CivWiki Monday Newsletter

A (mostly) weekly newsletter for Civ servers supported by the CivWiki

CivWiki Newsletter for November 11, 2024

• specificlanguage

Good morning and… uh, it’s one of the Mondays alright.

I know this week has… been one for some people, and I’m not just talking about gambling.

I can’t offer any words of wisdom on that front. There isn’t even a lot of news this week to talk to you back. But I hope this newsletter at least provides some distraction for you in the next 10-15 minutes, I’ve got a big meaty section on things have at least provided me a modicum of self-worth in the past few days.

I’m sure you definitely want to read that (ed. note: sarcasm). Let’s get straight to it then…

This week’s featured image I decided was a unique view of Shockton, Volterra. Located in the southeast of the city is a sports complex — this picture is located near the Horse Racing area. If you’ve got an LOD mod like Bobby like I have here, you’ll be able to see a great skyline of not only Shockton, but Volterra Prime of which you can kind of see to the right. which you can sort of see the buildings across the city. I still find it incredibly impressive of Volterra’s continued building, just as quality as Pavia builds. Great work!

Featured Article

This week’s featured article was written by Wandrum.

Pearled Harbor was an event in November 2023, during a conflict between Gang Shi and Icenia. This came after relations became heated due to several incidents involving bombing of unreinforced structures and pearling of Icenian senators. Even though many nations sought out for peace such as Yoahtl signing a non-aggression pact with Gang Shi, they soon learned about their plans to attack Icenia, Yoahtl and other nations. On November 29, 2023, officials from Yoahtl and Icenia met with Fastestgrass, who would be able to inside Gang Shi with the help of Antea4204.

In the quick succession of 11 days, the Dawn Guard Pact, Antea4204, Fastest, and Fastest’s friends prepared the day that is now known as “Pearled Harbor”, launching an attack on Gang Shi’s vault on December 8, 2023. They were able to crucially damage the vault, burn the vast majority of the wealth it held and after deciding to withdraw from Black Mesa without any deaths. Pearled Harbor marked the beginning of a war called the Grasslands Gambit, lasting until December 12, 2023 ultimately ending in the dissolution of Gang Shi and their associated nations Butternut and Lambeau.

This week’s image was Black Mesa vault, flooded shortly before Pearled Harbor was posted.

This Week In Civ

On the week of November 11 - November 17 in:

2022:

  • The Commonwealth tore down what was known as “Watergate”, a tall column of water stretching across the sea. It raised several protests from other nations who wanted the wall there.
  • ___TheBoss___ raided Ila’Kyavul’s bunker on Sunday, and an Independent Southern Powers campaign started on the Rozia bunker to recover the looted materials and obtain his pearl.
  • Nara revealed the plot to its Halloween Murder Mystery, as well as the various clues involved in its mystery. It was discovered that several people were behind the plot to kill TolypeVelleda.
  • A crisis in Yoahtl’s capital, Altepetl, saw individuals from Doom City and Estalia steal the Yoahtlan pigeon, after clues and hints from the week before.
  • CivMarket is held a building competition over the next couple of weeks, with potential victors winning diamonds or a free shop plot.

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News & Fun Stuff

I probably don’t have to point out to you this is an image of Eldoria. (cr: Dark_FFC)

Calendar

Around the Server

Metagame Highlights

Builds

On the shoreline in Griffin, Adria (cr: Seekinq).

I missed running the builds section last week, so we’re going to get a lot of great looking stuff this week.

Memes

Buy Froglights from Suramir!Get your hands on the server’s exclusive Pearlescent Froglights! Use code SURAMIR in Estalians’ Discord tickets to grab a stack for just 18d until the end of August. Don’t miss out on this awesome deal from the only froglight supplier around!Discord: discord.gg/9Hx879n5HS

To place an ad here, take a look at the ads page.

Distractions

Guess what, here’s more (possibly too many?) distractions to distract you from the main distraction:

Buy Raven for all your armor or tool related needs! We do deliveries to Pavia, Transylvania, Accra, Yoahtl, and Exilus as well as Lambat Portal and Titan Portal for our pearled customers. Make orders by joining our discord:

discord.gg/nnRdn6CYFY

To place an ad here, take a look at the ads page.

Poll of the Week

A new (work-in-progress) in Estalia (cr: Tuomasz).

Last week, we had 58 responses.

The Newsletter’s Future

I’m doing this one first on purpose because it actually matters. I asked whether it would be OK if the newsletter were to turn into a newsmagazine, after my rant last week. So here’s the results:

Well, then it’s settled!! CivWiki Newsmagazine it is!!

I said yes but I wish that you had the time to do an in depth report once a month while generally covering weekly.

I actually had this in mind while thinking about rebranding as a newsmagazine. In practice, this lets me continue the newsletter, but

Basically imagine today’s newsletter but just batched altogether monthly.

In all honesty, this will give me a better balance for what I want to do personally, but still continue the newsletter in a fashion that’s satisfactory to everyone. Of course, these changes will not go into effect until next year anyway, but just wanted to make a plan that feels comfortable.

Version (Pre-Update)

This question was lifted from another question that got a little bit of traction the previous week.

Because of the wide range of versions that CivMC supported post-launch, it’s actually sort of surprising that a lot of people actually updated to the latest version, even despite the sudden announcement.

Of course, now that mods have been getting adapted for new Minecraft versions faster and faster, migrating has been much easier, but it’s worth noting that adoption is usually slow, but also asked towards a noted version change.

One other question that should probably have been asked was the reason people stay on older versions — but that’s a question for the next time Civ updates.

Map Art and Build Themes

This question was posed by meenos, I actually didn’t acknowledge his DM but at least I’m giving him credit now!

More Asian themed, (not Japanese, sorry nara bros.)

so, like, Chinese?

Pre-antiquity/bronze age

medieval could be cool

Some sort of fantasy builds could look great. LotR, Eragon, etc.

We do already have a lot of these kinds of builds in game in places like Pavia. Or is that a little later than it should be?

cat

Meow.

I think recreating some irl world landmarks would be pretty cool

I think the problem with adding IRL landmarks is that you have to specifically make it fit in your world, and also replicate it well. Both are pretty hard, in my opinion, I find it easier to make something yourself than replicate things. It would be nice as a build competition sort of thing though, but I’m not expecting anything of high quality if this build was on.

countryside

Some landscape mart art[sic] of various cities/nations. Probably from screenshots made with shaders, those would look really neat on my wall.

Civ Nature

Nature

I am very surprised about the number of people asking for nature-like art or builds. There are such beautiful landscapes throughout CivMC and even though I personally don’t prioritize nature screenshots (since it’s not really a “constructed” build), I do think the terrain in the world is beautiful.

With that said, I think it would be awesome to make a pixel art with some sort of nature in mind. I’d love to see more nature around Civ, whether in map art or in builds, meenos has a great theme on his hands here.

I think that an organized map art festival would be a very cool server event. There could be a couple of categorical competitions in addition to a best overall award… This would also be a great way for artists to make more diamonds. … I hope someone steals this idea.

And steal it I will — not. Have fun making a map art festival based around nature, meenos!

Vote Now!

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Distraction Dance Cry for Help

A view of all the greenery present in Altepetl, Yoahtl (cr: Jaydon).

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. Thanks to Wandrum for writing this week’s featured article even though I asked for it like months ago, and meenos for giving a question suggestion last week.

If you’d like to help contribute to the newsletter, whether by writing, pictures, ads or otherwise, I’d be happy to give you something, just message me @specificlanguage on Discord and I’ll work something out. Especially if you’re thinking about doing some sort of op-ed or article-like thing, that’s something I’m looking out for actively now.

Anyway, thanks for reading and until next week…

EDIT CIVWIKI