CivWiki Monday Newsletter for August 28, 2023
Good morning and happy Monday from New England!
I hope you have your spinny hats on for another exciting round of news from everyone’s third favorite genre of Minecraft server!
I think I found this week to be a little more enjoyable and fun compared to the rest of the past few weeks because all the news was a little more wacky and crazy. As someone who’s barely still in the Civ bubble, I still find goofy things fun.
Are we ready for the news?
Featured
Featured Image
This week’s featured image is of SPQR. I opted not to use the main square this time, because I did it before. But this time, I used the backstreets with the Colisseum in the background. A much more subtle photo but, alberb and the Romans are showing off classical roman architecture beautifully. Great job guys!
Featured Article
Civball is a popular art style in Civ, with heavy inspiration from Polandball, that depicts Civ nations in various activities. The art style features deliberately poorly drawn spheroid characters that represent Civ nations, alliances, and more entities that are related to Civ, in various contexts depending on the comic, and are usually filled with numerous injokes relating to the country drawn.
The origin of Civball is generally unknown although most trace its origin back to the Civcraft years. It saw a resurgence throughout CivClassic, with numerous Civballs highlighting major events such as the Somber War (pictured), the formation of the UDF, and calls to edit CivWiki (which remains the logo of the site) and the Unified Mapping Project. Although the typical adaption of Civballs are for webcomics or drawings, there are semi-regular Civball Maps of the World throughout Civ, including those in 2014, 2019 and 2021. Today, Civballs are regular mainstays of Civ Art, with a Map of the World for CivMC in production.
This week’s featured article image is a depiction of the Fall of Lexington at the end of the Somber War, drawn by Metriximor.
The News
Aetherix’s rendering of Adria, Griffin. From afar, it could look like a painting!
- Lambat’s Metro Election resulted in probably the weirdest, psycho result ever. And part of this was due to my own incompetence! Crossposted from LENS One.
- Creepi0n, specificlanguage and TikraiNeGedvilas were elected as the 5th Metro Council of the country, and were set to elect a new Mayor of L-City.
- While Creepi0n and Tikrai voted for Speclang and Creepi0n respectively, I… was offline and didn’t vote for anybody, thus resulting in a tie.
- As a result, President Kaprediem was forced to select a mayor, initially chosing AKJanklin, but rejected the position, resulting in SambonusG volunteering to take it up. Probably the weirdest election cycle to happen
- Please keep in mind I ran on a platform of “biiiitch i’m running for laughs i don’t care” so I’m not sure what anybody expected.
- Pavia and the Monument Group have revived the Solitude Corporation Website with an overlook of current item exchange prices., along with the hints of an API in the future days.
- Pavia is also opening Pavian schematic building to non-citizens, additionally offering a 25% bonus for those with a Monument Group account.
- Warmia announced the reformation of the Protection Pact of International Security, or PPIS with Lelum Poleleum, which essentially have basically become their allies in recent months.
- Icenia is currently in the process of electing their senate for next month. We’re barely even starting this process but most oldfriends in the city are planning to run.\
- Imperial Federation monarch King Jalhf released a statement about the continuation of the country, including the construction of a steampunk-themed capital within the coming months, working on rebuilding itself internally.
- Similarly related, King_Cupar of IF-splinter Asgard accused the country (notably, in this case, SlothInASuit) of negotiating in bad faith over the farms in Joseon. I personally don’t know what to say to this but can you guys just end the grudge already?
- Nobody in Transylvania is reporting this but I think the drug epidemic is spreading to the country from Meracydia, with Xan being hit with alcoholism and Augustan mayor Podly smoking crack
- Nara has seen protests of the narcotics epidemic sweeping Alenarith, with signs appearing outside of AtlasCorp in Shiroyama, one of the suspected suppliers of the epidemic. Crossposted from the Meracydian Mouthpiece.
- Gang Shi have resorted to pearling themselves, with UB40 pearling Gwua and vice versa. Does this matter? Probably not
Metagame Highlights
Apartments within Wayrest in the Nether, from iOminous.
- The shared Distant Horizons project was essentially killed this past week.
- Huskydog asked for clarification about whether the Distant Horizons project, which shared map data between users automatically between users. It allowed for incredible map renders that would otherwise not happen.
- Unfortunately, CivMC admin SoundTech shut that down almost immediately, saying that “it would allow players to quickly discover information about an area they wouldn’t otherwise[sic] have and provide an unfair advantage, and be disallowed.”
- The response to this has been very negative, with many pointing out this project had not been used for any military or intelligence purposes, only for build projects.
- It’s a huge blow for build renders, which highly benefit from the increased render distance.
- Janet Blackquill has said that this restriction would not be present on CivCubed.
- CivCubed is also recruiting moderators for their server in anticipation of their launch on November 30. Apply here.
The Fun Stuff
Magic_Maya’s Brewery in Venozia.
I believe this is one of the few times this section is actually longer than the news. And That’s A Good Thing (unironically).
Builds
- Shapha released images of Estalia’s Shroom Vault, intending to showcase vault designs that will never be completed on live in efforts to raise awareness of Vault Science. People have commended the designs, including an insane bastion tree, cosmetic animals, and a wither welcoming you to the vault
- Amicitia shows off their brand new castle this week, looking like a majestic medieval castle (that’s kind of a cube)
- Meracydia is growing with greenery so it doesn’t look like massive skyscrapers with nothing but also has a new chicken place. Crossposted from the Meracydian Mouthpiece.
- Venozia continues its distinct prismarine buildstyle with a brewery from Magic_Maya whose architectural features are cool
- I already highlighted SPQR’s backstreets, but the rest of the album is pretty cool too, with its market and golden statue in the main square. Oddly enough I know it’s Roman but it kind of looks a bit German in a way too
- This is literally not even intended as a build but I just liked the minimal design of the Yoahtl Bakery Company
- Aetherix came up to Griffin the other day and took some amazingly beautiful screenshots that need highlighting
- As part of Pavia’s schematic opening, they revealed several pictures of in-progress or completed builds on the server, such as
- A cozy mountain villa in Vetranio
- The Dry Dock Boat just outside the city
- An adjoining Gate House
- A little piece of nature in Vetranio as well
- Also, not even part of the schematic builds, Solitaire is opening up a new Ore Exchange shop, Ooze Ore with novel signage
- Also on Main Street, a very cool Empyrean Axe store
Cool Content
- Seared posts a map of shops in Icenia City, which honestly, really well done. Of course I’m commending because it’s inspired by a similar map in Pavia.
- Speaking of which, how about an update to the Pavia shop map from ArtificialDriver?
- Another iinkuu banger but this time it’s literally a high quality comic that belongs on DeviantArt, not reddit
- Don’t forget there’s a drawing arms race against Butter_villager who’s thrown out some more Gang Shi sketches
- iOminous has released a new Nether rail map. Of course, it’s very accurate although I always wish these maps are easier to read from a glance.
- AlexGamer posts a tour of Gang Shi in two parts
- Alexkyry releases music for a future Gang Shi project, which sounds like atmospheric Last of Us content, or maybe that’s because the looping image looks like The Last of Us.
- Metriximor demands you buy Tutelle Cat map art now, with a very well drawn cat. And no other reason.
- Several brand new Civballs have been created in anticipation for the Civball map of the world, including (but not limited to):
If this doesn’t convince you to contribute to the civball map of the world, nothing will!
Memes
Nara’s (or Bronnakus’) cat, Finn, celebrating her second birthday.
- I think 50 bottles of vodka, either in Minecraft or real life, is not actually a good idea.
- reference of Phineas and Ferb jingle about bricks here
- boy i love declaring ahead of time that Icenia will be obbybombed
- Do I understand? Possibly. Or maybe I do. Ah fuck it Yes I understand
- Solitaire’s continued efforts at advertising ends up with this post of his mining efforts. You may think, “this doesn’t belong in the Memes section”, but you may want to look which subreddit the post was originally made
- I kind of like the Weekly Time Limit suggestion, even though it’s such a meme. Either that or players need to regulate themselves
Non-Civ Content
I want to apologize for basically making this section my weekly blog…
- Your Baseball Bulletpoint of the Week^TM is about the Los Angeles/California Angels (of Anaheim) this week, who like the Yankees, have also horrendously sucked:
- In order to convince unicorn Shohei Ohtani to stay (his contract expires this year), they bought so many players at the trade deadline, only to go 7-15 since
- Shohei Ohtani had a UCL tear which means he’s basically not pitching this year or next, which essentially means he’s going to be a DH for a year while in Free Agency
- The Angels somehow hit their own pitcher in the head while fielding an easy pickle
- And then they hit future hall of Famer Met Pete Alonso in the head in the same game. What the fuck is wrong with these guys
- Meracydia has announced an NFL Pick’em for the upcoming 2023 season, offering diamonds to the person(s) with the best method to who will win a game.
- Additionally starting next week, Xenovolution will be writing a Football Bulletpoint of the Week^TM to complement pick’em league!
- I am extremely shamed for not putting this in last week, but celebration in Nara erupted last week with the celebration of Finn’s second birthday (pictured above.) See more cute cat photos here. You can’t get mad at that right?
- Sure, I guess, I’ll highlight Lysika posting Chicken Song
- After massive community outrage, 2b2t rolled back their map to the 1.12 save, along with a huge slate of changes which improved the economy setup. The rollback has been received widely positively.
- Introducting the final boss, Prince William, Pit Master
- Mental health is a bit better since I’ve decided to step a bit back from job applications this week, and I have things to do, but I have been distracted by playing the Mechanical Mastery modpack this week, along with working on a secret coding adventure(s) I haven’t talked about
Poll of the Week
We got 82 responses this past week. That’s more like it.
The only question last week was about the (previous) fall of 2b2t, although positioned as whether Civ is an anarchy server: Would recruiting players from other anarchy servers be good for Civ? Put more simply, is Civ an anarchy server?
I’m kind of surprised that this resulted in a nearly perfect bell curve for the responses. On the one hand, this is an anarchy server but it’s not the same as 2b2t as hacking, duplication, and crazy things aren’t allowed. That being said, the history and griefing behind anarchy servers like 2b2t almost make it positioned to be perfect for Civ. I think regardless of what genre you’re coming from, you need to make a lot of convincing for the server to make it work for some people.
Insert Poll Here
This week, the poll is looking at two different yet very similar contentious aspects of Civ:
Many of the above suggestions are very commonly asked alternatives. Feel free to mark any statements you agree with.
Yet Another Cry for Help
Metriximor and Banyough posing in front of their map arts in Lusitania. And Tutelle.
Thanks for reading random bullshit that happened this week! Although, a special unthanks to Metriximor for not responding to my featured article request and forcing me to write it myself.
As always, I’m always looking for contributions from the community to make it the weirdest and most representative newsletter this can be with respect to the Civ community, so in doing so…
- If you’d like to write a featured article (I am running out of them!!!), please contact me
@specificlanguageon discord or fill out this easy form and I will get back to you as soon as I am available and/or not distracted. - Otherwise, my DMs are open if you want to see something on the newsletter, whether a news feature, op-ed, or a regular feature. (That being said, I don’t run advertisements on the newsletter anymore.)
Unfortunately I don’t think I have the immediate effort to do a fundraiser for the Maui wildfires, but if you still want to donate for a cause I care about…
- The Maui Strong Foundation is focusing on providing general aid for all of Maui
- The Maui Food Bank is helping families stay fed during this difficult time.
I’m personally going to be donating ~$50 to the Maui Strong foundation this upcoming week to give back to this amazing place in the middle of Paradise. It will take time for Lahaina to get back to the place it once was, but anything helps.
Thanks, and I’ll see you next week! Until next time…