CivWiki Monday Newsletter for October 23, 2023

Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

As the outside is getting colder and the vibes more spookier, I don’t think I’ve seen the Civ community this busy in October — sure it’s not the usual summer numbers, but what’s here is definitely more than I remember seeing on CivClassic or even last year’s October. Maybe it’s because we’re not in the middle of a major, server-altering war this time?

Well, let’s hope we’re still in the clear for the next few months! Onto the news!

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s featured image is once again Adria in Griffin! They were (again) one of the earlier people on the Halloween decoration train and decorated their capital pretty early, making it a spooky halloween for everyone involved! Of course, the country looks spectacular, but they made their decorations deliberate and well made and it fits the country well. If you want to get the thumbnail photo for the Halloween edition on October 30, make sure to take a great screenshot and put it somewhere public!

Featured Article

The City of England, commonly known as England, is a nation founded on CivClassic and built in a medieval style. Named as a joke after a lyric in an infamous rap song, an initial settlement was built in 2017 before the nation became inactive in 2017, and their claims were ceded to SPQR. When some founders of the nation returned in 2019, the founders eventually rebuilt south of their initial area. Although the country were never involved in any alliances, a considerable number of nations gave their support for the country in the Jomsviking-England Incident in 2021, where the Jomsviking Confederation attempted to raise a coup.

The country was mainly known for its large and elaborate builds. Its capital is a large castle surrounded by farms, surrounded by crypts and chambers. It also contains a number of other builds such as Fort Beak, a massive Coliseum-like structure, and its Monastery and Cathedral Ruins, whose bridge goes over a deep canyon with tall arches. Today, the City of England mainly plays in today’s iteration of SPQR on CivMC.

The City of England’s large castle and courtyard in its main capital.

The News

Temporal Moment

Gang Shi fighters in Temporal Isles with PhysicsGamer’s pearl.

This episode comes in two parts because they are somewhat, but mostly unrelated to each other.

• On October 15, squidhasthebad was pearled by Icenia; he had an outstanding bounty in Yoahtl for trespassing.
• Although he was released minutes later, after he returned to Icenia to retrieve his items, he attempted to bait Anvil and JuniorTide into a Temporal Isles trap.
• At the same time, PhysicsGamer attempted to goad Anvil and JuniorTide into chasing him instead as he hit snitches in an attempt to distract the duo.
• Squid eventually used a tunnel to escape Temporal Isles; JuniorTide and Anvil eventually used the opportunity to chase PhysicsGamer.
• While in the tunnel, Anvil was pearled by Squid, while Squid was pearled by JuniorTide.

Icenia were concerned of a Gang Shi citizen attempting to pearl members of the government, but regret the continued pursuit across international borders. The pearls of both Anvil and Squidhasthebad are currently under negotiations (and were going well, according to Gwua).

This was made more complicated following:

• On October 19, PhysicsGamer griefed Temporal Isles with several stacks of iron reinforced deepslate and diamond reinforced pillars. The reasoning by PhysicsGamer is currently undetermined, but the most he’s said to Gwua is to “continue to terrorize Icenia”.
• Gang Shi were upset with the situation, as they were on reasonable relations with Icenia so far. When confronting him, PhysicsGamer refused to give over grief groups following his pearling — he did not trust the country further and took all Gang Shi citizens off their vault groups.
• The following day, Gang Shi operatives pearled PhysicsGamer, along with disabling the country’s vault.

Currently, Gang Shi currently holds all Temporal Empire territory, however, they intend to release the territory to interested parties, such as bordering Temporal Isles and Winterbourne. PhysicsGamer was also issued a mercy ban from the admins of an unknown length.

Happenings Around Civ

A classic middle eastern Muslim port at Al-Qaṣba in Reggio Argeddina. I hope that special character comes out right when publishing.

• Yoahtl and Gang Shi agreed upon a Non-Aggression Pact, hoping to relieve tensions between the two neighboring countries.
• The International Hockey League had the Temporal Mountaineers withdraw from the league, replaced by the Imperial Federation’s Pumpkin and the Sidekicks.
  • The Vinland Vikings failed to show for the IHL’s first match with Mercutio’s ‘Malina’s Mandarins’ winning by forfeit; they instead played against the Shiroyama Tigers as an exhibition match.
  • Additionally, the Icenian Isopods blew out Pumpkin and the Sidekicks with an 11-1 score.
  • Finishing out the bracket on Sunday, the Blue Cove Boars beat the DUCKS, 4-3 in a riveting match.
  • SPQR Gladiators also won against the Baile Wolves (with a riveting tiebreaker!) 3-2.
  • Editor’s note: Wow, I didn’t expect to be a sports reporter now…
• As a result of PhysicsGamer’s actions, Lambeau announced their departure from the PPIS, along with nasion returning briefly to express their distaste for PhysicsGamer’s actions
• Pavia had a slew of major announcements this week:
  • They opened their Newfriend Expo, an interactive tutorial for newfriends to slowly introduce themselves to Civ mechanics.
  • After much deliberation, Pavia also increased their claims, claiming open land to their north.
  • They also signed Declarations of Friendship between FROST alliance members Vinland and Kar-Kazdun
  • Hakr was elected as the new state tabulator following the resignation of hitobashuru. Crossposted from the Pavia Daily.
  • ArtificialIndustries’ stock sale closed with 1,194 diamonds being sold representing 10% of the company.
  • Finally, Paagf and Archduke Gobblin are working on a major upgrade to the international rail station in Pavia, expanding the station’s capacity to 16 tracks.
• Nara held an arbor day, with mTfUJi working on new trees in the territory over the weekend.
• HassDaMahn and Gang Shi are holding an event called the Civ Games, with a large potential prize pool. Are you sure this isn’t an Olympics event?
• Venne and Headshot0515 has opened a new Venne-ral store in Venozia, selling winter goods and specialties.
• Torynado is reporting a lost pet, a Skelly Pony named Flipper last seen near the Mia Portal in the Nether. Any sign of the pet should be sent to Torynado on discord.
• Transylvania announced they would be joining Kaowta, longtime readers will know they’ve been in really absurd spats against each other so hopefully this will last.
• Volterra also announced they would be annexing Warmia, with the blessing of the Warmian government until they return.
• CivCubed has opened their account linking system, allowing players to log onto the server at civcubed.net prior to their launch on December 1.

The Fun Stuff

Blue Cove’s ice hockey arena in Icarus, hosting the Blue Cove Boars in the International Hockey League.

Builds

I am going to deliberately not ask for permission for many of these because nobody wants to show their builds in the channel

• MayCubed has been working on several townhouses in Truidencia City, don’t think this got enough exposure
• Walkers is working on a massive bridge connecting the Estalian mainland with the Suramir market, and it’s honestly crazy
• Blue Cove’s ice rink might honestly be the most underrated of the IHL stadiums in CivMC right now
  • Speaking of other stadiums being shown off, there’s always an excuse to showcase Shiroyama Stadium
  • Vinland’s stadium in Willibald has a great exterior
  • I’m sure that the size of the SPQR stadium was a slight oversight but the stadium is still striking nevertheless
  • Even though Mery doesn’t have a hockey team, I like the more quaint style of their stadium. Would be cool for it to be a neutral site in the future
• So I guess a hand coming out of the ground in Amicitia is less spooky but moreso just a Hands of the Earth project
• I would love for this to be a great turn of the century port in Mercutio
• Seekinq will probably like being in this section for two weeks in a row even though it’s literally the same picture of Griffin

Art, Memes, and More

I think this is the first week in a while where I don’t have a iinkuu or butter_villager piece to talk about…

• VilyanZ made a new Soria civball, with a New Melonwood Civball made by Ke.
• The IHL got some crazy AI generated art from rt6yhjyuvy6 as well as Jaydon for specifically Minecraft-themed logos. Probably the most excited people have been for a Civ sports game in a while.
• I’m sure there’s a better Breaking Bad reference for this than Godfather or something
• Argonja deez nuts
• Did you know there’s a word called semantic satiation when you say “Temporal Isles” too much
• I don’t think it’s a good idea to make your meme parody “Satan is Real”
• We makin it out of the Icenia vault with this one

Non-Civ Content

Sports Corner

• In baseball this week, the Phillies are a team of destiny as they are now ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks going into Game 6, one game away from another World Series appearance. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are somehow finding ways to not win games at home as the series has been 3-2…
  • You may be wondering, will I be talking about baseball in the offseason? Probably not unless a massive trade happens.
• The football topic of the week is of a titanic clash in the Big Ten: #3 Ohio State faced off against #7 Penn State in what was one of the biggest games of the college football season so far (and is the focus because Xeno is unfortunately a huge Penn State fan)
  • Ohio State ended up winning 20-12. Both defenses were known to be stronger than both offenses, so no one was surprised when this game was a defensive struggle for long stretches
  • The pivotal moment came when Penn State forced a sack fumble and returned the ball all the way for a touchdown, but not before a penalty flag lay on the field… defensive holding against Penn State, wiping out the touchdown and the fumble and giving Ohio State a first down
  • Ohio State scored a touchdown of their own shortly after, resulting in a 14-point swing that ultimately decided the game!
• What the fuck the Patriots won this week, this mathemtically isn’t possible how the absolute fuck my pick’ems are boomed
• Speaking of Pick’ems, somehow the competition hasn’t spread out even at Week 6 the top 10 are all still within 4 points of each other, still anyone’s game

Other Things

• Stampylongnose concluded his Minecraft let’s play yesterday, I’m sure some of you are only playing Minecraft because of him
• I’ve been putting this “TikTok” on repeat for the past week, any D&D friends will get this immediately
• I’m slightly outraged that YouTube basically slapped SSSniperWolf on the wrist for literal doxxing, so uhhhh great job guys
• For those curious, this newsletter has been scraped by not only ByteDance, the makers of TikTok, but Yandex, a Russian search engine. Cool!
  • This might not be a huge issue to some of you, but you might notice I put a lot of my own personal flair in the newsletter, so I’d rather value my privacy in this case.

Poll of the Week

Last Week’s Answers

Last week, we had three poll questions this week, for a combined 34 responses. I’ve noticed the numbers have been declining for a while, but this is a bit concerning.

First, we had Are you on the CivWiki discord?

The only thing that you should learn is that if you edit, get on CivWiki, but if you don’t still join CivWiki!

Next, we had How would you feel about an announcements channel for the community?

I think this benefits the newsletter more than anything. This was a BritishWanderer suggestion and I believe it would be helpful, but moreso for a newsletter thing rather than an announcements channel sort. Still, it’s worth considering in the future.

Finally, we had What would you like in a CivWiki ticket system?

This is the one I’m most excited about. Over this weekend, I’ve been trying to integrate a tickets both in CivWiki and hopefully we’ll be launching the feature this week along with new moderation applications, because god knows we need that.

I think the first three I thought were going to be the most common since that’s what most of CivWiki is used for, what I’m more surprised about is for the general suggestion box because we usually never get suggestions for the CivWiki directly to our faces, so having a easier method of feedback is going to be so much easier.

This Week’s Sitcom Episode

There’s no theme to the polls this week, but just some random questions out there.

Artificial Intelligence Cry for Help

An AI generated bunch of International Hockey Team logos, damn AI has gone extremely far.

Please comment “I love being delusional” if you’ve read this far, it’d be really funny seeing the comments be entirely like this.

A slight update from the CivWiki-admin side of speclang: I’m probably going to commit to doing a little more work editing and other desperately-needed TLC to both distract myself from my current life situation (which I doubt you want to know more about) as well follow up on some promises that I’d like to do before I inevitably leave.

I’m hoping that we’re going to start onboarding some moderators or bureaucrats, or possibly even a new newsletter editor, by the end of the year, so that’s really exciting. Expect to see some additions to the discord (at the very least) this coming week.

A big thanks to BritishWanderer, ArtificialDriver, Gwua, and Shadno for providing supplemental information this week.

Thanks for reading all of the above, and until next time…

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