New Player Guide (CivRealms)

CivRealms can be hard. A quick overview of some of the plugins that make this server different are presented in this one minute video.

= Joining the server =

It is recommended to add 1.12.2 to the Minecraft launcher and use that version. The server IP is, there is no white-list and no plans to ever reset the server. New players, also refered as newfriends, randomly spawn on the Overworld, usually far from any towns. It may be night, and there are wolves after you. This is normal. There is no spawn.

= Joining a town =

The default chat is the global chat called. It is recommended that after reading the intro book, you simply ask if anyone has a town you can join. If you see  before your message, type. If someone replies, think carefully ! You only get one free teleport on this server. You have 24 hours to use it. Probably you want to use it, but chat a little bit and see if they like the same things you do. Most towns like building, but everyone has different standards. Important: If you teleport, try to find a bed in town to use as soon as possible. If you die, you respawn and will have no teleport. You can message individuals players privately by typing. For example,

= Growing in town =

Each town is a little different, it is recommended that you ask your fellow townspeople what you can do to assist the town. They might have you start harvesting, or start mining, or building certain projects. You can usually harvest crops, then sell them at shop chests, to start earning wealth. Wealth is usually stored in the form of Stamina (enchanted golden apples) or diamonds. If you want to start mining, you're best off figuring out how to get into the Aqua Nether first, your town mates can guide you to the closest portal. You really shouldn't spend too much time mining though, until you get enough stamina or diamonds to purchase an enchanted diamond pickaxe. It is extremely recommended that you use a Discord account to join your town's discord. A lot of information is shared through Discord. Use your time within a town to either build up wealth, climb the ranks in your political system, or soak up information about the server in order to eventually start your own town. Starting from scratch is almost impossible and not recommended. Check the links below for more information on the plugins and ask your town members for more help, people are friendly and willing to help you out!

= Surviving alone =

Getting started
'''This server is hard. Trying to survive on your own is playing on ultra hard difficulty. It will take months to grind through the tech tree.'''
 * Place your bed on a flat area, with nothing around it. Use it, day or night, to set spawn point.  You'll leave it behind for now, in case you die. If you die without a respawn point you will spawn back in with nothing.
 * If you get a red error message that says "Bastion removed block" you've tried to place your bed on claimed land, move 20 blocks away and try again.
 * Do not place your enderchest. You will need this much later on.
 * Harvest wood by punching a tree, taking care to avoid falling branches. Don't stand under logs
 * You can also get sticks by punching leaves and make planks with the reverse recipe
 * Craft 4 planks to workbench, and sticks with the usual recipes.
 * Use flint or planks from your inventory instead of stone, to make a primitive axe (equivalent to stone axe) https://i.imgur.com/x1HpNz5.png
 * Harvest more wood.
 * Make a furnace with cobblestone or terracotta.
 * Explore around for wild food, singleton patches of crops that you can harvest
 * There might be public farms located near you, but often times farms are locked and you're better off foraging. If you're in a biome without grassblocks you might not have wild food avaliable, you should fish instead.
 * Your primary goal should be to collect a stack or two of cooked food, enough for you to travel to wherever your home will be.

Find a place to start your village

 * Visit the map of the server
 * Most land has been claimed on the server. If you'd like to form a small village, you'll need to either purchase land from an existing nation, or join that nation as an independent town. You can usually ask in public chat who you should talk to from each nation.
 * This requires some knowledge of politics and each negotiation will be different, so I can't give much more advice than that... but you really should negotiate for land before building there, otherwise you may find yourself at war very quickly.
 * Voxelmap or Journeymap plugins recommended, the server map is over 10000x10000. These mapping mods can help you figure out where you are or where you last died.
 * Once you've negotiated a spot to settle, you should head to that location and build a small outpost and then start working on farms to feed yourself and those you recruit.
 * When you start your farms punch the ground with seeds or carrot to check grow time; 48 hours is actually a good spot. Growth times depends of the biome.
 * Crops need sunshine; you cannot place any blocks above farms.
 * Crops growth time depend of the biome they are planted in
 * Southern and Western Jungles you can live on melons, and there are actually lots of cows and parrots to hunt.

Gather resources

 * Now craft some shovels, pickaxes, and primitive axes.
 * A bit further away of your farming area, dig a strip mine. You'll notice that dirt and cobble fall like sand... don't suffocate, make a strip mine for now! You can craft planks or plank slabs for supports which won't fall.
 * Get enough cobble and craft 4 furnaces/oven. You will have to keep breaking stone over and over to crack it; when you get steel tools, they are a lot better and you'll appreciate them. Diamond tools are the best and break stone instantly unlike the lower tier tools.
 * Go fishing if you need more food.
 * Now get about 5 stacks of logs, and make 4 stacks of charcoal.
 * Make a charcoal factory
 * Place a workbench, with chest and oven on either side
 * Leave exactly 4 stacks of charcoal in the chest, no extra items
 * Hit the workbench with a stick; this should create a factory
 * Hit the workbench again, and see the menu. Click the painting icon to see more info, then click the charcoal recipe. It explains you can turn 4 stacks of planks into 2 stacks of charcoal.
 * Collect another stack of wood, and turn into 4 stacks of planks.
 * Put the planks in the factory chest.
 * Put at least 4 charcoal in the factory oven.
 * Hit the oven with a stick exactly once. After 4 seconds, your planks will be converted to charcoal.
 * Make a Kiln factory
 * Now collect 6 stacks of cobble; you might want to bring your number of ovens up to 6.
 * Cook the 6 stacks of cobble to 6 stacks of stone.
 * Make another factory arrangement: workbench with oven and chest(s) on each side
 * Place exactly 6 stacks of stone in the chest, and hit workbench with stick. Should say "Kiln created".
 * This can cook stone more efficiently; you'll use stone to protect buildings, chests, doors, etc

Build a house

 * Collect enough building materials for your house or farm.
 * Use the Kiln factory to process a stack of cobble into extra stone
 * Take the stone, hold it, and type
 * Start building your house; as you build, it will use stone for protection.
 * Type  and punch with stone to lock something that's already built (like your factory!)
 * Type  (or  ) again when you're finished reinforcing things

Plan for more

 * Use  menu to see all factories and what they take to construct
 * Use  to create groups
 * You can protect things to share with group by  groupname

Bastion tips

 * Create a group first
 * Dig to bedrock
 * Hold iron ingot or plain diamond, then type  groupname
 * Place the bastion. (The enderchest you started with). It takes 24 hours to "mature", does nothing until then
 * Bastions block other people from building, and let you build off ledges

We love animals
Animals are very rare, don't kill them until you can breed more. You can buy them from other players, or breed at someone else's farm. There is a 20% chance to drop a spawn egg each time you breed a pair, then you can bring some spawn eggs back home. There is a limit of 20 animals per area, try to make 16x16 pens with 50 blocks between each pen. Pigs, Cows, and Sheep all drop animal skins. Combine 8 animal skins around 1 alum (quartz item) to make leather. The Grinding Mill needs 32 leather and 8 stacks of planks, it is a great factory. You'll need to buy bronze and nether brick from a group, to upgrade your Furnace factory to Kiln. Boats will require Textile Mill (wool -> sailcloth) and Carpentry factories.

= Stamina = Stamina is representative of your 'life force' - you can use  to check how much you have left. If you run out of stamina you can be temporarily banned until the next day. If you have over 25 stamina you can use  to pull out 1 stamina in physical form. Do  every day to get more stamina, plus each day you log in you'll get some extra stamina

= Useful Links =
 * Join the discord by using this invite link
 * The custom recipes that have changed from the base game
 * See the claims map for towns that wanted to be recognized... of course politics can change the map
 * The base map
 * List of plugins with a short explanation and documentation
 * The custom physics of CivRealms
 * The wiki, a place to see history or gameplay infos
 * The useful commands.