in civil conflicts. Regardless, the nation would see great growth in cities such as Bremerhaven and Tolstoy among others. This was helped by their isolated location to the rest of the map, which resulted in minimal involvement in conflict, with the only notable being the May Day Invasion and the First Hell War. Tensions with neighbor Duckapore would later lead to a crisis, resulting in the secession of the Three Cities and Bremerhaven and eventually the dissolution of the IWW with its remnants being formed into the Borealian Socialist Republic on the 18 of August 2020.

This week’s featured article image is of IWW fighters following their occupation of Tenochtitlan, Bobanga.

This Week In Civ

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The News

Vought Tower in Icenia, a replica from the skyscraper shown in The Boys (cr: Dr_Bacon_Hair).

Ice Cracks

On July 3, a stern message was sent out to the CivMC announcements channel from SoundTech:

• The message, in short, was to clarify their enforcement of the rules regardless of circumstance.
• Players were also warned that if there is any doubt of a possible rule-breaking, they have an obligation to report it.
• They further announced they would be tightening up their rules and introducing an FAQ for commonly asked questions.

This was shortly followed by several Icenians leaving CivMC discord.

• Although it hasn’t been disclosed, it’s been rumored that several Icenians were banned for using an illegal world download of Gang Shi’s vault, Black Mesa, during the SEC-Gang Shi War (confusingly, the first of their their conflicts, happening in April 2023.)
• The ban was therefore a retroactive policy enforcement after admins discovered the issue.
• Several players who were not banned due to their policy enforcement left the main CivMC discord in protest. A full list has not been given by neither Icenia or CivMC admins.

Three Drama on the Same Day

These three aren’t associated with each other, but they annoyed me and many others on the same day, so that’s it.

• An alt owned by ElementKZ was pearled in Volterra.
  • In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t make the news, but a meaty (and now-deleted) Reddit post accused Volterra and Pavia of poor dealings, and that admins should be dealing with alts, not players.
  • Pavia’s, Volterra’s, and even the general public’s response was despite an aggressive POS policy on a certain farm, and poor interactions with him did not help; this was all nullified by the fact that an illegal alt was used.
  • A reminder that no alts are allowed on CivMC, unlike past servers.
• SoggyHobo and dawsonisrainy raided Pacem on Friday (cr: CrazyGrape).
  • While several nations were on alert due to their raiding spree in a well-established city, Commonwealth and several other players did a kind thing and helped them clean up! (cr: reffelruz).
• Masonjay built a city, named Frantfurk, in northern Pavia. Although not given explicit permission, normally required due to strict build restrictions, he was allowed to continue.
  • However, when it was revealed that he admitted he was stealing Pavian stockpiles, they tore down the city.

General Happenings

Part of Yoahtl’s Olympic Complex, the Pinecone (cr: x1025). oh wait the Olympics are two weeks from now aaaah!!

Other Important Things to Know

• Yoahtl announced the final schedule and signup forms for the Olympics, coming two weekends from now!
• Wafflehead79 was pearled after continued incidents with neighboring countries, pearled personally by ObtainableSpat.
  • However, more recently, he has also admitted to sending /ott requests to players while in the nether. From Forged, he reported some newfriends quit the server based on these actions.
    • This should be fixed as it could be abused, SoundTech and RedDevel, either that or you just add a warning to make sure you accept /otts from people you trust.
  • Spat has said he would hold him for the next month, along with requiring him to write an essay. Because that’s worked before.
  • Wafflehead made a response to his various issues in a post the following day.
• A player named mommygivememilk pearled several players in Winterbourne, and gave a lot of people a hard time.
  • They managed to obtain PvP gear from Vinland, and pearled Empop and raided a newfriend home in Winterbourne.
  • Several players, notably Domi and Nekroz, chased him in the territory, but were both pearled after being led into a trap.
  • Tophat eventually pearled mommygivememilk, freed all affected parties, and the pearl moved to Exyria vault, and was rewarded for his efforts.
  • The story finally ends with him being discovered to be playing on a VPN, so he was banned anyway. Cool! (Editor’s note: who has bets on whether this is poortea or not)
• To have a “good news sandwich”, the Royal Art Gallery in Griffin opened this past weekend, inviting map artists to sell their art as well as offering maps, selling for 2-3d.

Too Many Elections

• Despite the controversy mentioned previously, Icenia elected its newest slate of Senators for July, with the Icenian Progressive Alliance, a coalition consisting of multiple parties becoming its majority.
  • Additionally, there was a minor constitutional crisis about election timings, as several Senators and internal leaders announced different ending times to the election, causing considerable confusion amongst players in the nation.
• Two stops down the rail line, Commonwealth elected Flags as their newest Prime Minister.
  • While Commoners initially believed that the vote was tied, I was actually the one whose vote for Ke didn’t count, so… I love causing drama
• Two more rail stops down the line, Imperial Federation elected their latest chancellor, Southwest, after a five-round elimination process, along with RobbyGobby being elected judge.

The Alliance Graph Gets Worse

• Eldoria reached agreements with both the Iris Confederation and Kallos, committing to extradition and friendly relations between their relationships.
• Estalia reached an alliance between Fempire, promoting mutual defense and cooperation between the two countries.

Other Potential Notables

• Coolchacha announced a 250d bounty on hekgklkegh, he says it’s self-explanatory. I actually don’t know why, besides the fact he was previously pearled for raiding, so I assume he’s back at it again.
• Pearl Protection Insurance released their first monthly report, signalling a successful launch for the new company.
• The Volterran Equestrian Company, better known as the VEC, launched their floating exchange at the VEC Towers in Volterra Prime. You may have seen their ad above!
• The Sanctum is a new company offering vault and bunker designs. See their ad below!
• Bebo Inc. claimed new territory near Yoahtl.
• The Iris Covenant announces that their city is now connected up to OneDest.
• Truidencia announced a bounty for the Ginger Scroll, giving 100d for the scroll’s return.
  • Their other decrees established a new Imperial Regent, Warmaster and Fabricator General, along with re-establishing the Imperial Guard.

Metagame Highlights

• CivMC announced they’ve reached 2600 tickets.
• They also later announce that they are going to be testing reporting of other players for breaking the rules via other channels, and then blabbers on for a paragraph completely ripping off my style. I’m sure this won’t go badly at all!
• Civ+ launched (on time) on July 5, with a brand new map.
  • While the launch has gone smoothly, not to mention a meteor occurring without fail on the first day, they issued a small hotfix that addressed small balancing issues.
  • (Editor’s note: I wouldn’t be surprised by the time zone of the launch if they were based in the West Coast)

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The Fun Stuff

Adria, at a new look along the pier (cr: Seekinq)

Builds

• You know I love a good Groveheart pic, and here’s one from Gidein, whose picture really shows of the expanse of the city so far!
• Sunanic has some great photos of New Callisto, and this one at night also shows the vast construction of the city
• I’m 90% sure Seekinq dropped more pictures of the Art Gallery last week, but what’s the newsletter without a Griffin picture at this point
• oh my god new Yoahtl stadium pics just dropped (cr: x1025)
• I’m very excited for Maugate’s port to have not only ships, but great piers because it looks like it’d make a great harbor (cr: Urzork)

Cool Content

• Obviously highlighted it last week at the last minute, but once again here’s Codey’s impressive news report from the previous week. I’m sure by the time I wake up I will include his latest one, because he always publishes before me.
• VilyanZ created a custom Risk map based on CivMC! Although the Reddit post that was just linked has it downsized, here’s a full resolution link.
• Most people know my disdain for PvP videos, so I’m just going to say that I liked Tophat’s intro
• Owain did a film shoot in Pavia’s Main Street — here’s just one snippet of the action

Non-Civ Content

• On the small offchance anybody is in the slim venn diagram intersection of Cooking and Classical Music, then J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is doing something I might be interested in…
• And for the real Classical nerds, Schumann’s Piano Quartet is something I first listened to live a while back, and every movement is a tour de force
• Oh was this too nerdy for you, you didn’t like that Ahri? How’s this Dodgers game with Hololive instead
• Vinland’s amogus night had a lot of people, always recommend them if you want an active VC
• Icenia’s jackbox night accomplished … something (cr: VilyanZ)
• Pavia is shitting their pants on how much Labour won, not to mention they literally bet on election results

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Poll of the Week

Groveheart’s large expanse throughout the rolling hills. (cr: Gidein)

Last week, we had 291 responses*, almost tripling the previous record for the most responses a newsletter poll has had (previously, the record was 103, around this time last year.)

*(at the time of writing, as of Sunday night, when the normal newsletter cutoff is)

Nation Census

Please take this graph with a grain of salt, as it mostly only carries active players who frequently metagame or read Discord/Reddit pings. Not to mention it got spammed, too…

This poll was spammed a lot by me to get as many responses as possible, but it also was subject to spammy votes. On Sunday, there were a surge of votes for both Icenia and something called the Nebulan Republic that was unlike the voting pace that had been been established throughout the week and on Saturday. I check the number of responses regularly, too you know.

As a result, I removed (hopefully most of the) fraudulent votes and brought it down to a reasonable number. Icenian elections rarely, if ever had over 60 votes, so I doubt the original number I got was actually correct.

Some people treated this question as a competition, when it was like, bro who cares.

Now, from previous polls, we knew that the Imperial Federation carried large numbers, and Icenia has had pretty active elections, so both numbers being this high (despite one of them being an iffy statistic) are kind of reasonable.

Some of the usual suspects round out the 10+ nations, Pavia, Nara, Mount Augusta, Volterra, Yoahtl. Mercutio is high up there as Reggio, a territory of Mercutio, has a large population as well. Truidencia is also a surprise to see that high. I’m not sure if Eldoria has quite that many people, so it may be overrepresented here. There were over 50 unique nation-level responses. If you’d like to know how your nation did and it was not present on the map, please DM me and I will get back to you when I can.

If I were to do this poll over again, it would be in a non-casual setting like on a proper Google Form, as there’s very much a need to verify responses; because my policy on newsletter polls is to never collect personal or Civ-identifying data, doing a nation census in a setting like this is going to yield pretty inaccurate results.

Thanks to eyedropper.app for the color codes for the countries. Tried to keep them according to country flags, but if it’s wrong, oh well.

Compliments

To deliberately inject a positive spin in the newsletter, I added this question on last week’s poll at the last minute. Oh boy, were there a lot of compliments to search through.

Now, I’m not disclosing compliments sent to individuals, since I don’t have their permission (yet). Before we go look at some compliments for the whole community, a couple of statistics:

• At the time of writing this particular section, I received 10 compliments, the most of any person. I can’t believe 10 people didn’t read the directions.
• The most any person received besides me* were both Hakr_ and EVDan, who received 5 compliments each. (*at the time of writing this block on Friday)

Here are some compliments for the entire Civ community:

Sorry, too newfriend to have someone specific I’d like to compliment- so I’d like to complement the entire CivMC community for being welcoming!

Too many. I just love everyone, and everytime i log on they make my day better

I love all civ players it’s so cool how they’re like what if we did a thing together and then they do. Too many people to complement!

Shoutout to Chat! Its always wholesome :)

uh not soundtech

Vote Now!

I have the highest of confidence that we’ll be able to get 300 votes next week.

Way Too Busy Cry for Help

Several players coming to the rescue in Pacem to clean up the city of obbybombing (cr: SonicFrost/reffelruz).

I know many of you probably have noticed I’m really busy these days, but once I’m done moving I’ll try to stop playing the metagame and maybe start playing the real game. Or who knows, I might just be exploring my backyard instead.

There’s a lot of people to thank for some of their contributions this week. First off, a huge shoutout to dcruzy for writing this week’s newsletter. Also helping this week in various aspects were BritishWanderer, Gamertime, Xcios, Gjum, peyt1212, Zyra_Bot, CrazyGrape reffelruz, Dark_FFC, Codey, ObtainableSpat, YammyAwesome, DockerImage, and sadchamp.

If you’d like your name on this list and would want to help write for this newsletter (god knows I need help) message me @specificlanguage for more info!

I may take next week off for personal reasons, but I’ve tried to make the newsletter arrive on time, weekly, without breaks for the past couple of months, and it’s been great so far. I don’t want to take a break often, but it might be necessary to be able to keep up with my personal life at the moment. Just so everyone knows!

Really appreciate all of you for sticking around for 101 newsletters!! I hope to see you all very soon! And until then…

EDIT CIVWIKI

• < < < Last week’s newsletter (July 1)
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• For those who somehow wanted to contribute to me financially for no purpose whatsoever and gain no benefits, here’s a link to my ko-fi again… but I won’t be shouting you out for anything, I honestly don’t need the money, and you shouldn’t be paying for this newsletter. I guess it’s something to celebrate 100 newsletters…