Getting Started Guide

This page is a work in progress.

Quick start:
 * be nice but cautious
 * join an established group to learn from them and use their infrastructure
 * mine diamonds and buy things, it's often cheaper than making them yourself
 * use Jukes and store your wealth in drop chests
 * use mods and learn the game mechanics to not waste your time and resources

Oldfriend Quick Start

Existing guides

 * Brinton's New User's Guide
 * Bgbba's New User's Guide
 * Crimeo's Security tips for new friends
 * LordofMarzipan's Centre For Children Who Can't Protect Their Stuff Good And Want To Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too

This article quickly guides you through the most important things you must know.

Discovering Civ-style Minecraft


CivClassic is an experiment for communities, political ideologies, debate and discussion. Our backstory is based on real in-game history, not fiction/lore. The game-play is not just about surviving the elements, but about surviving each other, working together to create and shape civilization or to watch it crumble. A world open to any idea, manifesto or philosophy, created by the players, in order to foster discussion, experimentation and community building.

The game mechanics are very different from vanilla and you're in for a long learning curve.

Main subreddit r/CivClassics

Server rules

Even though the rules allow stealing, raiding, griefing, or killing other players, there are consequences to that and most players act civilized.

Starting off
Start your journey in an existing nation because:
 * You can find people to teach you the civ mechanics
 * You get to use all the expensive infrastructure (especially factories)
 * Making contacts is very important, not just politically
 * It's more fun to play with like-minded people
 * Recommended Starter Nations

Respect existing nations: don't grief/raid them, they will get you back since they know the mechanics very well and their transport, production, and military infrastructures are more advanced than you might expect.

Global chat is limited to a range of 1000 blocks, but there is a public global chat group:  and most nations also have their own chat groups. You should always talk through group chat (, leave with ) or direct message ( , leave with  ). Outside the game, communication usually happens through Discord (text+voice) or Mumble (voice). Don't take everything serious, some people seem to enjoy confusing new players.

To get around, use boat or rail. Navigate using the CCMap and the rail map. Stay away from huge Obsidian builds, they are usually maximum security prisons ("Vaults").

There is no Nether dimension, instead there are Nether islands. The End dimension is inhabited by prisoners.

Install a few basic mods:
 * Forge mod loader: needed for most mods
 * Minimap: set waypoints for your hidden things and other people's places, find travel routes
 * Gammabright: see in the dark, useful when mining
 * CivRadar: shows not just mobs and players but also dropped items, minecarts, boats, and plays a sound when someone comes nearby

To get tools, armor, or bulk materials, it is often less time consuming to mine diamonds and buy them from others than making them yourself, since established players can produce things way cheaper than you on your own. Ask on the trading discord or trading subreddit for trades and prices.

When someone threatens to raid you, just log off unless you have potions, Prot IV armor, and years of PvP experience, and wait for someone else to confirm the threat is over.

Drop Chests
Store your wealth in hidden chests secure against XRay:
 * 1) take some valuable items, half a stack of Smooth stone, a Diamond, and a chest
 * 2) if you have it, also bring a Grass block, a Jukebox, and an iron ingot or another Diamond (to reinforce the Jukebox)
 * 3) go to a random place nobody will ever visit or even build at, make sure you're alone (check your CivRadar)
 * 4) dig down into the Stone layer, but at least 6 blocks deep
 * 5) place a single chest and reinforce it with Diamond (, hold the Diamond, hit the chest (it should show up in chat),   to disable reinforcing mode)
 * 6) if you brought a Jukebox, place it less than 11 blocks away, but not too close, and reinforce it
 * 7) make sure there are no air blocks next to the chest or Jukebox, so they get obfuscated as stone and cannot be found through XRay
 * 8) place back all surrounding blocks (stone/dirt) how they were before, if you dug through grass and didn't bring a Grass block wait until the grass is regrown

If someone discovers your drop chest somehow, the Jukebox will let you know who took your stuff.

You should have multiple drop chests in different areas, and regularly move your wealth to new different places.

Building up
Install advanced mods:
 * Skynet: know when someone logs on/off
 * ReplayMod: keep always running to have undeniable proof for surprises, or just go back in time/space
 * SnitchMaster: visualize Snitches' detection fields, manage large Snitch groups
 * Macromod: hotkeys, automation, botting

Set up your own exp production: build farms (Biome growth sheet) and get access to a Cauldron factory until you can make your own. Before building huge redstone farms, make sure they're within the limits. Reinforce your farms so you can jump on them, stop Creepers from blowing them up, and let only players on the group harvest them.

Learn building secure structures, build an Obsidian farm

Store your wealth securely:
 * drop chests: impossible to XRay them thanks to orebfuscator, but can be found by accident
 * spread wealth across many (hundreds) double-diamond (/ctf) reinforced chests ("chest vault") to make raiding not worth it
 * store diamond/iron by reinforcing e.g. Obsidian at Bedrock level (y=1 to prevent aciding), to retrieve them replace them with Stone reinforcements (/ctr)
 * log off with your wealth or use an alt account(s) ("alt vault", similar to ender chests, which are disabled)

Placing important things inside fortified structures can be useful to keep out casual thieves and the otherwise honest, but will not generally last long in a concerted effort to break them. Secrecy is always better than strength.

Oldfriend Quick Start

 * Install the mods
 * Use the new GUIs:
 * to open a graphical overview of all factories and recipes
 * to open a graphical overview of your Namelayer groups (used for chat and reinforcements)
 * while standing inside the field of a Snitch to take a quick look through the logs of that snitch
 * to see the available reinforcements and their strengths
 * Get updated on the game mechanics