CivWiki Monday Newsletter

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


CivWiki Newsletter for December 11, 2023

• specificlanguage

Good morning and happy Monday from New England!

As I’m writing this, I really hope we’ll be back on the Monday schedule going forward, and I think this week has made me feel a lot better in the situation. Sure, some ups and some downs but I’ve picked myself up and feeling a little more hopeful of the situation, and I think this newsletter actually helped with that.

Although that being said, the community really had some highs and lows this weekend, huh?

Are we ready to start reading this mess of a newsletter?

This week’s featured image is a simple, but very effective Christmas tree in Amicitia. Of course, one of the only reasons I’ve picked it is that the Christmas tree was made this early but after visiting the country recently their smaller scale and simpler builds fit well on the tiny islands that they call their home. The steampunk/victorian-like architecture fits really well and is framed really well on the island so everything feels lived in and large but not too imposing. Looking forward to seeing more, if they can dredge more of the sea!

Featured Article

Pearled Harbor was an event in Columbia that resulted in many unpearlings from the Crucible, a vault in their territory. On December 7, 2021, KnotNSA, a former high-ranking official in the Columbia government, released the vast majority of pearls along with burning valuables that were stored in the vault. The event had thought to be stemmed from a personal dispute between Knot and Doommad. The name was a joke of prison pearls being released, along with the event coinciding with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Among those freed were fighters from the Infinity War, Lowtuff, Kdeeks, and other related associates, among others. KnotNSA did so after Kallos obtained information that the server was ending following a leak from TealNerd that he wished to conclude CivClassic. Kallos promised to protect KnotNSA, and issues surrounding the event resulted in panic of another war between the UDF and Kallos. The event only solidified the decision as TealNerd announcement that the server was closing due to causing substantial consequences; and the server continued as CivLegacy the following year.

This week’s featured article image is the Crucible vault in Columbia.

This Week Last Year

We’ve gotten to a point where it’s been more than a year since the very first newsletter, so this is a short section where I pull up what I wrote last year, to see what happened last year, for nostalgia’s sake:

On December 12, 2022:

  • Negotiations between Gensokyo and Dalgon broke down as the allies of both countries could not agree on adequate reparations following the Speedy Coup.
  • Icenia, Ocala, Temporal Isles, and Arnen became involved in a weekend of attacks and raids, resulting in Ocala being dissolved.
  • Pavia’s build weekend ended with a great success, with the city growing twice as big as before.
  • mTfUJi has created two different slander memes, one of which covers almost every aspect of CivMC.

The News

Pearl Harbor, the Squeakuel

A snowy evening in among the streets of Adria, Griffin.

Except only about half of this headline can really be proved true because, guess what, nothing’s happened yet. Otherwise, buckle up boys, this is going to get complicated

On Friday night to Saturday morning, Icenian speaker Quanton_Biscuit announced that they disabled, reinforced groups, and removed valuables from the Black Mesa vault, as well as “kicking fighters” from the vault. The reason for doing so, in short, was that Gang Shi employed a strategy to single out Icenia in combat to wipe them from the map.

Each of the above bulletpoints I could probably expound into an entire five paragraph essay on each (and believe me, I can), but that would be incredibly boring and time-consuming, and I don’t want to waste your time on silly things like this.

Ironically, although Quanton’s post was titled “Pearled Harbor” and claimed to be posted on the date of the Pearl Harbor bombings in Honolulu, Hawaii, a short investigation revealed that the post was actually created on December 8, one day after. To be fair, FDR’s declaration of war on Japan was the day after the Pearl Harbor bombings, and the attack on Gang Shi was done on December 7, so take of that what you will…?


Subreddit PVP

Katipan District in Lambat. By accident, I’ve made a tradition where I take a picture of Lambat when a war breaks out, so this is what I have to do.

Shortly after, Yoahtlan Deputy Alcuahtl ArkenX also posted thoughts on Gang Shi:

Gang Shi has not made a formal statement. I asked Gwua for a comment, where he said that:

“I didn’t want another war. Nobody in Gang Shi wanted another war. Considering most of the controversy stems around me specifically, I have decided to step down as emperor.

That’s all the response I’ve ever gotten from Gang Shi, so take that as you will? They’re still active even right now, so…

In terms of the international response, it seems to be pretty neutral among nations not really involved:


Actual PVP

The skybridge above Altepetl, courtesy of Superfriend views from BritishWanderer. Oh yeah, it’s that time already.

While nobody underwent military operations following the post (not counting the military strike on Black Mesa), the following night saw several hours of fighting.

The following early morning, Gang Shi led a skybridge into Altepetl, approaching from the east, characterized by a large waterfall that stretched the entire length of the skybridge.

According to the summary post over the weekend, the last round of pearls above are not included in Icenia’s official count, due to them accusing Gang Shi of recruiting players from Hardcore Factions, as many accounts were pearled within a few hours after joining the server.

It should be mentioned that this war has only lasted the length of the average hotel stay and we have this long of a post, so we’ll see what happens next weekend!

Overhead pictures were courtesy of BritishWanderer.

CivCubed Happenings

The caves of Miel Mur on CivCubed.

How about a little intermission by heading on over to the other server to see what’s going on there?

The server as of writing, on a Saturday night, only has about 3 players online. Granted, there are things happening, particularly on the development side, but of course the issue with experimental servers are that you have to enough draw to get people out of another server. Or in the case of Realms/Universe, advertise heavily from external sources. But otherwise, “there’s mostly been hole digging”.

CivMC Happenings

The start of a new fishing village in Nara, being built by Earyx.

As I published a newsletter on Tuesday evening last week, you may find this section a little shorter due to the lack of additional news that doesn’t involve a war.

Metagame Highlights

Well, that was depressing. Here’s something even more depressing:


Alright, I’ll at least say something to be a little more hopeful:

Last year, I compiled a series of responses from several Civ oldfriends asking What did you learn from Civ in 2022, and what do you hope for in 2023? I obtained responses from ChrisChrispie, BritishWanderer, Ahrimanne, and Cortwade, chosen for their longevity on Civ

This year, I’d love to do the same thing. Of course, I’ll be reaching out to some people who I think would be great people to give reflections on, however I’m of course subject to my own biases and friends. If you’re a longstanding player who has thoughts on their experiences on Civ in 2023, please reach out! I’ll mostly be asking the same questions to give some perspective on the direction of Civ in the next year.

I’m aiming to publish this on January 1st on the new year, so if you’re interested please reach out soon.

The Fun Stuff

Sunrise down the lane of Transylvania.

Ok, are we done with depression? I think we’re good, right?

Builds

Cool Content and Memes


Non-Civ Content

Poll of the Week

We only had one single question last week with 80 responses, and that’s what nations would you recruit newfriends to? In that regard, it did end up being a popularity contest among nations some recruited their own citizens to vote for their own nations, so possibly take this with a grain of salt until someone actually makes a brand new nations/perceptions survey.

Enough blabbering from me, here’s the results, sorted by country:

I personally can’t really tell how much of these were influenced by voting brigades, but in honesty, you needed others to vote for you to get your numbers high regardless. Similarly with comments that asked about newfriend nations before, many of the top suspects are present, like Nara, Pavia, Icenia, Yoahtl. The IF, MTA, and Vinland are also great candidates, although can be a little more niche if you like a more segmented, centralized, or snowy gameplay compared to others.

I included many other nations that aren’t traditionally considered newfriends, but have been making a push to recruit newfriends recently, such as Volterra and CW; many of these are great places to play but desperately need public appeal and continued server activity to be able to onboard newfriends effectively.

Honorable mentions from the extra nations that I never listed included Fempire (who had the most write-ins), Venne, Kaowta, Mercutio, and Pacem. There are also the odd Gensokyo, Kallos and Estalia who insist these nations are still active and are recruiting newfriends. Guys, it’s a serious question.

With all that being said, I still maintain that this is not a definitive tier list, different nations are better for different folk and I’ve been trying to preach this since 2019, so it is more important to find a good fit for a certain player than activity. For example, an anime-loving minecraft player who wants to create art would feel better in Nara than he would in extreme British Pavia or hyper-American Icenia.

Voting Time!

So, I’m going to ask about something way less politically charged:

Please note that all information submitted is anonymous. A red star (
*
) means that this question is required to submit.
What kind of player/playstyle do you consider yourself to be?
Select all that are applicable.
If you don't feel you fit in the playstyles above, what kind of player would you describe yourself?
I'm always looking to improve the newsletter. What do you think needs to be changed about the layout or its sections? (I'm not looking for feedback on the news reporting, and you don't need to answer this question).

I’m not giving descriptions of what each of these supposed “playstyles” mean, that’s up to you to figure out.

Never the Answer Cry for Help

A boat race on Volterra Day, taken by HazelBasil. Yes, it’s a few weeks old but I like it, ok?

Thanks once again for reading this week’s featured article! Somehow I felt good enough to be back on the treadmill for the second time in a row this week, so hopefully the momentum keeps going!

We’re now halfway through December and I want to send another reminder that the CivWiki & Monument Group announced an editing palooza, with diamond prizes for those with the most substantive edits! See more details here! It’s easy to get started and you could win huge diamond prizes!

Thanks to a huge number of people who helped with this week’s newsletter, including but not limited to, Red_Devel, BritishWanderer, HazelBasil, Gwua, Plrog, reffelruz, Quanton_Biscuit, SpeedyJustice, TTastic, VilyanZ, Shadno, and most of Yoahtl for helping me around Altepetl this weekend while reporting. This was an exhausting newsletter to write, slightly more than my usual, so if you’re reading it this far, I really appreciate you for reading the credits!

I’ll see you all next week for more antics! And as always…


EDIT CIVWIKI