CivWiki Newsletter for October 14, 2024

Good morning and happy Monday from the great Pacific Northwest!

As the leaves are starting to turn, I’m very glad we’re entering a much more peaceful and serene period on Civ recently. There’s always going to be drama, sure, that’s never in question, but I think the world has started really develop some worldbuilding over this past peace period. Really great to see the world developing instead of constant drama all the time. Although, I’m sure this is a pocket in time where that hasn’t happened yet.

Ready for the news?

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is completely new — the territory of Bloom in Icenia. Xcios and Slusshi have been hard at work on this for quite a while, and I did promise them I’d show off their train station, which I guess is technically true here. The prismarine domes, sandstone and brick buildings as well as its location are a perfect fit for the landscape. Although it’s way more structured than the original Bloom was on CivClassic, I have to say it’s a much better fit and I can’t wait to see how it expands in the future!

Featured Article

This week’s featured article was written by Ishir_.

Karydia is the western-most continent of CivMC, south of Icenia and northwest of Deluvia. It has the least amount of sovereign nations, home to two: Mercutio and Vanani. The continent also contains territories belonging to external states, including Salerno, based in Southern Sea which are parts of Royal Karydia, Mayguow, which is under Imperial Federation dominion, Karydia Imperial, also a part of the Imperial Federation, and Icarus, part of Icenia. While most of Karydia’s land is controlled by nations based outside the continent, efforts to establish new, independent states have mostly failed, such as nations like Western Boundary, Holy See and others, including a lot of exclaves failing; the relatively new Vanani has been the only lasting example. Infrastructure in Karydia, particularly its rail system, remains underdeveloped, though infrastructure and rail projects are underway to connect key settlements like Malina, Blue Cove, and IF with Mangal (Vanani) and a Salernite rail to Pavia. Key settlements include Malina, the capital of Mercutio, Blue Cove the capital of Icarus, World’s End, a new salernite settlement and upcoming cities in Vanani, like it’s capital Mangal.

Governance across Karydia is diverse, though democratic systems are the most common. Mercutio operates with a theocratic council system, while Vanani combines democratic and monarchical elements. Icarus is governed democratically but remains intertwined with Icenia, and Salerno follows a constitutional monarchy. Mayguow, though part of the IF, operates democratically with the possibility of veto by the IF. Efforts to boost Karydia’s social and economic integration are ongoing, with major developments in Vanani and Salerno in central and southern Karydia driving the region’s growth toward better connectivity and modernization. Karydia’s blend of isolated nations, foreign territories, and ongoing development efforts make it a truly unique region with a complex future ahead.

This week’s featured image is a stylized image of Karydia on xFier’s map, (cr: Ishir_)

This Week In Civ

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The News

The Princely Palace of Kaltsburg, with its garden out in front. (cr: deyan)

Around The Server

Go around the server enough times and it’ll get interesting right?

• Yoahtl announced it would be joining the ASN, but when Icenia announced this, it got fewer upvotes.
• The Norflund Accord was announced and signed, a “union founded on shared economies, military aid alongside cultural heritage” between Khalkedonia, Kat, Aragonia and Melonia.
• Vanani and Alcantara signed a treaty of friendship aimed at strengthening ties and fostering cooperation between the two countries.
• PhysicsGamer retracted his bounty on dredd_kiji after Kallos mediated efforts and had dredd_kiji apologize and pay reparations.
• SPQR’s consul, alberlb96 announced he would be dissolving the Senate, stating that the nation lacked active residents for such a system to exist. Additionally, 9/10 active voters voted to ban hate speech within the country.
• The Hello Kitty Islands were announced as a new nation.
  • While normally I would never make a post that announces a newfriend nation, Bronnakus complained about their claims, accusing them of “not needing the land” in a way that I felt, (ed. note: opinion) was pretty condescending.
• Wergo announced that they had a new (albeit pretty barebones) website showing how long they’ve been pearled without contact from Volterra.
• Prawny announced that the Nara to 0,0 rail is complete after a “much delayed announcement”.
• Pavia announced the creation of the Map Art Trust that will “oversee the creation of Map Arts that capture the beauty, history, and creativity of [Pavia]” and greatly accept donations.

Metagame Highlights

• I really appreciate newfriends posting on the subreddit, honestly a really cool long-post on their journey onto CivMC that gives some really good insight into their first moments on Civ.
• On the other hand, someone can’t read the subreddit name to figure out what the server name is
• The post didn’t get autoapproved and is generally not interesting but oldfriend danielx9x has posted again
• Hakr_ was on strike earlier this week.
  • Late-night and West-coast players will know him well as the “person who knows when the restart happens” since it’s not announced and happens without warning, so it’s been relatively helpful for late night players.
  • However, he announced he would go on strike in an effort for admins to legalize reading light levels for blocks, since it’s currently not allowed.
  • As the suggestion has been accepted (ed. note: discord link), he quickly announced he would go back to doing what he normally does.
• Meanwhile a more important suggestion was accepted at the same time: Bobby mod was also accepted as a suggestion to add on the excepted mods list (ed. note: discord link), however both of the above changes are currently not in effect and any rule changes needs a unanimous vote from all admins, so don’t expect it anytime soon.

The Fun Stuff

A new pavilion heading up in Hanyang, Vinland (cr: EmperorAshina)

Calendar

• Ongoing until Halloween - CivMC’s Halloween event has some spooky heads floating in the water, maybe you could fish them up…
• Sometime next weekend, TBA - The first games of the International Hockey League, Season 2 are set to start
• October 20 - Imperial Federation bunkies, as per usual. Keep an ear out for the exact time!
• October 30 - FlamingSofa announced a Spooky Map Art themed competition, for Halloween!
• November 10 (1pm EST/18:00 UTC) - Volterra Day, celebrating the country’s 10th anniversary!
• November 14 - Highgrove Day, along with the anniversary of Charles III’s coronation is being celebrated in Pavia.
• November 18 - A build competition for CivMC’s PvP server! Message RedDevel for completed submissions.

Builds

Didn’t have time to scrape through a lot of builds, but complimenting the ones I did see

• Hanyang is Korean (right?) but does the temple build style quite well (cr: EmperorAshina)
• The last time I mentioned a picture of Halland they really liked it, and I do like their build style as well (cr: mattbruhr)
• Although the palace in Kaltsburg may be relatively simple to the builds on Civ, it harkens back to a simpler age and I like it (cr: deyan)
• Honestly Maugate looks like it’s expanded so much, it’s incredible how fast not only this, but other areas in the IF get built (cr: Urzork)

Meme

• I can’t believe that Charlie is weighing in on the action

Non-Civ Content

• Ok AD, I didn’t forget to put in this week that the Pavian Dukes all met together IRL
• While I did a lot of phototaking this past weekend for the fall leaves, the real gem was finding good music:
  • I have to shoutout local radio station KEXP for continually pulling up gems everytime, a great use of donations
  • I am generally surprised that Lawrence fans have not found their 8-Bit Big Band Cover of a Marvel vs. Capcom song, because I swear most of the commenters are in disbelief that Clyde Lawrence isn’t black
  • Somehow this album showed up in my YouTube recommendations as an intriguing title and turned out to be good lo-fi music, so I accepted my fate
  • I am currently listening to the Hades OST as I write this, so you know this newsletter is a banger
  • And this is what is playing in my head when I get news at 11:59pm Sunday
  • A little obsessed with Animusic that I found someone remake Cathedral Pictures — and then add even more
• I’m sure Grimace fans are (not) happy — but I just saw SpeedyJustice/Hg_80/insert Phillies fan here fall to his knees in a Wawa
  • Boy, I can’t wait for a Dodgers/Yankees World Series, just as everyone predicted…

Poll of the Week

A new render of Maugate, showing off its expansion. (cr: Urzork)

Last week, we had 52 responses.

Poll Anonymity

I did kind of bucket the answers I expected but honestly, this sort of makes sense. People prefer being anonymous in these polls, and it’s fine because these questions are very softball anyway, and I don’t really care about knowing who said a certain thing because that just introduces more grudge in the community, and nobody wants that.

I do think though, that it’s more interesting that there’s a good amount of people that literally don’t care about privacy and them being tracked on the internet, but that’s a topic for a different discussion. In all honesty, this was essentially a filler question because I couldn’t think of a good choice question this week.

Best Builders

Onto something wholesome, this question was put up by Xcios, although this is a general series of questions about people on Civ. There’s an incredible variety of legendary Civ builders were represented here, old and new.

A whole bunch of people considered some variation of:

Pavia builders

Gobblin (I think he’s the guy who designs most of the Pavia/Gabon stuff but I’m not sure (ed. note: yes he does))

Homie [Gobblin] was building shit in Iria 2.0 that Gensokyo couldn’t build in a decade. The shit he’s doing in Pavia is just a victory lap on a great career.

bob the builder (ed. note: this is a reference to how builders are referred to as Bobs in Pavia)

Which, yeah, that’s not very surprising, considering that literally all of Pavia fills out the poll minutes after the newsletter goes live. I think the speed at which they can build on creative, schematic out, and then start building at a breakneck pace on live, as well as the quantity is honestly quite insane.

Ok, enough me glorifying Pavia again, there are way other good responses here too:

As a Gensokyojin I’m pretty biased but it’s hard to deny Topaz’s builds are fantastic. I’d put who build the Yoahtl Olympic megastructures in second place, I’ve always found them very interesting

I know some people hate them for the drama, but every iteration Genso has consistently had some stellar Imperial Japanese builds very reminiscent of Miyazaki movies; I really like that.

Ngl Sloth is an amazing builder. Have u seen their builds?

Yeah, the scale on his builds is actually really impressive. I hope he does more buildfriending because I do want to see massive builds in the IF once again.

Dr Baconhair, slothinasuit

I’m going to be honest, I don’t know Dr_Bacon_Hair’s builds that much, but considering his track record in Icarus, Icenia and the Temporal Isles, they’re all great places for building too.

XC and x1025

Most people who would say someone like Gobblin, but I haven’t seen him outside of the medieval minecrafty style. I say XCStar.

x1025 has made the most tangible impact on Civ architecture with the post-modernist architecture of the Olympic stadiums, but XCStar has been consistently been one of the main drivers of urban design in Yoahtl (despite what bgbba says), and I love visiting Altepetl every time.

It depends on what you consider the best builds to be. If you’re going for “best city,” I’d probably say everyone who contributed to NYC. If you wanted just sheer quality, I’d say seekinq for his work on Griffin. The folks who designed Pavia might be a close second, but it is a little too repetitive and derivative if you ask me. It’s mostly the sheer quantity they have built that really impresses me.

I think Seekinq, Griffin and its predecessors on CivClassic are extremely underrated in general, just because that although it’s not quantity that we get from them, it’s the quality that they’re able to pull off every time.

SeldomSh0ck, not biased at all, I mean come on, he built Gondolin, and many other buildings.

Mickale

Like Sloth, I think the scale of Volterra’s builds are absolutely incredible, their capital’s builds (including past builds in Varkonia) is/are probably 3x the size you see in the pictures I put on the newsletter. The amount of detail they can stuff into these builds is something worth seeing.

Yell at Me!

Y’all not going to be ready for what the open response is next week.

Eepy Cry for Help

The 12th Senate of Volterra meeting up in person (cr: Cicero).

Thank you for reading this week’s (spookier?) newsletter! A huge thanks to Ishir_ for writing this week’s featured article (and keeping up with all of my hopefully constructive feedback)!

Next week, as promised, it’s the 5th week of the rotation, so you won’t be hearing my (writer’s) voice as much as I will be taking a break from writing. HOWEVER, I will be assigning helpers to help out for several of the sections, and working as an editor next week. If you’d like to help out gather news within your regional section, I would gladly appreciate it, message me @specificlanguage if you’re the least bit interested.

(Also reach out if you’re interested in an ad too!)

I’ll see you next week (or if not, the week after), so as always…

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