New Player FAQ (Civcraft)

Note that this is guide is not updated for Civcraft's new map. For example, there is no Nether, and other things aren't mentioned.

I cannot join the server. What is wrong with this?
There are many reason why you could not join the server. Make sure you entered the right address in your Minecraft client. The server address is mc.civcraft.org. One of the various Minecraft service might be down which would explain why you cannot join. In order to connect to a server, various Minecraft services need to be online. Check this page out to find out the status of the various Minecraft services. You might have the wrong Minecraft client version. Sometimes, Civcraft is not running on the latest version of the Minecraft client for various reasons. Check out the sidebar of /r/Civcraft to see which version you need.

The server might also be full. In that case, you should get an explicit message about it. You just need to retry later. Obey the login queue as well if the server is full.

I just joined and I keep on dying of hunger. Where do you find food?
The first thing you should do is get yourself a wood sword and kill a few animals. If you cannot find animals, a sure way to find food is to kill a few spider to get 2 strings and make a fishing rod to get fish. Alternatively, you can ask in local chat for someone to give you food. This might involve some risks as some jerks like to kill random new players.

One way to find people to live with is to ask what cities welcome you on the subreddit. Say that you want to join a city, and be sure to ask questions from people who reply.

I also can't seem to grow anything!
CivCraft in its new map runs on RealisticBiomes. See this document to read the rates of growth as a percentage of vanilla in varying biomes. In biomes like the ocean, nothing really grows. Growth reflects real life, ideally. Also, plants do not grow by torchlight. Only glowstone and sunlight allow growth.

I just joined and I cannot find anyone around. Where is everyone? How do I find my way around?
The world map is pretty big. Many people hang out in towns or cities. The Nether Map gives you Nether and Overworld coordinates for many know places when you hover on that place. The overworld map shows you the location of many public cities. You can push F3 to see your own coordinates when you are in the Minecraft client. Many places are or have been deserted. To find out the active places, check out /r/Civcraft for the ones which were recently mentioned. The last time this document was revised, Kappi and Agora were some active places

I just joined. Where is the best place for me to get started?
There is no definitive answer to that question. If you joined with a few friends, group with them and work with them. Collaborating with others make it easier to get started. You could join one of the many cities, towns or other groups around if you are alone. The best thing you could do is join the mumble server at mc.civcraft.vg, see which places have people in it and talk with those people. Most of them are friendly and they will most likely invite you to join them if you ask them.

Alternatively, you could do the hermit start. You could find a nice isolated vanilla chunk (see the next question for what is a vanilla chunk) and mine your way to get wealth.

I just joined and I cannot find ores in the ground. I keep digging but I only see stone around. Where can I find iron, diamonds and all the other ores?
You are most likely in a mineral vein chunk. There are two kind of chunks on Civcraft, mineral vein and vanilla.

Mineral vein is a program that was ran on the original map to change the ore distribution. It removes all the ores from the ground and place veins of different ore in a compact region but all sparsely separated from each others. Places where you dig and you can only find cobblestone/stone are places where mineral vein was ran on. You still get a chance to find a vein full of the same ore, but those are rare.

Mineral vein was not able to transform the whole map for different reasons. That left some chunks in their natural state something we call vanilla chunks. Vanilla chunks are mostly away from 0,0. They have the same ore distribution as the original Minecraft which means you can find pretty much every ore when you dig at level ~12.

I suggest you move somewhere else where you can find vanilla chunks.

How do I protect my stuff? Why can't I break some blocks?
Civcraft includes a modification called Citadel that helps protect your stuff from other people and it deter you from breaking other people stuff. You can use materials to reinforce existing blocks or blocks you place around. You can also lock doors, chests, furnaces and other utility blocks with Citadel using the same commands. The reinforced blocks will eventually break after a certain amount of breaks. This infographic is a good introduction to this mod. For more information, have a look at the wiki page for this mod.

Once you understand Citadel, you can protect your valuables by building a vault.

Some people seem to know where I am, where I was and what I was doing? How does it work? What is a snitch?
Civcraft includes a modification called PreciousStone. The snitch is the only part of that modification that is included. Snitches are vanilla jukeboxes that were simply placed around and that act somewhat like local presence detector. They provide their owner with live alert if someone pass by and they record actions that were performed by others close by the snitch.

To make a snitch, just create a jukebox and place it around. You might want to hide it and protect it with Citadel as well because you will lose its features if it is removed. Once it is placed, it will send you real-time text message in your chat when someone else is around the snitch. You can also check it its log by pointing in the direction of your snitch and typing /jainfo. For more information, check the wiki page for this mod.

How can I use and create shops?
Civcraft includes a modification called Physical Shop. It enables the creation of shops where people can trade stuff without having to be online or having to be at the same place at the same time. Shops can be easily recognized by having a sign above a chest with an item name or item id between square brackets as the first line written on the sign. You can buy or sell items to the shops by having that item in your hand and right-clicking on the sign.

You will want to protect your shops with Citadel. Make sure you reinforce the block behind your sign, the sign and the chest. If you use a single chest, make sure it is not possible for someone else to place a second chest next to yours because he might be able to steal your stuff by reinforcing his own chest part.

To create your own shop, place a sign above a chest with an item name or item id between square brackets as the first line and the buy/sell prices below. For all details about currency units and the syntax for the sell/buy lines, see the wiki page about this mod.

Where did people get emeralds? Is it possible to store experience?
Civcraft includes a modification called BottleO. Is can be used to store experience in exp bottles, emeralds or emerald blocks. This infographic explains everything you need to know about it.

I keep hearing people talk about pearling others. What is this? How can I enforce rules on others? I am in the end world and I am not able to leave it. What happened to me?
Civcraft includes a modification called PrisonPearl. It enables players to imprison other players in the end. This infographic is a good introduction to this mod. You can check out this comment for all other related FAQ about PrisonPearl.

I keep hearing people talk about vaults. What is this? How can I secure pearls?
A vault is simply a highly reinforced construction mainly used to store pearls. People surround their pearl (or other items) containers with a large amount of diamond reinforced obsidian (DRO). Since DRO is the best possible protection you can have for anything, it usually take much time and effort to break into. Vaults are often located at rock bottom and they often have a pyramid like shape for efficient resource usage. The amount of resources needed to make bigger and bigger vaults follows an exponential curve making it incredibly hard to create huge ones or to make existing ones larger.

Vaults sound nice, but I can't build that to store wealth...
Tired of your stuff being stolen from your house, even if your house and chests were all reinforced with stone, iron, or diamond? You should consider hiding your vauables. Your foes: Radarbro and X-ray. Radarbro will detect a chest of goodies if the player is close to the chest. X-ray will detect airspace inside the ground, and will see the chest if the X-rayer is close to the chest. What you can do to beat the cheaters and thieves:


 * Make a room with five hundred or more reinforced chests and furances. Most will be decoys, but only a few will have anything in them.
 * Bury the reinforced chest or furance in the ground, deep in the sea, inside a mountain, etc. Only works if you write down the exact (x,y,z) of the storage, and if there is no airspace to interest an X-rayer. Also, you should have the storage at least five blocks away from any accessible area to avoid having RadarBro see it.
 * Do not hide a person's pearl in this hidden chest or furance of wealth. A person trapped in a pearl can locate their pearl no matter where the chest or furance is. There should only ever be one person who knows of your secret wealth stash -- you.

Remember, griefers get their supplies quickly from people who store their good gear in plain sight.

What is the world size?
The world is limited to around a 15000 block radius circle around 0,0 in each dimensions.

Would you have any other suggestions for a new player?
Yes. You might want to install and configure various client-side modifications to have a pleasurable experience. Here are a few of them that I highly suggest:


 * OptiFine: Better Minecraft speed/farther possible distance view.
 * Rei's Minimap: Terrain mini map and waypoints.
 * RadarBro: Players radar.
 * ArmorStatusHUD: On screen armour and tools status (Mostly for PVP).
 * StatusEffectHUD: On screen status effects and remaining time (Mostly for PVP).
 * Gammebright: Allows you to adjust your in-game brightness level.

Installation and configuration is left as an exercise to the reader.

Where can I get more information about X?
Have a look a the /r/Civcraft sidebar. It includes links to pretty much everything you might want to know about the game. Alternatively, you can find all the information on this game by having a look or searching the archives of /r/Civcraft and following every links.