CivcraftImport:Cities/fort chief

= Fort Chief =

Fort Chief was a trading fortress founded in early August 2012 by Thurs. This came after a several-month hiatus accompanying the abandonment of the nearby town Mary Jane in the early spring of 2012. After the server's chronic lag and lack of slots was improved, the key members of Mary Jane formed a new fortress in the desert close to an NPC village near Aristopolis. Over the next couple months the fortress evolved from an easily-defendable complex on the top of a large hill to a multi-layered walled settlement with multiple structures.

The city currently has 3-5 active members (meaning they log in daily) and a few more less active players.

Public Access
Fort Chief has never had an official government, instead operating fairly anarchically and through de-facto guidance from Thurs. Though the populace is almost entirely composed of direct friends of Thurs, the settlement is structured to allow anyone to live and build in the community. There are numerous, free vacant lots waiting for new residents, which has piqued the interests of some. Fort Chief flies the black flag and is not affiliated with any nations or kingdoms.

Facilities

 * Library
 * Trading Depot and Shop Chests
 * Cantina
 * Inn
 * Vaults
 * Shops
 * Farms
 * Empty Residences
 * Block Generators

Economy
Fort Chief's primary export is useless but aesthetic lapis blocks. Early mining expeditions from the fortress revealed a number of lapis veins that were quickly exhausted. The vast expansion of the Fort early on created a dearth of utility materials in the stockpiles, but this has recovered with slowing growth and discovery of new resources. The trade depot in the settlement features a number of chests selling gold blocks, iron blocks, lapis blocks, bread, sandstone, and redstone for competitive prices, and other shops sell just about any item or block someone could desire.

As mineral veins and ore deposits were exhausted beneath and around the Fort, the economy suddenly matured after the success of several bulk sales to prominent Aristopolis residents. The sale of thousands of iron and dozens of stacks of obsidian promoted stockpiling of utility resources and a vast increase in diamond wealth for the Fort. The discovery of a massive iron vein has reinvigorated mining operations in the area. The operators of the Fort have also recently invested far more material into fortifying the town's structures, creating a resilient and diverse community and economy.

Location
Fort Chief is coincidentally located near a nether portal and an overworld highway system. Both were discovered after the creation of the fortress. The road has been rebuilt numerous times in response to shifting Aristopolis portal locations. Besides travelling through the nether, a short walk on the road north of the settlement leads to a highway that goes straight to Aristopolis. The distance is less than a thousand blocks and only takes a few minutes to walk.

Besides the close proximity of Aristopolis and other Gondolin territories, Fort Chief is closest to the new (and possibly abandoned) town of Ca'Queland. Less than 1km to the south is the abandoned town of Mary Jane. Close to the east of the fort lays an abandoned settlement (a project of Thurs) and an impressive, lava-adorned floating fortress.

Demographics
Fort Chief has a small but active population of about half a dozen members. Though the governing structure is essentially anarchical, Thurs generally provides direction and oversight for the other residents. BlackRevolution, Prof_Buildstuff, Rasptootin, dpidcoe, and purplefudge07 all reside within the walls of the settlement. There are other players who participate regularly in the Fort's affairs - notably Suiradx0 and 9fingerjeff.

Minecraft Technology and Research
Fort Chief has become a testbed for a number of Minecraft technologies. This is to see what value they have in the Civcraft environment. The two largest technologies deployed in the town are the &quot;Boatway&quot; and the distributed vault security design.

The boatway is an expansive underground flooded tunnel system that allows players to travel via boat between several important local features. Though the time benefits compared to walking are not as pronounced as first thought, the lack of hunger consumption is a nice benefit. Over long (but sub-nether) distances, a player can save a little bit of time by taking the boatway instead of sprinting. This has spurred the construction of the boatway all the way to Aristopolis. A lack of time benefits, laggy boat control, and construction costs undermine the success of the technology, and it is likely that boatways will not be deployed in any future settlements.

The distributed vault security design is a &quot;security through obscurity&quot; approach to stockpile safety. Thurs intends to have a large number of identical-looking vaults filled with 30-50 diamond-locked chests each. Each chest contains only one kind of material. In order to steal diamonds, the griefer must choose the correct unlabeled chest in the correct unlabeled vault, or spend hours breaking random chests that could very well be filled with cobble or feathers. Due to a lack of griefers, this technology has not been adequately tested. It does not seem to offer much more of a benefit over a single, massively-thick centralized vault, though the time and resource usage has never been sufficiently analyzed.

= Foreign Affairs =

Due to the proximity of the city to the nation of Gondolin, Thurs is not completely unheard of in Aristopolis. Fort Chief is in essence liasoned through 9fingerjeff, a popular and modestly powerful individual in Aristopolis. Thurs has indicated &quot;plans to construct an embassy within Aristopolis.&quot; This comes as an addition to the modest stall in the Aristopolis market that sells large quantities of gold and lapis blocks.

September 2012 Land Dispute
Land dispute over NPC village near the settlement. Fort Chief was founded after a length overland expedition near Gondolin lands. A large hill in the desert near an NPC village was designated as the new site for a settlement. After signficant construction, a nearby nether portal was discovered alongside a large highway system. A road was built from the nether portal to the gates of Fort Chief in late August 2012.

In early September, the road to the portal had suddenly disappeared - entirely dismantled by one person. They left two signs indicating that the NPC village was their property, and Fort Chief had violated this property. This came as a surprise to the residents of Fort Chief. Thurs argued that there was no any delineation that the NPC village was somebody's property. Additionally, the fortress was built several hundred blocks away across a valley from the village. The road was rebuilt and a few weeks passed before the NPC village was inexplicably destroyed overnight. Later, Marcus_SM arrived at the fortress demanding answers for the destroyed village and looted chest near the nether portal. Thurs had no answers, and Marcus_SM departed on an adventure to find virgin chunks.

There is still a dispute in the nether over what the signs should say. Multiple sign replacements have occured on the portal and on the path leading to the portal, despite Fort Chief being the only settled place in the region. However, a change in the placement of Aristopolis's portal has altered the route players take to the Fort Chief portal, and this new dynamic has quieted the sign chaos of the region.