CivWiki Newsletter for August 26, 2024
Good morning and happy Monday from the Pacific Northwest!
As we start seeing the end of summer and the crazy kids heading back to school, another Civ cycle ends once again with an overall calm settling in. I saw a lot more amazing builds pop up within the channels this week and way less drama to write about, so that’s a reassuring sign.
Funny enough, even though I know school is supposed to be starting soon, many of the colleges here don’t actually start until late September, how does that work?
Anyway, let’s get to the news:
Featured
Featured Image
This week, I’m sort of doing an Augustan appreciation week with quite a few things about Mount Augusta — it is the end of August after all. The country’s had quite a rough couple of years, and only recently moved from the chaotic Alenarith plains to the quieter hills near Lyrea. Since then, they’ve been focusing harder into their architecture while still hanging on to their historical roots. I really love the somewhat transformed classic Minecraft architecture that the city’s now built around, it’s a perfect fit for the city. While it’s still early in their tenure here, I can’t wait to see more!
Featured Article
Mount Augusta’s iteration on Civcraft 2.0 was the second iteration of the country following their original 1.0 iteration. Although it did not begin at the original start of the world, many veterans and new players came to develop its initial plans. Quickly, it became a hub for trade due to its central location on the CIC, along with major cities such as ISIS, Aurora and Carbon sprouting up nearby, along with tense relationships with Gensokyo and the HKE. However, the country was well known to be the battleground for major wars, including the Goten Secession Conflict, the Rumble in Mount Augusta, and the Nox War.
The country was well known for being a political rainbow, with regular democratic mayoral elections who elected powerful mayors that led the city. The city’s structure was unregulated resulting in an urban sprawl across the country, even spreading into other neighbors. This iteration has been well known to be the hallmark of Mount Augusta iterations, eventually continuing into iterations into Civcraft 3.0, Devoted, CivClassic, and today CivMC.
This week’s featured image is Mount Augusta as it existed at the end of the world on Civcraft 2.0.
This Week In Civ
On the week of August 26 - September 2 in:
2022:
- Tensions between Nara and Gensokyo came to a head as Saren_Solaris pearled two Gensokyojin fighters, and Gensokyo and Mount Augusta leaving a diplomatic forum in Alenarith.
- Titan Industries have revealed that Blockchainistan had been aiding the Rhode Island by producing XP and other materials for their cause in the ongoing war.
- CivRev’s third iteration has started development in earnest, with development being focused on providing seasons and a more expansive tech tree.
- Tricon Industries announced the Commonwealth to be its headquarters after a “stunning” submission of a design.
2023:
- Lambat elected its metro council of Creepi0n, specificlanguage and Tikrai but were unable to elect a Mayor of L-City, resulting in President Kaprediem moving to appoint SamBonusG as mayor.
- Warmia has announced the revival of the Protection Pact of International Security, as an alliance with Lelum Poleleum.
- Nara and the Atlas Group are seeing protests regarding the ongoing narcotics crisis in Alenarith, with effects being seen in Transylvania and Meracydia.
- CivMC admins have ruled that the Distant Horizons sync project is illegal, citing it allows players to have map data that they wouldn’t have otherwise visited, providing an unfair advantage.
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The News
The Cathedral of Kaltsburg, finished with a lovely garden in front. (cr: deyan)
Thankfully, I don’t think I’m looking at 5 sections of long explanations this week.
Server Update
- CivMC updated to 1.21 this past week!
- The speed at which 1.21 came after 1.20.6 was extremely impressive, only a few days.
- A few new mechanics from the 1.21 update were included, along with some fixes for compacting, discos, trims, and some Quality of Life fixes.
- This was not without issues, especially earlier in the week.
- The server machine crashed on Monday, taking half a day for all services (including Ms. Commands Don’t Lie) to come back on.
- It’s likely that this may be a problem due to upgrading Java versions that saw crashes during the delayed Christmas update, since I kept seeing issues in Praxis, but I can’t say for sure.
Around the Server
- Alcantara seceded from the Imperial Federation the previous week - I unfortunately don’t have proof on hand right now but trust me!
- Salerno held their second general elections with the Moderate Coalition becoming the party in power.
- Pavia politics are sort of in turmoil!
- One of Gobblin’s first acts was to declare the Church of t as the state religion, an act supposedly deemed unconstitutional; despite this the Church of t opened a new cathedral this past weekend.
- Meanwhile, after the leftist parties suffered an unexpected defeat the previous election, the LUL and AMP formed a coalition with ambitious goals.
- It turns out me saying something did something as Stoomer is currently within a trial as part of currently being held in Icenia. Drek seems to be using my responses as some of the main arguments.
- I should note, I have no stake in this trial and do not care about the outcome of the court here.
- PhysicsGamer has also had quite a week, besides being Stoomer’s lawyer:
- The Iris Covenant decided to be engaged to PhysicsGamer with the wedding details coming soon!
- Meanwhile, Anisso elected PhysicsGamer to become minister-president of the country. I don’t know how that works geopolitically, but ok!
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”Economy Stuff”
- Amazing Civ Poker have been unironically doing regular No Limit Texas Hold’em sessions nearly every day this week. I’m proud to say I lost 50 diamonds already!
- One of the most visited CivMC websites, isslothpearled.vercel.app sold ads which went for pretty high prices. These people get to put their ads for eternity!
- Patriot Transportation was announced, offering up copper rail conversion and maintenance services for rails across the server.
Calendar
You guys have got to announce events further in advance of one day. So many things happened this weekend that were just straight up not announced earlier.
- Most days at 11am PST/2pm EST/6pm UTC - Amazing Civ Poker - Sure, you can lose 100% of your money, but you have the chance to win 800% of your money!
- August 31, 12pm PST/3pm EST/7pm UTC - Sloth is hosting Bunkies once again in Imperial Federation discord!
- August 31, 2pm PST/5pm EST/9pm UTC - Pavia vs. Icenia Farley War Spectacular! - fun low-gear, laid back war games against two “rival” nations!
- September 13 - 14 - Roman Triumph and Games, a celebration of Roman culture and longevity along with fun, lighthearted games!
- September 20 - 28 - Yoahtl Olympics are still scheduled, make sure you sign up for events!
Click the picture to go to Patriot Rail’s discord!
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The Fun Stuff
Ila’Kyavul’s beautiful Turkish-style architecture, under a night sky of aurora. (cr: Suleisil)
Builds
- Ila’Kyavul has been working on a lot of new exciting builds, including this perfectly innocently colored bath house along with a huge view of their city from afar (cr: Suleisil/Fendrell)
- Kaltsburg’s cathedral is a great recreation of some European churches I’ve seen in real life! (cr: Kashev)
- This may be one of the few pictures where a Parkour course in shaders looks really good (cr: x1025)
- Several new houses on the shores of the Mount Augusta river are livening up the area very well! (cr: jaybirdino)
- Hateno Village isn’t even on the server yet but I do want to take a minute for people to appreciate their dedication to recreation & progress (cr: iMqd)
- A little bit of a snowy onsen within Aethia (cr: ZZERS)
- How many times do we have to tell you that this church is too damn big! (cr: TransylvaniaMan)
- Moving into Pavia, there’s a great outpost on Paagf’s island with excellent decoration (cr: Tatsu/EVDan)
- Even if I may not always agree with the political choices, the Church of t has some incredible architecture in their district (cr: Ansgard/Tatsu)
- Isn’t it great when shader lighting shines through Main Street (cr: Nekroz)
- On the other side sunset is doing a number on Windermere (cr: Jackyback)
- Why am I a sucker for castles built in Jungle environments? (cr: AcronymT)
Cool Content
- Sort of missed Pavia’s protectorates and their internal land registry with maps that are easy to read but have a great dash of style! (cr: Seekinq)
- I put out the identifying 10 words from the newsletter this past week — I don’t think people got more than 50%, if I had to guess, judging on how many people got mine (it was 16). Maybe I have to ask you for more words, and your identities too, probably.
- Paddington strikes again with a trailer for a true crime documentary. Absolutely insane(ly well produced).
Memes
- This is how Civ democracies function today
- Virgin vault breaker vs. Based family enjoyer
- Hey don’t worry Sheeve, I feel like I’m writing about slop every week! (and therefore by inheritance, writing actual slop)
- Lagi and Bron bringing the “erm actually” comments is actually funnier than Stoomer’s post btw
Non-Civ Content
- Many players paid tribute to Finn by celebrating his birthday in Nara discord!
- My Seattle Mariners did something crazy: they fired their manager and decided to bring back the 90s, so uh, maybe there’s actually a chance to beat the Astros?
- In my efforts to find a new Linux distro, I eventually had the entire Praxis discord advocating for Debian. Anyway, that’s the unofficial Praxis Linux distro!
Buy Raven for all your armor or tool related needs! We do deliveries to Pavia, Transylvania, Accra, Yoahtl, and Exilus as well as Lambat Portal and Titan Portal for our pearled customers. Make orders by joining our discord:
discord.gg/nnRdn6CYFYPoll of the Week
Transylvania from a really, really tall building nearby. At least it’s good for the views. (cr: TransylvaniaMan)
Last week, we had 56 responses.
Newsletter Timing
Out of (middling) spite, the first question that I added last minute was about what time I should release the newsletter:
I made some clerical errors but this was pretty much a poll of whether to publish it when I end writing at my time, or when I wake up.
Usually what happens is that I get pings around 4am Pacific asking where the newsletter is, and last week, when I was asleep I received pings around that time it kinda bugged me. Keep in mind, I do this on a weekend because, spoilers, I have a job.
Anyway, so it turns out I need to change absolutely nothing. The small downside is that most SEA/Australia people won’t see the newsletter properly on Monday, but on Tuesday, but that hasn’t stopped me, right?
Shoutout to sadchamp for advocating for a healthy lifestyle though!
Frequently Edited/Viewed Wiki Pages
As expected, a lot of people prefer to edit their own nation page on CivWiki, out of anything it’s probably the easiest to do if you’re knowledgable about your own nation. Same with Geopolitics/Historical pages, because they’re 90% server wars, so that’s also relatively easy if you have the knowledge.
I do wonder what “other” means though, what kinds of pages do people actually edit? What I actually listed I think cover most pages.
Now Playing
The open response question this week was simply what music you’re listening to. Before I start, an obligatory shoutout to nearby radio station KEXP that specializes in indie music across a variety of different genres, especially in the Pacific Northwest/Seattle area.
Breakfast by the Newsboys — haven’t heard it for like two decades and now it’s been stuck in my head for two months.
Tetr.io OST is fire
Who isn’t living a brat girl summer? editor’s note: this and related responses had the most answers (3)
Vote Now!
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Brat Summer Cry for Help
A collection of players at the Dedication of the Icon for t Ceremony at its namesake cathedral in Pavia. (cr: Tatsu)
Thank you, once again for reading this week’s newsletter!
I established earlier that I was going to quit the newsletter in September — however I am delaying this to an unspecified time, but most likely within the year. All of those things in the post are still true but I’m starting to enjoy writing again, and I have a couple of related projects I want to finish up before “leaving”.
Plus, I would rather have someone else/other people take on this mantle rather than this go away, which I’ve severely procrastinated. I think this newsletter is too valuable of a resource for the server for it to suddenly go away. As usual, “saying you’re quitting means you’re never quitting”!
If you’re wondering, this week’s newsletter (of which I’d consider average length) took about 3.5 - 4 hours to write, proofread and complete. Always looking for help so I can cut down that time further, and if you’d like to help, talk to me @specificlanguage on Discord!
Thanks to BritishWanderer, Gamertime, Creepi0n, ArtificialDriver, Ahrimanne, Flags, Jaydon, Spoopin, oko, and itslara13 (although I didn’t use your stuff, sorry!), Codey, Kampuchea, kicky, jaybirdino, HurinThuralion, Raeders, Drekamor, Hakr_, Logic_Man, and a whole bunch of other people on the server this week for interacting with me in any capacity.
I guess I’ll see you next week! Until next time…
- < < < Last week’s newsletter (August 19)
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