CivWiki Newsletter for October 28, 2024

Good morning and happy Monday-before-Halloween from the Pacific Northwest!

It’s officially Spooky Time! I hope everyone is gearing up for a very spooky time outside of the game and enjoying some festivities in game too (although, I guess this year’s event was not as hype as last year’s, in my opinion).

We saw a heck of a lot more activity on the subreddit this week — and at least 50% wasn’t drama, great job guys! Are we ready to talk about it?

Featured

Featured Image

This week’s spooky featured image is of Halloween Town in New Jersey. Well, like, duh, what other Halloween stuff is available year round on the server? But honestly, I really like this haunting build style, from the warm tones of the fall leaves to the Jack Skellington-like tree to the run down church that’s plucked right out of a horror movie, I really enjoy this style as a whole. I’m so glad that this has stayed as it has been for at least a year now, and I hope it stays for a long time to come, probably one of the most underrated builds on the server. This is what I was leading up to last week, hopefully!

Featured Article

This week’s featured article is, unsurprisingly, a repeat of October 31, 2022, written by prawny331.

Devoted Hell was the most recent iteration in the Devoted franchise of Civ servers, run by ProgrammerDan and Convoy. Unlike all other Civ servers, the Nether was the only playable dimension, forcing players to innovate in order to survive, thrive and build cities in the new environment changed by the Nether update. On launch, the server had four shards arranged in sequence based on hellish names, varying in difficulty and plugin makeup, along with a short tutorial world to introduce new players to Civ mechanics. Another new feature was the inclusion of the Jobs plugin, tying progression through the server’s tech tree to several MMO-like skills.

The server launched in January 2021; the server was planning to use a subscription model for users to play in order to fund the server’s expenses, though a rough launch left the server with rampant TPS issues due to faulty hardware. Before players joined the server, the server also attempted a tutorial system in its lobby. Among the most notable nations were Inferno and Helios, the latter winning a building contest on the server due to its massive scope. Although a fourth iteration was teased, this proved to be Devoted’s last iteration, but introduced novel mechanics for future Civ servers.

This week’s image is of Helios, the winner of the build contest on Devoted Hell.

This Week In Civ

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The News

A bit of a spooky time in SPQR, with ghosts and pumpkins set up everywhere.

CivMC Update

CivMC made a minor update with several bugfixes and quality of life features. The last minor update was on October 9 and major update on August 21. The changes included but is not limited to:

• /spawnbook as an /introbook alias (cr: Gjum)
• nerfing cactus to despawn after 1 minute (cr: Okx)
• Add build limit hack to prevent placing blocks on Nether Roof (cr: Drekamor)
• Show sign edits within the snitch log, along with some missing representations (cr: Walkers)
• No longer allows pearled players from pearling others (cr: kicky)

How to be an Antiracist

How much can I milk this dead horse before it gets boring to read? Unfortunately, horse milk does exist.

Earlier this week, SPQR consul alberb96 made a post about the country’s steps forward:

• One of their main actions was to distance themselves from Cordoba and apologize for their behavior, as well as a personal apology for covering it up. There’s a little bit more to talk about regarding this, but we’re getting there.
• As a result, they passed a new “hate speech” law last week to “combat racism, sexism and any kind of bigotry”.
• They also (for real this time) declaimed Cordoban land, and agreed with the GLHF alliance that it would be earmarked as newfriend nation territory.
• Although there was some criticism about the implementation of the hate speech law, there was generally a consensus that SPQR was heading in the right direction.

However, a second post by natls showed up later this week detailing much more of the hate speech coverup that was present in SPQR.

• In general, there was a repeated knowingness to cover up several issues, including but not limited to:
  • Mark_Antony knowing about the statue six months prior to the Exyria post despite saying he never knew about it
  • Intentionally making plans to remake the statue in somehow a more racist way and covering it up
  • Intending to blame other people for their (or their racist friend’s) shortcomings
  • etc. etc. it’s a full post, you have to read the full thing.

At the end, even though the post above signals a good sign of progress with SPQR, alberb96 (remind you, the current Roman Consul, who came back suddenly and retrieved all NameLayer groups from Mark), vetoed a bill that would remove Mark_Antony from SPQR entirely. I don’t want to call it virtue signalling, but to an outsider it is concerning.

Despite this, Mark is no longer a citizen and his only activity is talking about IRL Rome on other subreddits.

Least Wanted Individuals

Cherry blossoms abloom in Sunahama, Imperial Federation (cr: Puremaster).

• On the topic of dead horses, Leviathan was pearled for a short time by Nekroz09 last weekend
  • Leviathan alleged that “they were helping a newfriend” when Nekroz “ambushed” them.
  • Although he was freed, Pavia exiled them from the country for engaging in toxic behavior, disrespect towards dukes and nobility in Pavia, and even animal abuse. All he wanted was a horse!
• Yergo of Yoahtl posted an apology to The Commonwealth this past week for taking their crafting tables
  • (ed. note: Yergo is not to be confused for “Wergo”, and The Commonwealth (the country) is not to be confused with the Lyrean Commonwealth (the regional union).)
  • Earlier last week, Yergo raided several crafting benches in the country within private housing and secure areas within the country, which concerned Commonwealth leadership, and were set to press charges and/or call for his pearling.
  • After some negotiations with Yoahtl, this resulted in the above apology and settlement with Yoahtl.
  • However, other players were concerned about this as they believed that their lighthearted intentions would come across to CW but didn’t, and hoped that this would not continue in the future.

Around the Server

• The International Hockey League’s third week of games saw the Yoahtl Pigeons defeating the IF Pumpkins 12-4 and the Blue Cove Boars defeating the Volterra Tendies 4-2.
• Khalkedonia, Artonia, Yuan, Aragonia, and Kat announced the formation of the OKAY Union; all nations were supportive and in contact with each other since their founding in former Gang Shi territory. They intend to operate the organization similar to the Lyrean Commonwealth.
• The Great Western Bay announced the death of Archduke Gidein following an incident at the Groveheart Berry Farm.
• Orania10 was pearled by Yoahtl this past week. Although no public reason has been released, if you’ve been in [!] chat in the past few weeks, I would find it fairly obvious why. (ed. note: warning, sexual content)
• Tacoeee announced their resignation from Alcantara, as he felt he could no longer “contribute meaningfully to its governance or future.” He then went to Icenia.
  • Most people will know him from considerably rewriting pages to include false information on CivWiki. I don’t like that (nor the formatting).
• Iaumea announced they would be expanding into old Calw, as well as releasing a new constitution.
  • Unlike it’s predecessor CDM though, its constitution is only like, two pages long, so you know, there’s some good improvement there.
• Nice Dice Friday announced Sadchamp from Accra the winner of the 145d grand prize! KeepRefridgerated and MechanicalRift were runners-up.
• Volterra announced Madikslarj would be joining the country, north of the Hello Kitty Islands.
• Vandoria announced an expansion in the north solely for Ice.
  • However, observant readers will know this is Ambush’s country, who caused enough drama last summer that he destroyed an entire alliance and quit.

Metagame Highlights

• Someone asked the names of the CivMC continents. I think next time we have to refer people to the CivWiki for this information.
• Along with significant other updates to Monument Bank, they added recurring payment features, this means that BritishWanderer can pay me Monument Bank ads until the end of time!

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The Fun Stuff

The central spire of the Withervale Mall. (cr: x1025)

Calendar

This Week

• Today - Set your clocks back in Europe!! Daylight savings time ended in the EU/UK! (it already did but just letting people know lol)
• Ongoing until Oct 31 - CivMC’s Halloween event might see some spooky heads floating in the water, maybe you could fish them up…
• October 30 - FlamingSofa’s Spooky Map Art themed competition is wrapping up!, for Halloween!
• November 1 - Tatsu & natls announce the second week winners of Nice Dice Friday!
• November 2 - 3 - Another weekend, another round of the International Hockey League! This week, the Shiro Tigers vs. Icenian Isopods in the final match of the quarterfinals.
• November 3, 2:00am - Set your clocks back!!! Daylight savings time ends in the US!
• November 3 - More bunkies, as usual! Check the IF discord for timings on the day, although it usually happens at around 5pm Eastern. But watch out for the Daylight Savings shift!

Beyond

• 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 birthday is being celebrated in Pavia.
• November 18 - A build competition for CivMC’s PvP server! Message RedDevel for completed submissions (and to tell them how many they have!)

Builds

• Withervale looks like Miami here, I’ve probably said that before but it’s very cool (cr: x1025)
• Kaltsburg’s cathedral looks like a good start design-wise (cr: Fauxborisvv)
• Kallos in the rain does have some certain vibe to it, especially with the lighthouse honestly
• Winterbourne is viewed from afar on a horse but is very cool with the shaders (cr: Finkov)
• Cherry blossoms look abloom, but it’s not in Nara, it’s in Sunahama, IF (cr: Puremaster)

Cool Content

• CivMC Slander Part 6 from MtFuji is a banger, as always!
• The 4th issue of the Zatokan Prawvda highlights the history of their first iteration and their territory consolidation. The real highlight though, is an ad for Zatok Tuah
• The Alenarith Protectorate hosted the first live Icenian Senate Debate, I’m really sorry I wasn’t able to host the aftershow!

Memes

• Hmmm, I need to get in on this
• GMT -8 and GMT +8 are just two sides of the same tragic coin for me
• These are funny sometimes, but I hope PureMaster just doesn’t stuff the Sunahama News Network red text meme down my throat

Non-Civ Content

I would have baseball & music segments this week, but I got lazy and didn’t write them down. Here’s a Freeman grand slam (which was amazing, btw) and a SiIvaGunner song instead.

• This video is the definition of the Sisyphusian tale, and it all comes back to “Jerry’s Bait Shop”
• Happy birthday to Forged

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Poll of the Week

Oh what a nice Kallosian lighthouse, I love the decora — oh no it’s Attack on Titan NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! (cr: Jaydon/dredd_kiji)

Last week, we had 59 responses.

Modded Usage

This question was asked by xFier. Although CivMC and SoundTech say that mods should not be used on Civ, I thought it interesting to see how much people actually use them.

It’s very obvious that Fabric has been the prevailing modloader for Civ since 1.14, with major performance improvements over Forge, not to mention easier to write for so most Civ mod authors are just using it by default.

I think the more interesting question to ask next time (for the admins) is what kinds of things do you use mods for — because it’s very obvious that admins want to replace mod functionality with native plugins. However, it might be less effort to just release an official modpack.

Best Subreddit/Discord PvPers

On this next edition of “Best people on Civ”, I asked about “subreddit PvPers”. For the uninitiated, this is essentially just a funny phrase that means “who argues best”?

Historically, bgbba is hands down the greatest subreddit pvper to ever grace this genre.

In some way, I think this is actually quite appropriate and a compliment to him, unlike some others. Although definitely not the originator of a “subreddit PvPer”, his legendary arguments and longposts on the subreddit will always go down in history. And he got stuff done on Civ too!

If I had to pick however, Id probably say Orin[nari], just because of how combative he can get over the smallest of issues.

He and I have had quite a history. I will admit though, that he never gives up on an argument, and I kind of commend him for him standing up for what he believes in.

Bronnakus has a pretty legendary capacity for pointless arguing

I’m sure I can point you to my latest argument with him.

Sintralin, and not even close. That lady spoke diplomatically and calmly in contrast to her goon’s in-game actions.

Now I realize that I am putting these people in a list with sintralin, but historically her arguments were very good even during the Somber War. Imagine if gthomas or toontasker was actually on the side with academic achievement, etc.

BritishWanderer, he doesnt let them even begin to write a response once let loose and is a menace

There’s a habit of BritishWanderer making these posts…

To be fair I don’t really see him “argue” so much as write a lot. Like I do!

Risunsky/Thoths

I think the simple drop and leave tactic does turn out pretty well for him, no matter how spicy the take is.

One person I surprisingly didn’t see in the responses was crimeo; older players will know that like some other people on this list he would never give up on playing a devil’s advocate until the day he died. Granted, he’s not really in the Civ public consciousness anymore, so maybe that might do it.

Vote Now!

As usual, another reminder to not mention me as an answer. Also, this first question has no effect on the newsletter at the current moment.

Spooooooooky!! Cry for Help

Pavia having fun with sizes. I guess that’s the most “spookiest” thing I can come up with… (cr: ArtificialDriver)

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. I hope you’re having a great week in Halloweenland!

I am going to be oncall next week, so expect a shortened newsletter next week, or a newsletter written primarily by other people. As expected however, if you live in the United States and are legally able to vote, please do! It does matter!

As usual, if you’d like to help contribute to this newsletter’s development, please let me know @specificlanguage on Discord; always willing to give out a Featured Article for people.

Thanks, and until next time…

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