CivRealms Walkthrough for New Players: Sept 2019 Edition

Hi, I'm Axus. You might remember me from such Minecraft servers as: Civcraft 2.0. Or, TheRealmsMC. Today I'd like to talk to you about CivRealms! It is recommended to add 1.12.2 to the Minecraft launcher and use that version. Connect Minecraft to "CivRealms.com" (with an s), there is no white-list and no plans to ever reset the server.

As is tradition, new players randomly on the Overworld, usually far from any towns. It may be night, and there are wolves after you. This is normal.

Recommended: Join a town
First thing you should do is ask if anybody is around. Usually not, but you'll get a tutorial message explaining how to join the "!" global group. Usually '''/nljg ! !'''

From global chat, ask if any groups are looking for members. 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.

Now, if you want to do things on your own, here's the extended walkthrough:

Solo Start

 * 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.
 * Break leaves, they'll drop sticks. Collect 10 sticks.
 * Craft 4 + 4 sticks to make 4 planks (opposite of typical stick recipe)
 * Craft 4 planks to workbench as usual
 * Use flint from your inventory instead of stone, to make a flint axe (equivalent to stone axe)
 * Chop down all the logs, taking care to avoid falling branches. Don't stand under logs.
 * Chop enough logs to make a fence later.

Find a place to start your village

 * Now start exploring! You're looking for a river or stream, and maybe some wild food growing. Collect any gravel you find.
 * Voxelmap or Journeymap plugins recommended, the server map is over 10000x10000.
 * World Map
 * Punch the ground with seeds or carrot to check grow time; 48 hours is actually a GOOD spot.
 * Crops need sunshine; under leaves will hamper grow time.
 * The big river in the middle is an ideal spot, farms by there are good for wheat and potato. Lakes can be good too.
 * Northern rivers are good for carrots, and crippling isolation
 * Southern and Western Jungles you can live on melons, and actually lots of cows and parrots to hunt.

Gather resources

 * Now craft some shovels and pickaxes. If you find gravel you can keep breaking that for more flint, to make flint shovels and pickaxes.
 * A bit north of your river 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 which won't fall.
 * Get enough cobble and craft 4 furnaces/oven. Bronze is faster than primitive pick, but hold on to it. 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 :D
 * 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 "/ctf"
 * Start building your house; as you build, it will use stone for protection.
 * Type /ctr and punch with stone to lock something that's already built (like your factory!)
 * Type /ctr (or /ctf) again when you're finished reinforcing things

Plan for more

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

Bastion tips

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

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 elses 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.
 * Theres 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 factory

That's it for now, gonna help some new people in game...