CivWiki Monday Newsletter for July 24, 2023

Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

This week we saw a few people swinging, a few people trying to hide stuff, a few building again, and most people coping, just sounds like another week on Civ.

To some, we’re past halfway through summer, and we’re seeing a good amount of growth in the community. Don’t believe me? civmc.tk tells me that we’re running a consistently higher amount of people wasting spending their time here than in the spring. I’ve been seeing a good number of new people in the community, and I’m hoping we can continue that growth.

Ready for the news?

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is Meracydia on a rainy night in the valley. The rain was unintentional, I just took this picture in the middle of the storm. The country’s quickly built up several impressive builds in barely the past month and it’s been really cool seeing their rise and them coming into form quickly onto the server. They’re also expanding their scope to Corvos next door to Lusitania. They even did a great job responding after I basically just griefed their station because the door was locked. I’m optimistic about these newfriends and looking forward to their future on the server.

Featured Article

This week’s featured article was written by iinkuu.

The Forum for International Diplomacy (FID) was an intergovernmental organization on CivClassic, founded in late 2020 during the Infinity War, and disbanded later that same year. The FID was founded by The Commonwealth, Mount Augusta, Icenia, Yoahtl, Holy Jaded Empire, Gabon, Gensokyo, and the CCCP. The FID aimed to foster international diplomacy, develop friendly relations among nations and overall, bring the international community together. “The Forum operated on a consensus-based model, with a particular focus on promoting and supporting dialogue between its members.” Free discussion was encouraged by the FID, its members permitted to call for a meeting at any time concerning matters of international importance, with the meetings overseen by an impartial team of moderators.

The FID’s end ultimately came down to its member nations not foreseeing the amount of bureaucracy needed to establish a solid foundation for such a forum, nor for carrying out the goals they wished to accomplish. With dwindling interest, an unstable foundation and the community’s general consensus on United Nations formations on Civ, the forum disbanded. Though the Forum is one of many different attempts of UN formations on Civ, it has generally been regarded the furthest attempt to bring an international coalition of nations together. The idea of a server-wide UN is still an idea that is passed around but generally disregarded. (Full article…)

This week’s featured image is the logo for the Forum for International Diplomacy, created by Gjum.

The News

Forged, pictured outside of Icenia’s Train Station at Jah Park (more of a Plaza?)

Server Update

July 17 saw another update to CivMC, which includes:

• Randomspawn fixes from Orinnari
• Dormant snitch re-activation bug fix from Okx
• Wordbank icon fixes (which are a breaking change) from Diet_Cola
• An OTT overhaul that has been desperately needed from Orinnari
• Brand new commands that overhaul sitting (and includes laying) from RedDevel
• Quicker maturation times for Stone and Acid
• City spawns for Volterra, Shockton, Imperia, and updates for Pavia and Amboise
• Netherite tool bonuses for lesser used tools
• Global kill messages
• And, most importantly, a Brewery update that adds a lot of new brews from RedDevel.

I’m doing this section now to hold everyone accountable and better communicate changes on the server. See the full changes here.

Happenings Around Civ

Alliance Crap

• The Cliqueston players were unbanned following last week’s post; subsequently the players, led by SQOpenSpellBook, founded the country of Arsenia over the claims of the Arsenio Pact.
  • The post was accompanied by an explanation from them regarding their insiding of the vault in the war, accusing the AP and Cortesia Del Mar of “hollow leadership”, corruption within the SEC, and
  • The post was generally not very well received, with many accusing them of deliberate actions on their part to undermine the AP’s sovereignty in an effort to reform the country. In my opinion, was especially odd to pretty much demand primary owner on groups that weren’t even AP’s and spin it to say “we were asking politely”. Some have chalked it up to a newfriend mistake.
  • Arsenia would join post-Butternut/SEC-war negotiations on the Butternut-Gang Shi side, but Arsenia declared that the claims also included the ice roads that were under the country, which were Icenia’s, which was their main route to Yoahtl.
  • SQ along with Pole3ton and Max_wall decided to reach the iceroad to demolish the infrastructure, but were stopped by Icenian and Yoahtlan fighters and the Arsenians were pearled shortly after.
  • Max_wall was released shortly after, while SQ is currently being held, pending an Icenian senate vote to secure the Ice Road until a replacement to Yoahtl is made.
• The SEC announced it would be breaking up, with Icenia’s decision in part due to focusing on internal restructuring. Read the post for more information regarding this.
• Agreed non-pearl reparations between the Anti-SEC coalition were also posted, curiously by Shadno and not by any coalition party. The reps include bastions, lots of valuable materials, construction of a new vault hole for Lambeau, and a significant cession of land.
  • This however, was not without protest from Hg_80 who complained that Butternut, despite their claims to activity, was not active and was out of place for demanding such high reparations.
  • Butternut responders were not very remedial of this fact and basically justified their position to “we killed the alliance, it doesn’t matter how much you play”
• A followup response was made by Imperial Federation Emperor King_Cupar, who complained about similar inactivity in Otonabee the prior night. It was reposted this Monday morning, after Hg_80 loaded in Otonabeean lands for the first time.
  • However, this post is mostly complaining about inactive claims, which is a topic that is not necessarily related to the inactive claims compounded with harsh settlements.
  • It’s been generally received negatively; in light of the previous post, feeling as it creates a false equivalence between Otonabee, generally recognized as a meme state, and Butternut. However, it doesn’t create a good view of the country following this next post…
• The BUILD alliance was announced by Mount Augusta, Fempire, and the Imperial Federation late on Sunday night. It proclaims to be “an alliance based on the simple idea of mutual aid and peaceful co-development,” focusing on mutual protection and cooperation of buildfriend nations across the server.
  • I have personally known about the existence of this alliance forming for the past month, but has not been announced until now. Previously, the alliance had other countries within initial negotiations, although they backed out due to ideological differences.
  • Despite the announcement, however, the main complaint was that Mount Augusta had not been really recognized as a build nation, yet still proclaimed about “MTA is full of buildfriends”.
  • Side note, Nick, maybe don’t include sarcasm in your next Nickpost? Or yell at me while correcting something? Your comment here was one of the worst I’ve ever read this morning and seemed extremely petty…
• Warmia was removed from the Elysian Pact this past week after an internal vote in the Elysian Pact. They wanted to keep it as low-key as possible, but both Warmia and Elysian Pact members left on semi-amicable terms.
  • No reason has been specified by either side, but recent events have pointed to the country’s swift change to a dictatorship and quick, unwanted seizure of territory.
  • Warmia also gave away land that was formerly Reconstruction Era, however, despite the post’s wording, the territory is an autonomous territory of Warmia until someone else takes it over, which means…it’s still part of Warmia alright…

Special unthanks to Hg_80, Jindosh, and King_Cupar for ruining my Monday morning as I had to write a whole lot to accurately portray events that happened last night. Although, it is partially my fault as I was playing too much Pikmin last night.

Other News That Matters

• Yoahtl donated some land to Zephyria following the country’s territory being annexed by Gang Shi., eventually relocating to renovate Baka Borough. Crossposted from the Yoahtl Times.
• Max_wall, upon release, moved to Gang Shi (with FunniFish from Zephyria) and started a semi-autonomous nation hoping to create and serve civilian infrastructure in the country.
• Meracydia announced their newest province, Corvos. (It’s only one letter off from a trigger warning for some…
  • They’ve also announced a national property rights act, which gives them better leverage for Meracydian properties as well as the creation of a Real Estate forum. Crossposted from the Meracydian Mouthpiece.
• Gang Shi “hosted” a party for Yoahtl outside their trench for their birthday
• Aeros released a (very long) trial recap for NaX90, who would be pearled for three days following a rail grief.
  • Aeros has also withdrawn their alliance from Respein, citing inactivity and a lack of commitment.
• The Catholic Church’s land was forcibly taken over by Lambeau following failed negotiations over the nether portal in the region, an election is now being taken place.
• Pavian Emperor ArtificialDriver I is working on increasing support among its dukes along with increasing economic growth in the city. Crossposted from the Pavia Daily.

Metagame Highlights

• Despite very public backlash regarding slow modmail times, SoundTech has included data that provides a high approval rating of their ticket handling.
• In CivCubed’s development, some polygonal beacons are being created with the intention of using it for block breaks, and more.
• Additionally, Janet Blackquill has made a survey asking the CivMC community on how the server is going, similar to hers on CivReign (whose results now are basically a post-mortem on the server). That’s pretty much all I can say though, the questions are pretty general.
• Guess what, another survey from Solitaire, this time looking at the crops market to see relative prices regarding products on the server.
• Stuffing this here so nobody sees that the CivClassics subreddit is back online for archival
• It’s a very interesting comparison between claims at the start of the world and now…
• The unequivocal answer may be to join if you’re alone, but newfriend experts may have different opinions
• Not that it’s incredibly important, but I do want to highlight civbooks.github.io, a collection of all known books from the backlog of Civ servers made by Gjum.
• Speaking of software, Tybug has been working up for a new release of SnitchVis, a mod that allows users to better visualize snitches on the server.

The Fun Stuff

Banyough showing off their continued refurbishment of Olympia, Lusitania.

Builds

Once again, it’s sad that I didn’t see that many things this week but it’s kind of the norm. I know there’s some builds in the works, but I had to go out to take pictures myself this week too!

• banyough is continuing her renovation of Olympia in Lusitania
• Meracydia, of course, has their great builds with a city reminiscent of the big European urbans
• Icenia is making some builds of their own and rebuilding after the war
• FunniFishe has a brand new submarine that looks really cool
• Hoover’s interior renovation business looks great in Pavia
• Seekinq digs up their screenshots folder with pictures of Fish, Nymph and of course Griffin

The Cool Corner

• The Joja Brewery has released a resource pack that allows you to visualize EVERY brew on CivMC to not be a potion anymore, even working with the new Brewery update. Very cool.
• I enjoy the explanations from JoelThaTroll, see his new CivMC tutorials about Factories and Ore Discovery, but I think visuals (besides you) on screen for the first couple of minutes would be pretty helpful.
• And the award for “least fine art Civball” goes to
• What if Truidencia’s Zeldrin was actually a fine art piece made by butter_villager and then fan art of Gang Shi Police Department or whatever
• Some light sketches of Gang Shi from iinkuu and furry commissions (he was busy this week)
• ACCoker has released another Civ video, time to ignore responsibilities for 16 minutes and 11 seconds
• Fox and Dino have headed to New Danzilona where you pick the next destination! I’ve heard a lot of people want this one…

Memes

• Civ’s favorite Reddit strawman/moderator has come back to give everyone awards to spend his useless coins on a post for a niche Minecraft community he’s been playing for several years now.
• Insert breaking bad joke here — oh that’s why they’re making all the jokes
• *dolphin noises*
• Lysika is supposedly holding the “Paddington” wordbank nametag hostage; Paddington is looking for funds to be able to buy it from him. Why is this in memes?

Non-Civ Content

• I was procrastinating this weekend because PIKMIN 4 is OUT YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS. It’s the first game since 2013, and I believe it’s got more content since the other three games in the series combined. Still figuring out problems for 9 hours and I haven’t reached the end of the game yet.
• In baseball news, Mariners hothead Jarred Kelenic had a terrific first half of the season, and then decided to kick a cooler and injure his foot because he was so mad after an AB. It’s sad but it’s funny
• A very transparent attempt to create activity on Reddit unfortunately works. Common redditor L The good part is that everyone knows how to bot now and of course Reddit hates that cause they want GENUINE activity. I have never been less interested in something Reddit has done.
  • That being said, they made Bad Apple in r/Place
• Please choose your morning breakfast today (if image is too small, direct twitter link)

Poll of the Week

Last week’s survey got 49 responses. Don’t forget to read to the end!

The question for the poll last week was

What could be improved to allow a better experience for new players to jump into Civ?

I did ask you to pick only a few so we wouldn’t dilute the results, and I believe you guys did some good work:

I tried to include some unconventional options into the poll to encourage a little bit more thought, but we’re seeing a lot of things here.

• I think the big problem is that after you experience the normal Civ things that we’ve seen for a billion times now, the late game isn’t interesting enough to get engaged, and we need new features to re-entertain ourselves until the next war.
• When we saw the anniversary celebration reach 150 players for the first time in a year, that was something incredible that I hope we’ll see sometime again with events or new features on the server. Something new to invigorate players will be very exciting.

Either that or we resort to Hyrule Skyblock expansions.

Time to Vote!

I already mentioned two surveys, time to take a third!

Although these two questions may be seemingly related, these have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and your response to one question will not be associated with your other questions or responses from previous weeks.

Surveying Cry for Help

A Gang Shi tour group photographed by Gwua.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. A big hand to iinkuu for writing up this week’s Featured Article, it was probably the smoothest and most comprehensive guest feature to date.

Additional thanks go to Cissonius, Anvil, Kingstell, and Shadno for providing assistance regarding current events. Also, special unthanks for everyone who decided to drop some drama on Sunday night. Screw you for messing with everything.

• Do you want your content on the front page of the server? Consider writing a featured article! No topic but still want to write? Feel free to message me @specificlanguage and I’ll be sure to find something to write.
• I also encourage people who have fervent opinions about the Civ genre write an op-ed, I’m happy to bring new ideas about the genre to the table, message me @specificlanguage too if you’d like to write.
• Finally, and if you’re stupid enough to read all of this to the end, and you’d like to support me doing these very stupid things, donate to my ko-fi, not that I care this much about money

I’ll see you all next week for another rousing week of news. Until next time…

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