New Danzilona

New Danzilona (abbreviated as NDZ) was a direct democracy located in Civcraft 2.0's +,+ quadrant. It was on the CIC Yellow rail line, in between the Holy Tree and Breslau stops. There were also a number of other international and regional rail lines which connect directly to the central rail station in New Danzilona.

Name
The origin of the name "Danzilona" is largely untraceable and comes solely from the machinations of the mind of the city's original founder in Civcraft 1.0, Gant2000. By his own account, it is believed he based the name off of the contemporary Prussian capital city of Danzig. The "Danz" part adopted from it and the "ilona" suffix simply made up by Gant. He did this because it "sounded cool." Thus, Danzilona was born. When Civcraft 2.0 started, the successor of Danzilona naturally took the name New Danzilona. For much of its early history on 2.0, NDZ was formally referred to as the Republic of New Danzilona by its founders and residents despite the city having no republican governmental structure. Usage of the Republic name waned over time following the city's conflict with Monaco and essentially ended after Gant quit Civcraft for a time in June 2014.

For Civcraft 3.0, the process was slightly more complicated. The Danzilonans did not want to simply name themselves "New New Danzilona," but did want to keep being called some sort of Danzilona. A debate ensued, and the Danzilonans eventually settled on the name "Nova Danzilona." Nova came from the Latin word novus, meaning "new." Essentially, NDZ in 3.0 retained the name "New Danzilona" but it was different enough to differentiate it from the NDZ of 2.0.

The name of Danzilona is also the subject of a running gag among the populace for its common spelling errors among non-Danzilonans. It has many times been been called Danzilonia, Danzonia, and Danzonila.

Danzilona on 1.0
New Danzilona's story extends back to the early days of Civcraft 1.0. During that map, the predecessor of NDZ, named simply "Danzilona" was founded in the fall of 2012 by Gant2000 in an area of the map which would later be called the Quad Cities region. That area contained the towns of Danzilona, Communa, Gerald and Agraria. The city, while small in size, housed a group of bounty hunters (dubbed Beverly Hill) which quickly took up the fight against the HCF during the Great HCF War. During the war, the HCF led an attack on the Beverly Hill vault which held one of their members. During this attack, members of the HCF ruthlessly griefed parts of the city, which led to its abandonment. A small number of Danzilonans slowly cleared grief in the city over the next few months with the hopes that it would lead to a return of old citizens. Before that could happen, however, the server was reset, and Civcraft 2.0 began.

The Early Days (May-October 2013)
After the map reset was announced in the Spring of 2013, a number of residents of the original city decided to join up and found New Danzilona on Civcraft 2.0.The Danzilonans - Gant2000, Peakman2, TheTrackball, Flaminginger, TeotheAwesome - were joined by DesertArrow to start New Danzilona on the first day of the new map. Other former Danzilonans - Wingnut4096, EdwardJames, Shlemmynem - founded the Danzilonan Polo-Norse Commune of the Church of Ranubis (DPNCCR) nearby, and the two settlements quickly established transportation links in the area. Also in the area was a small group of friends building a settlement led by AngryAfrican. While the proximity of the Danzilonan groups caused initial hostility, an amicable relationship was eventually reached. NDZ initially had an old, somewhat medieval European aesthetic to it, most recognizable by the entirely wooden roofs and small farm plots right next to homes.

A Perfect Union (November-December 2013)
In the late autumn of 2013, New Danzilona was enjoying slow but steady growth. The town was beginning to grow past its primarily agricultural roots, and new neighborhoods were starting to grow on the West and Southwest side of the city. One day, a stranger decked out in combat gear appeared in the city and killed a prospective resident. The stranger quickly fled the area, but a bounty was issued to spur his capture. Two days later, residents of the city awoke to pillars of lava and water covering a small part of the old town. Snitch logs revealed that the culprit was the mysterious stranger, Rancuneus, who was wanted for the earlier murder. Members of the city cleaned up the damage and set out to capture Rancuneus. However, this would prove to be a game of cat and mouse as Rancuneus' European time zone allowed him to hit the city repeatedly while the majority of New Danzilona's citizens were sleeping. Prussia, Pella, and a number of other cities across the map assisted with the cleanup and hunt for Rancuneus, but the combat login timer was not yet implemented on the server, so the terrorist was able to repeatedly slip away.

After a few weeks, Rancuneus turned his attention to other cities across the map. Churchill, Quito, Catalonia, Fellowship, and a few others were attacked within a short timeframe. This elevated the hunt for Rancuneus to a new level, and even more fighters across the map were on his trail. Around the same time, members of New Danzilona became suspicious that Rancuneus was actually an alt of a player living in the city at the time, Goldmap, given their similar login times, familiarity with the city, and ability to avoid tripping snitches in the city. A post on Reddit later confirmed this suspicion as Rancuneus mistakenly posted a comment from his Goldmap account. Following his attacks across the server, Rancuneus once again focused his attention on New Danzilona. In one particularly harsh attack, half of the city was covered in lava while nearly a double chest of reinforced blocks were placed along roads and entryways. Rancuneus offered to stop the attacks if prominent members of the city left in exile. This was promptly rejected. His last major attack took place on Christmas day, where he once again covered much of the city in lava. However, he would make a mistake of breaking into a hidden vault. The placement of this vault led the mods of the server to conclude that he had been using x-ray (and some other illegal mods), and he was banned. While a trying time for the city, it solidified the attitude within that New Danzilona was filled with resilient players. It took a few weeks for things to be cleaned up and rebuilt, but the following few months would see a boom in growth and development.

During the attacks of Rancuneus, NDZ was approached by the King of a small town in the deep +,+ known as Pella on November 4, 2013. The King, Perdikkas, sought to found and expand his Macedonian Empire and offered NDZ a position in it in exchange for access to Pellan infrastructure. Though the deal was rejected by the Danzilonans, it did lead to them getting more involved and paying closer attention to the towns that littered the deep +,+, eventually establishing formal diplomatic channels on November 21st. The increased cooperation in security matters among the +,+ towns during the Rancuneus attacks led to the founding of the United Provinces of the Plus Plus on December 14, 2013. NDZ was a founding member, and the U3P would form friendships and cooperatives between the Danzilonans and the rest of the "Threepers" for the remaining history of Civcraft.

Growing Pains (January-May 2014)
In February, the recently-founded nearby city of Monaco invaded NDZ and Pella and pearled NDZ founder peakman2 following the collapse of border negotiations and illegal seizure of Danzilonan land. The invaders were routed by a combined NDZ-U3P military force, and Monaco was annexed by NDZ and renamed Melonwood, which would remain a territory of the city until its end.

In March, the NDZHL was created by RoarkLeSkif. Civcraft hockey was a uniquely Danzilonan invention that would come to define NDZ culture and its wider public image among the nations of the server. The NDZHL would run for three seasons, being commissioned by neondan99 and Wanado after Roark's departure from Civcraft, and it involved teams from cities located all across the server, including Mt. Augusta, SPQR, Orion, Aytos, Senntisten, and many U3P cities.

In early April, the recently formed Danzilonan Security Force attemped to pearl notorious raider phacad3 when he entered NDZ territory. They were unsuccessful received some backlash for it, as phacad3 was still on good terms with some cities. A week later, some of those who criticized the DSF would be fighting alongside them in one of the biggest battles of the Recharge War, which took place in NDZ.

Later on in April and in May, NDZ saw a large influx of new residents. One of those residents, Weishaar, created the Danzmarket in early May. The Danzmarket was a piece of private property run by Weishaar (dubbed the Lorax of the Danzmarket) that contained an abundance of regulated shops. At one point, the Danzmarket was the third most active market in Civcraft.

On May 27th, Operation Green-Metro was proposed. It quickly became one of the most controversial proposals in NDZ history, as it threatened to end the agrarian culture of the city. After some revisions, the proposal passed, but barely.

War and Peace (June-December 2014)
Like the rest of Civcraft, NDZ saw a period of relative peace in the early summer of 2014. June saw more growth in population and shops in the Danzmarket, as well as the rise of leisure activities, such as reading, puffing, and singing songs. This peace would be temporarily interrupted at the end of June when a fight broke out between Danzilonans and visiting Grundeswegians, resulting in the first and only use of the official Danzilonan Court.

At the beginning of July, conflict arose between Weishaar and the rest of NDZ. petlahk of Eros Varos built a horse shop outside of the Danzmarket since building it inside was prohibited by Weishaar's niche rule. For this, he was harassed by Weish. Upset by the enforcement of niches, absentee shop owners, and lack of competition, Danzilonan citizens pressured Weish for reforms, who then, under the pressure, resigned as Lorax of the Danzmarket, giving the position to gabeknight. Mid-July saw the return of leisure activities, like building islands, playing hockey, and singing more songs. This peace ended when, at the very end of July, the DZF town of Aegina was griefed by three well-known citizens of Vale (currently and more commonly known as Nexus), sparking the beginning of the Aeginan independence movement.

Though NDZ was de jure just a city apart of a wider federation, known as the Danzilonan Federation (or DZF), there was no actual political structure to the federation other than shared foreign representatives between all of its cities. This changed, however, in early August. After almost a full month of debating, the structure of the federal government was finally decided upon on August 25th, leading to the creation and election of the President, Vice President, and At-Large Representatives which took their seats on September 1st. Mid-August saw heightened tensions between Aegina leader it_needs_bees and the rest of the DZF after he pearled petlahk. The end of August also saw the end of summer growth and the beginning of a decline in activity in NDZ, either because of the start of the school year or because players simply lost interest, with the city dropping in population from 30 to 18.

The Yurtstead War took place in early September 2014 and had long-lasting effects on the Danzilonan populace. Many of the core members of NDZ supported the war while the rest of NDZ was against it. NDZ was so divided that many of those for the war planned to leave NDZ to start their own city. Fearing that this would cause NDZ itself to be completely abandoned, many prominent anti-war citizens of NDZ left the city, hoping that the pro-war members would stay and hold NDZ together. While this mostly worked, as the pro-war members are still active today while the anti-war members have mostly gone inactive or rejoined NDZ, this exodus solidified the massive slump in activity in NDZ. The federal government fell apart, and power was given to a small emergency council. Afterwards, it_needs_bees attacked Eros Varos with a ghast and was consequently banned from DZF territory and bountied.

As time went on, the political and social situation of NDZ stabilized. The emergency council was dissolved, and peace returned to NDZ. On October 14th, Bees was pearled, leaving NDZ relatively safe from any known imminent attacks.

November was marked by the beginning of many grand building projects, like the city hall. November also saw the return of some activity that was lost in September, as one of the anti-war citizens came back along with a few previously inactive citizens.

Fall in the DZF also saw the massive growth of the city of Aegina. After Bees was ousted, leadership of the city was given to Sourdust2. Sourdust revitalized the city with more building projects and many recruitment posts. Under Sourdust, Aegina was more active than it ever was before. Sadly, this activity was short-lived. When Sourdust went inactive, so did Aegina.

The Empire Strikes Back (January-May 2015)
On January 1st, with the exceptions of Aegina and Trackistan, all federal DZF cities were made territories of NDZ. Early January also saw a conflict with Screenname, leader of Gensokyo and New Detroit, which bordered the NDZ territory of Riverford. Screenname claimed that she made a deal with Gant (the former leader of Riverford) that if Riverford was not fully developed and active by January 1st, it would become a part of Gensokyo. After trying to forcibly take over Riverford, Screenname was pearled. No proof of such a deal arised, so Screenname's claim was deemed illegitimate. She was later freed, and Riverford remained under NDZ control.

On February 18th, The Meme Team and ISIS recognized the newly founded nation of New Syngrad, which was illegally situated on the border of Riverford and Gensokyo. After a brief cold war between the DSF and Meme Team, the New Syngrad settlers gave up their claims and left after it was revealed that they forged a claims map in order to seem like they were well outside of NDZ's and Gensokyo's actual claims. The conflict marked the first and only time that NDZ and Gensokyo were on the same side of a border conflict and a turning point in their relations, turning from cold to officially neutral.

Also in February, a former citizen of Aegina, Inscourge, became active again and attempted to become leader of the city. Inscourge was previously kicked out of Aegina by Sourdust for rude comments and harassing other citizens. Since he did not go through the legal procedure of becoming a citizen of Aegina, let alone the leader of it, Inscourge was put aside. However, he soon became a thorn in NDZ's side when he threatened to take over Aegina by force, threatened to grief NDZ, harassed Danzilonans, and repeatedly came to Aegina despite being banned from DZF territory.

After many weeks of empty threats, Inscourge was pearled and alt-banned on March 27th in a carefully orchestrated operation by the DSF. Inscourge was subsequently permanently banned from Civcraft for playing on a VPN multiple times and abusing modmail.

On March 20th, Aegina and Trackistan were made territories of NDZ, effectively leaving NDZ as the only federal city left in the DZF.

After Inscourge was pearled, NDZ has yet to see another large domestic conflict or be significantly affected by an international conflict, resulting in another long period of relative peace. Throughout April and May, NDZ sold or gave most of the land in West Riverford to Gensokyo in exchange for land in the nearby desert. Speaking of Riverford, spring saw the return of some activity in the city, as a tunnel from NDZ to Riverford was dug, construction of the Riverford Bridge commenced, and more plans to renovate the city were made.

After Death I Rise (June 2015-January 2016)
Taking advantage of the peace and the desire to revitalize the federation, NDZ citizens Lowtuff and Des23 created Project Phoenix, which consisted of a series of projects that focused on bringing life back into the territories of NDZ and making them visually pretty, usually through cleaning grief, constructing new builds, and installing more security measures. By the end of the summer, five Project Phoenix phases had taken place. It was then put on hiatus when Des took a break from Civcraft. Des came back almost a month later, but when she was pearled just a few weeks after returning in the midst of the Nox War, Project Phoenix remained on hiatus.

The end of the summer saw the expansion of the Danzilonan Central Station, which quickly became one of NDZ's most famous landmarks.

On November 13th, Des and other Danzilonans who were pearled during the Nox War, like TheTrackball and JPEGz, were freed at the end of the war and defeat of Nox. While they were pearled, both the central station and the city hall were completed, making for a pretty nice looking fountain area.

NDZ also enjoyed some festivities on Halloween.

In late November, NDZ held its first in-game town hall meeting, putting a huge emphasis on the direct democracy and citizen input that NDZ has always valued but usually only displayed on their subreddit.

In December, NDZ entered a bit of a sleepy state, especially around the holidays when people were busy in real life. Some remaining active players spent time in other cities. However, thanks primarily to peakman2, mummybundles, and blockhead1110, there was still some activity in the city, and a few projects were carried out. On January 10th, Civcraft 3.0 was announced, and activity in the city picked up again because of the excitement. Previously inactive citizens, like axwin, Gant2000, and White_n_Pasty planned to return to the city. Plans for the next iteration of NDZ and how it will fit into the new U3P were thoroughly discussed.

Government
For the first 6 months of its existence, New Danzilona had no official structure of governance and was largely a communal agrarian society. With a lack of any kind of decision-making bodies or persons, residents typically solved issues either democratically, through consensus, or autocratically. This lead to NDZ founder peakman2 coining the term "don't-be-a-dick-ocracy" as a way to refer to how NDZ was ran. This meant that most residents could do whatever they want as long as their actions weren't deemed dickish by the rest of the Danzilonans. All of the current residents had a lot of trust in each other, and they didn't really mess with each other or try to enforce any official laws unless someone was clearly being dickish and/or inconsiderate to someone else, resulting in a libertarian municipalist-style society.

Though this model worked for a while, as NDZ grew, residents pined for a small, formal bureaucracy to keep up with the day-to-day duties of maintaining the town. On January 13, 2014, peakman proposed such a formal structure, creating the positions of City Manager, Infrastructure Representatives, and Foreign Representatives. The City Manager was tasked with maintaining a monthly census for the city, overseeing and certifying votes and elections, and generally leading the legislative agenda during their term. Infrastructure reps would keep track of the city's properties, helping oversee derelictions and finding residents plots to build homes and businesses on. Finally, foreign representatives would act a point of contact for foreign nations wishing to do business or revolve issues with NDZ as a whole, as well as speaking on their behalf after a decision is decided. The bill passed after a Mumble conference with the residents on January 18th. Elections for these positions, as well as the directly democratic votes that established all of city's laws, were first-past-the-post until residents voted to change to the alternative vote on May 20, 2014. NDZ also had a treasurer after the Treasury Establishment Act passed on May 18, 2014. With the responsibilities first delegated to the City Manager, an official treasurer was first appointed on August 5th. The treasury, though useful in funding projects for new residents and for its diamond to iron exchanges, played little role in Danzilonan politics as most citizens financed their projects privately. The treasury went through many periods of inactivity before formally being reestablished in September 2015, lasting until the end of Civcraft 2.0.

The Danzilonan Federation
The Danzilonan Federation (DZF) technically existed since the founding of NDZ, as they entered into it with the neighboring town of the DPNCCR on the same day. In reality, however, this meant very little, other than to signify the towns' cultural ties and their open borders. As NDZ itself began to grow and the towns of Eros Varos and Fermeville entered the DZF, a formal structure to the DZF was proposed by grenadeninja21 on March 31, 2014. This proposal outlined the conditions for towns to meet in order to join the DZF, as well as delegating the responsibility of representing all towns in the federation to NDZ's foreign reps, which every citizen in the federation would now vote on. This proposal was further amended after Aegina joined on April 1st and passed on April 6, 2014.

Throughout the month of August, 2014, DZF citizens discussed further expanding the powers of the federal government with the creation of a President, Vice President, and At-Large representatives that would form a council. The President and Vice president would take on the roles of foreign representatives by becoming the first point of contact, as well as lead the legislative agenda for the federation. The federal council would appoint the VP as well as help resolve federation-wide issues and coordinate security and the judicial system. This government was passed on August 24, 2014, and on August 27th, the first and only elections for it took place.

In the wake of the Yurtstead War and the splintering of the Danzilonan public, the President, Vice President, and one At-Large representative left the DZF, leading to the collapse of the federal government on September 14, 2014, with the DZF government reverting back to only the shared foreign representatives between the towns. With activity in much of the DZF declining from late 2014 to early 2015, NDZ began formally annexing DZF towns starting on January 1, 2015, and completing on March 20th. With this, the DZF was brought to a formal end, though it is still used as a name in reference to the collective towns within it to distinguish them from NDZ proper. By March 2015, New Danzilona had ultimately reverted back to its very original don't-be-a-dick-ocracy, filling government positions ad-hoc with elections where many of the candidates ran unopposed.

Political Parties
Political parties played only a small role in NDZ politics and history, existing largely nominally as a way to label a candidate's in-game political ideology and to help organize like-minded members to campaign for each other. Few if any of the parties had actual structures, funding, or policy-crafting bodies.

The political parties that did exist included:


 * The Social Democratic Party, founded by grenadeninja21 on March 26, 2014. Platform focused on creating more public infrastructure like XP exchanges, factories, and a treasury, as well as electoral reform. Grenade was elected City Manager for June and re-elected for July. Merged into the Federalist Party in September 2014.
 * The Traditionalist Party, founded by RoarkLeSkif in May 2014. Emphasizing limited government and laissez-faire capitalism, Roark sought to scale back the city goverment's role in operating the treasury. Dissolved in late June 2014 when Roark went largely inactive from Civcraft.
 * Danzilonan Party of Progressives, Pragmatists and Federalists, founded by Lowtuff May 2014 in response to the founding of the Traditionalist Party. Supported decentralization, anti-corruption, and internationalism. Lowtuff ran and won the election for one of the DZF's foreign representatives for June 2014. Dissolved immediately afterwards.
 * The Represenative Party, founded by Seargent_Pepper (Gant2000) on August 3, 2014. It acted largely as a pressure group to include and expand the influence of non-NDZ federal towns within the DZF during the drafting of the constitution. Dissolved on August 24th after the completion and approval of the constitution.
 * The Federalist Party, founded on September 7, 2014 by DZF President AMBeaudry529 and At-Large Representative Weishaar. Supported federalism, centralization, and strengthening the office of the executive, most notably through creating the DZF-controlled militia, the Phoenix Guard. Dissolved on September 14th following the self-exile of the founders from NDZ.

Military
In early spring 2014, in response to a recent massive conflict with a neighboring city and consequent invasion of NDZ, Danzilonans peakman2 and TheTrackball founded the Danzilonan Security Force, or DSF. The DSF acted as a private military task force that has assigned itself with the duty of protecting NDZ, the U3P, and their allies. Though the DSF was not run by NDZ and was not legally required to protect and fight for the federation, it was very much obliged to do so, as most if not all of the DSF's members were Danzilonan and played a huge part in NDZ's history and politics. However, contrary to popular belief, NDZ was not accountable for the DSF's actions. The DSF had about six core members along with countless allies that had access to DSF supplies and facilities.

During the Yurtstead War, an army controlled by the DZF government was created, but it was short-lived, as the federal government collapsed less than a week later.

Religion
New Danzilona never had an official, state-sponsored religion or religions, making it de facto state secularist for its entire history. Freedom of religion was specifically enshrined in the constitution of the two-week-long DZF federal government in late 2014. However, various religions did spring up in the city and play large roles in the individual lives of Danzilonans. From most amount of followers to least, religions found in NDZ included but were not limited to:


 * Ranubism (the holy city of which, the DPNCCR, was a DZF city and NDZ territory)
 * Oberon worship
 * Purpism
 * Deathsquare
 * Clay Faith

Danzmarket
Hailed as one of the server's largest trade districts, Danzmarket was created on the 1st of May, 2014 by Weishaar. Danzmarket quickly grew from an independent enterprise by three local merchants into a sprawling and reputable economic hub. At its height, Danzmarket resulted in an unprecedented level of activity in New Danzilona and the Danzilonan Federation. Weishaar, who used the moniker of the Lorax of Danzmarket, originally ran the trade zone as a semi-autonomous neighborhood within the Great New Danzilonan Metropolis complete with the Danzmarket Act, which established special administrative laws within the trade zone.

One of the market's most controversial laws was that of &quot;Enforced Niching.&quot; With the intention of ensuring that large monopolies did not consume and otherwise overtake local, small business, Weishaar would administrate the distribution of &quot;Niches&quot; in Danzmarket, which were a list of items that that merchant was authorized to sell. This rule, however, resulted in the overthrow of Weishaar as Lorax.

gabeknight took charge of Danzmarket but the trade District fell into disrepair due to a lack of a strong sense of dedication to the project that Weishaar brought to the trade zone. Weishaar was asked by many in New Danzilona to return to Danzmarket as Lorax which he later did. Weishaar had since left the Danzilonan Federation and, with it, activity in Danzmarket also slumped once again.

On September 22, 2015, the position of Lorax was terminated, effectively ending private ownership over the district, leading to a small revival of activity within the market.

S4 Arena
This ice arena was home to the Swisston Snow Shovels hockey team in the New Danzilona metro area. Its construction in late 2014 replaced the original home of the Snow Shovels located just to the East on the island of Swisston. The arena and its team were part of the hugely successful New Danzilona Hockey League which ran for three and a half seasons.

Danzilonan Seawall and River Project
In the city's infancy, many residents sought to tackle the issue of New Danzilona's location on a high plateau with steep cliffs dropping to the ocean on one side and steep cliffs dropping to the river on the other. To deal with this, the Danzilonan Corp of Engineers constructed a massive seawall stretching hundreds of meters along the coastline East, South, and West of the city. The seawall provided easy access from the cliffs above to the water below, protected walkways to traverse the cliffs, and lighting to help ships avoid crashing into the rocky crags along the shore. On the West side of the city, two massive dams had been built and the river raised to the level of the city thanks to the efforts of NDZ citizen gabeknight. The raised river provides easy access to the Westcliff neighborhood and ample power to the region via the turbines in the dams.

New Danzilona Central Station
Designed by Churchill's world-renowned architect, coolyellow, and spear-headed by Danzilonan citizen mummybundles, New Danzilona's new central rail station was finished in October 2015. This project replaces the old rail station which, while functional, left much to be desired in its design. The rail station served as a transport hub in the area, and was a major gateway to cities in the deeper +,+ quadrant.

List of Territories as of January 2016

 * DPNCCR
 * Babylon
 * Melonwood
 * Hogham
 * Chocomoor
 * Valeaum
 * The COOL DESERT COLONY
 * Riverford
 * Broken Bay
 * Eros Varos and Fermeville
 * Regency
 * Aegina
 * Trackistan

Notable Citizens
Active citizens as of January 2016

peakman2

TheTrackball

JPEGz

axwin

neondan99

Lowtuff

Des23

petlahk

killerkoala77

lone22wolf

mummybundles

grenadeninja21

blockhead1110

Danzilonan Diaspora

Weishaar

AMBeaudry529