CivWiki Monday Newsletter for September 19, 2022

Good morning and welcome to this Monday’s liberation edition of the Newsletter! I know you’re all as happy as I am that the server is completely fine now, and nothing will happen at all.

In all seriousness though, I’ve been reporting information about the war for nearly two months straight; I’ve spent more time just reporting about the war and not about the fun things that happen on the server. I hoped this newsletter would show players and newfriends what Civ is all about, and the last few editions, while reporting on the biggest story, felt more like a factions report from the front lines. Now that it’s over, I really hope we get more organic, wholesome stories from everywhere else. Maybe expect this newsletter to be a little quieter come next week.

Ready for the news?!

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured picture is of the Atorasu Palace Library in Nara’s capital city of Shiroyama. The palace is already the largest residence in the city, with the library becoming a new extension of the palace itself. Although it hosts no books as of yet, it’s planned for the library to house national and state records. Taken by Tolype_Velleda, and constructed nearby Nara’s waterfront, the library hopes to be a great place for knowledge in the country.

Featured Article

The United Northern Congress’ first iteration (abbreviated UNC) was a strategic multi-national alliance in CivClassic between ten countries, mainly in the northeast quadrant of the map. While initially an economic and military alliance between Bloom and Gabon in late 2018, as more nations joined, the organization morphed into a collective diplomatic and defensive organization with each country electing representatives and also electing a spokesperson.

The Congress’ primary spokesperson, BritishWanderer helped countries navigate the early Infinity War in the quadrant with negotiations in the SPQR Border Crisis with Hallow as well as a diplomatic incident during the Clown Wars in Icenia. However, after an altercation with Corvus and the alliance was rumored to join the war alongside Mir, the alliance quickly dissolved in early July 2019. Nations joined other defensive alliances like the Entente and UDF, while a new iteration of the UNC would be created two years later. (Full article…)

This week’s featured image is an infographic of the UNC’s nations and actions, created by BritishWanderer.

Current Events

This section’s featured image is the aftermath of Icenia’s fourth(?!) obbybombing by Rhode Island on the city, which is clearly unacceptable and just too much.

Wow, I can’t wait to write this one, who knows what will happen this week?

The End of Another War

• On the morning of September 17, Icenia reported that they were obbybombed for a fourth time. Icenian players were critical of this action, complaining to admins that despite having done nothing, they continue to be obbybomb the city for the sole purpose of “killing the server”.
  • Several people, including Ice_Otter, Hangoverd, Dollaz, and others were involved in the raids that morning.
• Later that day, CivMC admins collectively decided to ban all Rhode Island players, citing that they were “engaging in server killing toxicity beyond toleration”.
  • Nearly all Rhode Island and USA players were banned. Some, such as Ez2Clutch, were eventually banned in the hours after the announcement.
  • The announcement was made as CivMC admins wanted to “foster a [more] welcoming, inviting community” and “[make] our intentions and communications with the rest of the server clearer”, and comes at a time when communication has been lackluster and server population has significantly declined.
  • In general, players were ecstatic about the blanket ban, with many excited for their cities to be healed from obbybombing, especially those in Icenia and Pavia. Many know there is work to be done, but are excited about the future.
  • The action was controversial among Rhode Island supporters, seemingly coping that “they had won the server” as they provoked a reaction from the admins.
• Estalian and Pavian forces eventually began operations to free pearls from the Rhode Island vault later that afternoon.
  • An underground tunnel was created to quickly funnel fighters into the vault. While there was only one account logged in, Ian_X12, the account was rumored to have been controlled by Vanax after driving to his house. The account was banned shortly after.
  • Joint Estalian and Pavian forces, as well as many associated people (including yours truly), eventually destroyed the vault and skybunker in Rhode Island, and freed many pearls, among those were Bloof_, Cqrs0n, The_JKH, gemster108, and Lagiacrus.
• Icenian forces have been planning a monumental cleanup effort of their obbybombed city over the past couple of days, and have been holding nightly raid cleanups on the streets of the city every day!
• One major advantage to cleanup will be downward acid blocks, which prevents tearing up streets and other infrastructure for obbybombing. The addition comes in a couple of days, which especially benefits Icenia’s cleanup efforts.
• Both Pavia and Icenia have announced victory posts at the end of the day on Saturday, thanking everyone for their support and endurance throughout the war.
• However, in an effort to remove the final Rhode Island-associated country on the map, Blockchainistan, the country pearled Shadedoom, in a heavily unfavored fight for Blockchainistan.

I’m honestly just glad that the admins knew what Civ stood for; it’s not a PvP server and these people were basically making it a factions server. Hopefully, although this news is extremely war-based this time, new editions of the newsletter will eventually show Civ’s true colors.

Everything Else

• The Imperial Federation, Hyperborean Confederation, Pridelands, and Venne all entered the Meridiem Compact, a defensive pact with all nations near what the nations call “the south pole”.
• The Union of Bzzz and more notably, Kallos has claimed lands of the USA. Additionally, Icenia laid claims to Icenia City
• As a result of the “blanket ban,” the player count reached 100 for the first time since July, and required a short queue during peak hours on Saturday.
• Pavia has reverted its threat level to “Probable”; it has not returned to levels this low since weeks before the war started.
• CivMarket is planning its return with a secure bunker to better store wealth and prevent attacks in the future.
• A loose parking brake has caused a pedestrian in Lusitania to be run over; vendor RektTangle, the victim, is reported to only have minor injuries.
• Naran samurai Blatlas has announced “the rarest auction to ever take place in CivMC”, coming later this week.
• The Lambat Post has pivoted print editions to be published in game, being sold outside Lambat’s Media Centre. The two headlines this week are: Crossposted from the Lambat Post.
  • Truck allegedly runs over Lusitan pedestrian
  • Pillar of the Nation: Banyough voted “Greatest Lambatan of All Time (so far)”. Crossposted from the Lambat Post.

The Fun Stuff

This section’s header image is, yeah you’re right it’s just Provence from Lusitania again, they just keep putting out bangers

Cool Builds

• You already saw Shiroyama’s library but I’m gonna give you the full post
• An overhead view of Shiroyama gives a great view of the whole city
• I’m ashamed that I put Vah on the newsletter a couple weeks ago, but at least that’s rectified with this statue transformed into Slushhi
• Scenes from the obbybombing in Icenia, taken by Kaprediem
• An overhead view of Icenia just from the sheer scale of all of the grief is mindblowing, and kind of crazy how much they really did to put rubble over rubble
• The Commonwealth’s new Summer Palace in Petergrad looks like the White House

Multimedia Projects

• Icenia had this stored up since Day -1 of the CivClassic subreddit and only now did you pull this out?!
• Just recreating the Jorvik CoA is just a good effort
• This propaganda poster against Rhode Island is actually really well done

Memes

• 21-2 sounds like an American football score — although I guess that’s less funny than 28-3
• Does this imply OrangeWizard owns Rhodesia
• Great logbox, honey! He won’t be able to escape being kidnapped now!
• Interesting take on Southshire’s Coat of Arms, but where’s the giraffe?
• I’m not going to get tired of a funny farting meme, but this takes me back

Metagame Highlights

• HumanBeing provides a relatively inaccurate view of the most addicted individuals on Civ, according to SkyNet logouts.
• Bgbba has a word for the wise about “reformation”
• TheJmqn recounts the losing record of the Zoomers since CivRealms

Liberating Cry for Help

This section’s featured picture is the many people (but not everyone!) present at the Rhode Island vault break, posing in front of a beacon after the raid was completed! This picture was taken by Metriximor.

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of the newsletter. This week’s edition was supported by Metriximor and all of you!

Now that the war is over and you’re not scared in a bunker, I highly implore you to fill out this featured articles form! I need articles gosh darn it. It’s only like 150 words you need to write (which is the length of a one-day homework assignment!) and it’s really short. Just tell me a little about your nation or your history from a wiki article, it can’t take that long!

Sorry for not getting the recruitment results back, I’ve been quite a busy guy in real life the past couple of weeks and haven’t been able to, there’s no ETA for the results but I’m hoping to get ‘em back soon.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and as always…

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