CivWiki Monday Newsletter

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


CivWiki Monday Newsletter for July 17, 2023

• specificlanguage

Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

I hope everyone had a good week with announcements, trials, and bar crawls, because that’s pretty much an average week on the server.

You may have noticed that there is a logo on the bottom left of the featured image this time, and this week I’m introducing a new logo by hitobashuru, who’s taken design cues from the CivWiki logo as well as the newsletter itself, and I really love it. I know they’re super busy, but I jokingly asked for a logo after the whole Pavia announcement thing happened and I want to take the time to appreciate their work on it over the past couple of weeks! I’ll be introducing the logo more on the newsletter’s branding over the coming weeks.

This week’s featured image is the Pavian Gardens outside the Town Hall. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve highlighted Pavia but I think we got a choice one this time around. Although the imposing vault stands in the background, the lovely gardens and banners facing the train station give a nice warmth to the area that welcomes weary travellers into the nation. This was picked out by hitobashuru, and it’s a great one.

Featured Article

The Great Overland Railway’s iteration on CivClassic was an international rail line that connected many of the major cities and nations on the server. Created by Yoahtl in 2018, its initial stretch from its allies in the NCA to Mount Augusta was monumental for its time. From its namesake, the line was an overland route, unlike the vast majority of rail lines on the server. The railway has not been without controversy; Mount Augusta and the Holy Jaded Empire were wary of northern expansion as neither preferred to host foreign infrastructure in their territory. During the Infinity War, a trap was constructed under the railway by Mir to capture NATO fighters, a move that has been widely panned by SATO and Yoahtlan allies.

Although development was paused during bgbba’s ban, extensions northwards to Icenia and south to Laconia were constructed by the server’s end in 2021. Upon its creation, the line routed players automatically using Snitches; when RailSwitch became available, it pioneered the use of the plugin to route players. Today, a second Great Overland Railway is currently in construction on CivMC, currently stretching from Lambat, Yoahtl, and Lusitania, with plans to extend westward. The construction of the railway and the surrounding movement inspired many nations to rethink their transportation infrastructure and shift their rails aboveground.

This week’s featured image is the Great Overland Railway’s viaduct near New Yoahtl City.

The News

A great big look at the new apartment complex in Venozia, Venne.

Happenings Around Civ

Metagame Highlights

The Fun Stuff

Ruins of Laurentia statue in Imperia, in the Imperial Federation.

Builds

The best way to get your builds here is actually building them on the server. I see a lot of people building on their creative servers this past week, but I won’t highlight them because then people can’t actually visit the place on the server! Half the effort of building these things is getting all the materials and spending time online on the server to build your design! I’m looking at you, EVDan…

Multimedia Projects

Memes

Non-Civ Content

At this rate I need to start a blog that’s separate from the newsletter…

Poll of the Week

There wasn’t a poll last week, but now let’s do a poll this week. This time, I want to know about the newfriend landscape of Civ and how it could be improved.

That being said, this week, please only mark the top few things that you believe matter for this question. Checkboxing everything will not result in a meaningful response.

Please note that all information submitted is anonymous. A red star (
*
) means that this question is required to submit.
What could be improved to allow a better experience for new players to jump into Civ? Please only mark things you believe will make the most impact. (~2-3 boxes)
Select all that are applicable.

I’m sure many community leaders are very curious about how new players experience Civ and the general onboarding process, since at the moment, it’s a very hands off process for the admins.

Novelty Cry for Help

CivMC’s new Discord Discovery Page banner, highlighting Yoahtlan government, Pavia’s harbor, and the recent Butternut-SEC conflict.

Thanks for reading yet another newsletter for this week. I don’t think anybody’s noticed at all, but this edition now makes me the longest running Monday news since I just passed Akiyama64. What the hell am I doing with my life…

I want to give a huge thanks to hitobashuru for making a logo for the newsletter after I pitched something incredibly stupid to him a couple weeks ago! They really delivered and I’m very happy with how it turned out. (I hope they’re not made I threw a stroke on it to make it visible…) Additional thanks to Gjum and BritishWanderer for adding stuff.

Thanks to everyone for reading and their incredible support. I’m very grateful to be doing this and I will see you all next Monday! And as always…


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