A brief account of significant events that have helped form CivClassic: Difference between revisions
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''This page is currently being reformatted into a Civcraft 2.0 history page. Excuse the mess.''
A '''history of (the latter half of) [[Civcraft 2.0]]''' concentrates on a focus on [[Papa_Pound|Papa Pound]] (who is referred to by IBGod - his main at the time), [[Sintralin]] and [[Lysika_Lantariel]]. These three were largely in the middle of almost everything for that time period. Admittedly some important parts of that time period are not covered here, or only briefly touched upon – e.g. the rise of [[Mount Augusta (CivClassic 2.0)|Mount Augusta]] under Prof Tanstaafl. However, things like [[America]], [[Titan]], [[Libertas]], [[Mir]]-Chan and the [[Nox War]] are. The formatting may be a bit off - feel free to neaten it up. Most of this is a first-hand account compiled by Lysika_Lanteriel, then translated into 3rd person - if something has been missed please add to it.
There is less mention of [[Civcraft 3.0]] or [[Devoted 3.0]]. The former lasted a very short while but a few notable groups formed or began to form which are noted in the appropriate section.
As for Devoted 3.0, it massively added to the playerbase and there were a great many fairly small events (wars). I've decided to add some of these events as they did have a very meaningful impact on CivClassic - either due to much of the playerbase joining during this period or even nations like Mir (the second iteration) forming due to said events. Finally it should be added that whilst Devoted wasn't the best civ server it was an excellent pvp-civ-lite server, which combined with the relatively new and inexperienced playerbase led to many David&Goliath/Hero moments. As an additional disclaimer - I was absent for all of Devoted prior to the first world war - I think a lot of newfriend nations lived and died during this period, perhaps someone else can talk about them, assuming they had a knock on effect impacting CivClassic.
==Background==
During these time periods a fairly well-liked World Police lost all good graces – their reputation was tarnished probably forever largely due to their inability to [[subreddit pvp]]. It’s hard to imagine such a fall of grace repeating itself given the current level of discourse on the subreddit “Didn’t you quit?”. In those times a few Reddit posts were all it took to become a pariah. Wars began on the subreddit as an extension of affairs on the server, losers would find themselves at -100 downvotes and the significantly larger non-aligned audience would be persuaded on here. The effect on morale caused individuals to do stupid things, like forming Eden or disassociating entirely. Others went full retard and memed their way through it all (to disastrous external PR effect). One of the reasons Lexington was unable to enjoy the golden age [[Nox]] experienced was because of a weaker subreddit – and fewer people to be turned there, depriving the group of Sintralin’s main strength.
Subreddit pvp was mostly downvoting and nonchalant replies like nowadays, except then it was on a much larger scale with larger groups coordinating massive brigades or bots. <ref>allios crew taking out the trash, Dank Memer, 25 Oct 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHoir5cSD3U</ref>
It is also worth mentioning Clones' vault (clone2204) as something like this could never exist today. it was a privately owned vault that almost every petty criminal on the map was put into. Nations could be sure that Clone would never release the criminal. Unfortunately, this made him a natural target for the coming backlash against the world police. During the Libertas and early Nox era, it became a popular opinion that everyone deserved redemption – through diamond reparations. This put Clone at direct odds with them and he became a wanted criminal himself – for unlawfully holding the pearls of criminals.
<ref>[Serious] Clone should not be allowed to own a vault, Allioverpowered, 18 Oct 2014: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2jm327/serious_clone_should_not_be_allowed_to_own_a_vault/</ref>
<ref>Clone being clone and why you should dislike him more than you already do, randerson2011 29 Jan 2015: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2u43gb/clone_being_clone_and_why_you_should_dislike_him/</ref>
<ref>First They Came for Clone, SerQwaez, 14 Feb 2015: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2vwyft/first_they_came_for_clone/ </ref>
<ref>Concerning clone2204, The_Jakebob 16 Feb 2015: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2w5h7s/concerning_clone2204/</ref>
Another interesting change was that sovereignty stopped being a meme and became something individuals and to an extent, nations had to respect – largely thanks to Nox and Mt. Augusta. This change made a lot of sense for the larger nations that could defend themselves but the smaller nations with no pvp’ers were far worse off. Such a rise was of course matched by a decline in the world police. Nowadays instead of world police abusing their power, we have nations doing it instead. The more cowardly nations send alt raiders, others simply invade thinking they’ll be able to get away with attacking a weaker group. In the world police days [[Third_Yoahtl-Laconia_War|Yoahtl’s attack on Laconia]] would have been destroyed in a subreddit post or two followed by a world police response. Similarly, the alt raiders near [[Vitelia]] would have been stopped after a raid or two – world police alts would be logged in the area, local national exclusion zones and pearling rights would have been ignored. It’s an interesting trade-off – the weaker nations generally seem to be much worse off.
Finally, it can be said that many of the powerful groups today formed around this time – or their leadership can be traced back to this period. Places like Mir, [[Hjaltland]] (a combination of the old town + much the 2.0 world police), [[Hallow]] (Hantzu/Channers), [[Yoahtl]] (Yoahtl joined during the [[America HCF invasion]] and Quahtl_Mia immediately pm’d Lysika asking to join) and [[Impasse]] ([[Orion]]/[[Senntisten]]). [[HJE]] is something of an exception with [[ComradeNick]].
==The America HCF Invasion==
To set the stage the world was in a time of relative peace. The [[Recharge war]] had ended a few months ago with Recharge being completely ruined. Their town of [[River’s End]]<ref>River's End - April 23rd 2014, Marcus_Flaminius, 23 Apr 2014: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/23sqmi/rivers_end_april_23rd_2014/</ref> was turned into a massive swimming pool and the vast majority of their core
The world police were strong and more importantly aligned at this time. The city of [[Orion]] dominated with [[Carson (Civcraft)|Carson]] close behind (Gordon_Freeman_Q was currently banned for world downloading a vault) but there were tens of towns around the world connected by the [[CIC]] rail network, each having one or two able pvpers who would contribute to keeping the peace elsewhere. The concept of sovereignty was generally ignored.
The World Police had free reign and for the most part, weren’t unwelcome in most towns – although there were some no go zones such as [[Grundeswald]] and to an extent [[Chanada]]. It should be pointed out that neither of these two nations had a single pvp’er to their name at this point in time – but they were isolated and kept to themselves, every now and again someone would go and screw with them but in general they were separate.
[[Bastions]] had just been added but no one really knew how to use them correctly. Despite this, they were still fairly deadly.
The world looked something like this:<br>
=== Three Nobodies and the Formation of Eagle Crew ===
This will focus on three people initially. The first was someone called IBGod (Papa_Pound). He was an [[HCF]] player who had moved to
In these times the world police were literally everywhere and went and did almost whatever they wanted. Towns were either affiliated with the world police – ie. their members were part of the WP, or in general, the towns had no pvp’ers and they just accepted the world police presence. In some cases, this was resented but in general, it was accepted and usually welcome given the propensity for random raider groups to show up. Most players were "prot pinatas". Even many world police were prot pinatas and there were no real
Days after the attack IBGod wound up in the [[Corum]] region, notable for the town of [[Iria]] and the much larger and more impressive city [[Hexagon]] ([[Fellowship]]). Sufficiently far away from [[Orion]] and [[Carson (Civcraft)|Carson]] he was able to continue playing in relative peace. He planned to
Not long after IBGod arrived in the region he saw a player named Talydaria login – he
After a week of internal discussion, the
There aren’t any recordings of the entire fight, but
Now a brief note on the third person, Sintralin. As mentioned before, Sintralin was a fairly popular politician in Fellowship, although distrusted by the surrounding regions, especially Iria who as a point of casual conversation told Lysika how power-hungry and obsessive she was on his first day on the server. But importantly, she was friends with IBGod. When the Eagle Crew raiding began she had a brief part in helping them – sometimes passing on world police movements and in one case telling Lysika that Jumpysnake’s helm was about to break. The biggest thing she did, albeit without realizing, was releasing an alt of Marfinator from the Fellowship vault. This caused some upset when it turned out IBGod had deceived her. It needs to be stressed she had a very minor role in these first months.
Over the next week, these raids continued – the subsequent fights went much better for Eagle Crew (as they were now known). Winning fights when outnumbered 2 to 1 they began to make a name for themselves. Their raiding credentials were also bolstered when they raided Shopside in the [[Commonwealth (2.0)|Commonwealth]] one day, and again on the next.<ref>Daily Bounty Update: Pearl of Eagle_Girl and Friends, Yoshi_Sama, 1 Oct 2014: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2i1ptv/wanted_daily_bounty_update_pearl_of_eagle_girl/</ref>
Things really looked good for Eagle Crew after a raid on [[Etherium]], owned by Darkjesusmn (who still plays today). World police movements were reported back to the raiders by Sintralin and Eldoorn – apparently they were about to be intercepted by 9 of them. Eagle Crew fled a short distance south to some beaches and a ruined castle. Here they chose to fight. In the ensuing battle Riptide and [[TealNerd]] (the future owner of Civcraft and earlier head of [[Haven]]) were killed. In fact Teal was no potted at the start of fight by Lysika. <ref>Eagle Crew meets the WP for the first time, from RipTide's perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb_2JJWj6w0</ref>
=== Formation of America ===
After a couple of weeks of raiding Eagle Crew lost a fight just east of Iria to a great many world police. Marfinator was pearled by Jakemeister123 (who, amusingly, later joined the America Invasion). The next day IBGod and Lysika sailed west. Subreddit posts were made warning of their movements and speculating on their intent. Then a newfriend, TheHobbyist posted
HCF in Carbon, ''deleted'', 27 Oct 2014, https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2kila2/hcf_in_carbon/</ref>
<br>
That day,
There was a period of quiet. This was essentially IBGod and Lysika sailing around the world looking for a place to build their vault. The cardinal world border spots were taken so they wanted the straight diagonal border. At first, they went to -10.6, -10.6 and dug a significant part of the vault hole with the help of Vitacoco (on itankage). However, the landowner, FK_54 took umbrage to the HCF settling there and called in the world police who waited for everyone to log off before block griefing the vault hole (with coloured wool meant for an American flag…).<ref>Previously what the vault hole looked like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmal1fCz4MA</ref> In fact, after Tealnerd griefed the vault hole, he made a post charging the grief against the HCF.<ref>On the griefing of the America vault room, biggestnerd, 10 Oct 2014: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2iuhdj/on_the_griefing_of_the_america_vault_room</ref> The important thing to note is the way he dictates the law despite not having anything to do with the land prior to griefing it – the old world police advantage on display.
The next day IBGoD and Lysika travelled to the exact opposite end of the world , +10.6k, +10.6k with three accounts each (they were all moved at once via rails or alt tabbing with boat momentum). At this new site they began building a new vault. The new vault should be noted as it was unique. It was a sky vault – the first of its kind, designed by Channer Shadyguy (and maybe Celoxia helped too - at least he was on the build server a lot). It was at this point that the America invasion picked up a lot of core civcrafters. Every day IBGod would announce some random civcrafter asking to ‘buy in’ or join America. Notable players included Stratmat, Cheshirelulcat, Jakemeister and EnragedAlmond. Others like Mt. Flushmore (Justitaria, or [[Batavis]]) dug supply rails all the way to the vault. A real sense of community and comradery began to develop – even Celoxia, who was still pearled at this time had a good time hanging out with them - and was fairly decent.
A slight detour from the main story - some Irians Jumpysnake, Tangentialthreat and a few others along with the Hjaltland leader BlueSylvaer travelled to the HCF vault to their own attempt at pearling IBGod. The hit snitches on ths surface of the vault hole baiting IBGod and Killaconcarne into chasing them. They had prepared a bastion trap for IBGod. The trap was incredibly primitive but it worked to an extent - both IBGod and Killaconcarne fell into it. Unfortunately for them IBGod was able to escape by having Killaconcarne knock him out of it with successive hits. Killconcarne was however, pearled.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPZ46-8DI78</ref>
So what was the HCF goal? Well, fortunately, this is well documented – IBGod had been joking to Clone that he was going to break his vault for some time. It held Celoxia who had promised IBGod 2000 diamonds to be released. The voices in the following video are IBGoD and Celoxia joking about breaking the vault “tomorrow”. Other players that can be heard are MCFTW – a member of the world police, famous for later winning civcraft (he didn’t). <ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwyBYU8HczM</ref>
A slight aside from the timeline, this occurred in the weeks of Eagle Crew: The Vale vault was mysteriously broken by IBGod, solo without anyone noticing. One of the pearls inside it was the third pearl of Celoxia - due to a bug with the alt ban system he was able to run around on a third account despite having two alts pearled. This was of course part of IBGod's plan to free Celoxia. Less known was that the Vale leaders had forgiven IBGod for stealing the beacons from him and in a mutual moment of 'Fuck the world police' had opened up their vault and released the pearls for IBGod.<ref> Vale vault broken most likely last night/this morning, Kittenbears88, 7 Oct 2014: https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2ijpmq/vale_vault_broken_most_likely_last_nightthis/</ref>
==== Clone's Vault Break ====
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The Orion vault break was very slow. Orion’s vault was on a vanilla chunk – meaning the bedrock was not flat and had to be navigated to locate the pearl chest. IBGod, just like at Clone’s vault, picked an incredibly poor path into the vault – this pure incompetence is a decent argument against accusations of world downloading. The path went forwards, up over the bedrock and then back down again – in a straight line. This will mean nothing to most of you but elite 3-d vault breakers may be giggling. It should also be mentioned that almost two hours were spent trying to organise the HCF into breaking the bastions but they simply did not have the patience to place the blocks - or perhaps the bastions were broken.
This video is from Badash’s perspective (WP):
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==== Break Up ====
After several hours of looting in Orion the attack spilled even further out. The Lads who had helped break the vault, along with newly freed Jarl Heisenberg went on to raid [[The Commonwealth (Civcraft 2.0)|The Commonwealth]] in the south. The world police were essentially non-existent for this brief period in time – they were either pearled or hiding, logged out.
Unfortunately it was to come to an end. The Lads had expressed their main goal was to break the server – to ruin it or get banned in the process. In brief, IBGod agreed with their aims whilst others in America did not – namely Lysika, EnragedAlmond and the other civcrafters within the HCF group. They wanted to build a town - a goal that was
The pearls were moved there later that day by Lysika, Duke and Cheshire. Unfortunately the world police had snitched the secret rail dug weeks ago by Mt. Flushmore and were aware of the movements - it should be be said that this was known. People had been attacked by the world police when taking this line in the past. The World Police tracked the players holding the pearls which led to a disastrous hunt culminating in the pearls being dropped so that the HCF could safely logout and avoid interception. It seemed like the HCF invasion was over and IBGod was left penniless – although his freedom was intact. [Editor’s note: This was done deliberately to end the invasion]
==== Crush the Collaborators: Pericorp and Vale ====
Collaborators are native civcrafters who support HCF invasions. In 2.0 collaborators were considered scum. This was particularly notable in the Recharge invasion where the entire town of [[Vale]], one of the largest xp producing towns, sold and in many cases freely gave xp and prot to Recharge. Indeed, one of the Vale leaders had moderator access on the Recharge vault. Years afterwards Vale members would talk fondly of Zerorussia and other Recharge members. In Zerorussia's famous last stand video he uses a sword given to him by MKCoates, The People's Champion, (a leader of Vale). Now on to the America invasion, there were of course collaborators. Jakemeister, Strattmatt, Snorriandgotrekt - all members of Vale, helped the invasion out with some actually joining. Another random account also joined America - an account that consisted only of numbers and was 'vouched' for by the Vale members. This account belong to Pericorp.
Pericorp worked on the vault and made himself useful. People were ok with his presence despite the fact he spoke little and no one knew who he was - because the Vale members trusted him. Then, at the end of the America invasion he made a subreddit post. It turned out his entire time in America was spent gathering evidence against his own friends who he'd played with for almost a year - to turn them in as collaborators:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2l0xi4/my_experiences_leading_up_to_recent_events/
The ensuing shit storm was massive. Despite the post getting a lot of things wrong it was enough to spur the world police into action. They raided Vale, looting houses and bunkers of random citizens long since inactive all under the guise of revenge on Vale collaborators. Tealnerd expressed his dismay at the raiding:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2l38tr/a_message_to_those_raiding_vale/
However, [[Convoy|shadedjon]], a key world police member who unknown to anyone at the time was raiding on an alt called Sroerick, thought that the raiding wasn't enough and Vale should end up like River's End - completely flooded:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/2l3t20/contrary_to_all_the_posts_right_now_i_dont_think/
== The Titan Period ==
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So begins the time period that I’ve called the Titan period - although it encompasses for Forsaken period just prior, the Titan War in the middle and then the Libertas period just after. The Forsaken period was a period of a few months where IBGod went into hiding, raiding and building up wealth - later to be used in the construction of Titan. He was mostly solo during this period - most of his allies having left him. However, a few notable people accompanied him. Oculism - a very well known Kohi player and slightly before this snorriandgotrekt - the leader of Nexus. Duke Stonezy later helped him fortfity Titan.
The main story concerning IBGod at this time involves a raid gone wrong in the South West of the map - near Jaeerk's claim (Jaeerk was a loosely aligned world police member who had a private xp setup shared with Zoltan (Croc on
Meanwhile the rest of the America leadership – Lysika, sintralin, Celoxia and member of the civcrafters who were part of the America invasion travelled west of Aeon to start a new nation – called the Forsaken. They planned to build a heavily defended fortress city in isolation – the worry being that not everyone had forgiven them for their hand in the America Invasion, despite their part in ending it. Not a lot happened during this time. Much of the Forsaken Ice castle was built (although the majority was much later). The Ice Castle was attacked – by Jarl Heisenberg and Tealnerd. They stole a beacon and a few hundred diamonds. They left in an embarrassed state after being called out on the subreddit as raiders but in the end no reps were paid. Teal said Jarl had them and Jarl being Jarl disappeared until the next HCF invasion.
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====Return of IBGod====
When IBGod was freed from Carson he joined Libertas and
https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/
A short while later Jakebob, the main proponent behind the Libertas principles, announced he was quitting Nox, spilling a fairly large number of beans in the process.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/comments/38wuc8/on_my_departure_from_nox_and_the_history_of/ <br>
When IBGod joined Libertas there were demands for him to pay reparations. He made a few posts but ignored considerations such as time spent pearled or anything particular large. This was in contrast to Libertas previously forcing people to pay reparations for time spent pearled. The general consensus among the non-Libertas aligned groups was that IBGod had not served enough time or paid enough reparations for his roles in Titan, and to a lesser extent America (this was largely forgotten by now). Groups on the Libertas side began to question whether IBGod had actually done anything wrong. Arguments relating to sovereignty and the defence of Titan land were made - Gordon's alleged illegal snitching was brought up. The issue of IBGod's criminality became a question of allegiance rather than right or wrong.
It should also be noted that around this time the story ends for Celoxia. Sometime between the Libertas vault break and the Nox war he was banned for threatening to dox clone. He remained banned until the final weeks to 2.0<br>
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==== Formation of Eden ====
In
Before an explanation of Eden, an amusing story. Eden were originally going to be called Vanguard. However, Lysika who at the time was on good terms with IBGod and the world police heard of this planned name and joked about it with IBGod - who subsequently announced a group called Vanguard on the subreddit forcing Eden to rethink.
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The attacks on the Mir town were completely brutal on paper – but in reality completely ineffective. The first attack consisted of around 20 attackers from Nox, Chanada, randoms who wanted to pvp and possibly MTA. There were just five Mirian defenders: Lysika_Lantariel, Jpegz, Jakemeister, Assassinmatt and Talydaria. <br>
Here is the list of attackers:<br>
Jorgito55, Baladae, Reanial (MCFtw), Scenttreedown, Anair117 (sintralin), Apachablitz (Reiko), Oldfriend , Textrus (IBGod), Zikoolas (Thoths), Logibear2, Sil3ntCreep3rxD, Camokool, EIIipse, Tormented, daddo69 (Altraider on
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====Mt Augusta joins the War====
The war simmered down, similar to the quiet period of the Somber War. There was something of a stalemate. Vaults seemed unbreakable but Nox had little power beyond the immediate area. Then Nox decided to start obby bombing Aurora – similar to their tactics with the Commonwealth on
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lizecaeOU4g&t=0s&index=57&list=PLOcJuSE-pWKAV4ShJiVfDkv793tflsAsA
Vitacoco released the following video, destroying wealth in one of the many Nox sky bunkers to prevent it falling into WP hands. Notably sintralin is on the account Scentreedown (a different player), despite being banned. Mid way through the video Xavter is accidently released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR0iiWjmJZ4&feature=youtu.be
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- Mt. Augusta duping wealth. Professor Tanstaafl duped double chests of diamonds blocks and was banned for several months whilst the admins attempted to clean up his mess.<br>
=== Post Nox War Period and 3.0 Announcement ===
With the Nox vault broken the coalition of World Police, Mir and MTA experienced something of a parting of ways. The Nox Nether factory initially owned by Mir was freely handed over – various other parties including MTA wanted control of it and Mir had no interest in it.
Nox’s neighbouring town (really a collection of creative server houses and traps) were raided, the statue of Sintralin riding Papa Pound griefed and various bunkers looted.
Soon after the admins administered a ‘puzzle event’ involving another dimension that culminated in the reveal of 3.0. With the end of 2.0 in sight the server devolved into pvp for fun. World Police and MTA groups met in the nether (and sometimes the overworld, although this involved an inconvenient walk) and fought each other for fun. Pearled players were taken home and released at the end of the fight.
== Civcraft 3.0 ==
Civcraft 3.0 made a lot changes to the genre and whilst the ideas were usually good the implementation was typically somewhere between flawed and quite bad. It seems like a waste of time to write an essay on why it sucked so I’ll skip that and talk about the parts that affected Classics.
Firstly most of the world police grouped under the nation of Falstadt. This is significant as a large part of this group exists today on CivClassic as the nation Hjaltland. There’s not much more to say – they were very successful on 3.0 and later on classics, with no presence on Devoted.
Mir as it was known in 2.0 broke up, one part quit, another played with Aeon and lastly I formed a meme nation called Province (with a few friends from other games) with little hope for much more. The key thing here is that Province was neighbouring Volterra and later, for diplomatic convenience/trolling, absorbed into it. The Volterrans and I had played Minecraft together since prior to Civcraft existed – talks of merging in 2.0 occurred but fell short due to geography and creative differences. This 3.0 move with Province was the first of a few steps towards the Mir seen in CivClassic.
Finally Aegis, probably the strongest nation on 3.0, is noted for uniting 2.0 Mount Augusta with various HCF/Kohi types. Whilst the leadership moved on (for the most part) many of these players would go on to Devoted 3.0 (mostly Veritas) and later CivClassic (HJE, Mir, Rhodesia etc).
Finally, an apology to everyone, as a joke I told iSanta about how certain players were tier zero pvp’ers (hackers) and the best were tier one. It seems people love rankings and measurement… The concept of a pvp tier list later exploded on Devoted as a result of this thanks to Santa discussing tiers with other Volterrans and Dollaz, then a Volterran, who took it to heart and made the first excel file of all the nations pvp’ers… This would prove very popular on Devoted and later servers.
== Devoted ==
I’m going to call this Devoted – there were previous iterations of Devoted but they were always in the shadow of civcraft. So a disclaimer – I’m not too clear on Devoted’s early history – add anything important that is missed. None of the nations that existed prior to this did anything meaningful, assuming they even persisted. They will of course be important to individuals on a personal level and if someone has the time they should add that history.
The only nation from Civcraft to make its way to Devoted unchanged was Volterra. There was also a watered down version of Aegis merged with some members of Crocodile Island (HCF group in 3.0) led by Coni_S2 called Veritas – but importantly the old leadership was absent. Finally there was the nation [[Uguu]]. Uguu was led by [[Malen]] and included newer faces like [[PrideVGreed]], [[Poortea]], [[ParkerTehPwner]], and [[Amelorate]] in addition some older but lesser known players such as [[Thanadon]], [[Soerxpso]]. In addition to these nations there was a fairly strong raider group made up of the usual faces, people like John Fairfax, GeneralThomas, Thoths Librarian and so on.
The traditional Civcraft World Police were almost completely absent and a new generation arose towards the end of the first World War, led by Dollaz from the town and Vault called Ruin. Importantly almost all the hard learnt lessons from Civcraft 2.0 on how to attack vaults had been forgotten - or rather never learnt due to most of the old players quitting during Civcraft 3.0, if not before.
=== Devoted World War 1 - The HCF Strike Back ===
To set the scene there were two main opposing powers. The precursors to the Devoted World Police, a group made up of mostly players from Uguu, Irithyl (Volterra) and some odds & ends, against Veritas and a group of raiders very closely aligned with Veritas. In addition to these older players there was a surprisingly large number of newer players getting their first taste of ‘civ minecraft’.
The war was started when Uguu were caught illegaly snitching Veritas. The motivation for this was that it was strongly suspected that Veritas was aiding the raiding group mentioned earlier. Uguu requested Irithyl's aid in the war which was given. Whilst the war was started by Uguu it was later confirmed by Coni that Veritas were about one day from attacking Uguu themselves.
This post was made by Coni when Poortea was caught in Veritas lands placing snitches:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/5d0cp7/128d_bounty_on_poortea/
The war was relatively short and it seemed like the World Police were going to win having dealt a not quite decisive blow to Veritas. Unfortunately the curse of Vault Ground attacks struck. Thinking victory was assured the World Police attacked the Veritas vault and bunker complex at ground level and somehow got inside the tunnels. These tunnels used ladders to get to different floors and it is here the World Police lost the war. In this version of minecraft players could get stuck on ladders, unable to go down if someone was below them. Somehow through a mix of getting stuck on ladders and being inside the enemy bunker complex the majority of World Police fighters were pearled, ending the war. Veritas had won.
A great many of key Irithyl and Uguu players were pearled with no escape in sight. As a result Uguu ceased to be and never recovered. A large enough portion of Irithyl's population survived allowing it to continue on despite many of it's main pvp'ers being pearled.
=== Devoted World War 2 - Return of the World Police ===
==== Build Up ====
A short time after the end of the first war, the leader of Veritas, Coni_S2 realised she was playing with ‘bad’ people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/5mlknw/im_sorry_im_really_sorry/
Someone closer to the events will have to provide a full breakdown of why (but these players were and are established shitters). Working with Dollaz, one of the World Police who hadn’t been pearled in the previous debacle, she coordinated the release of most of the World Police fighters and at the same time a new World Police vault was constructed. This is what would later become the Ruin vault (the name came from me, I don’t recall how exactly – possibly due to me owning the alt ‘Ruin’). Notably a great deal of Irithyl wealth was used in its construction.
Soon after people were freed from the Veritas vault and before the Ruin vault could be complicated there was a skirmish between John Fairfax and Ez2 crew. John Fairfax was pearled and moved to the Ruin vault - thus revealing its location.
==== The First Vault Defence ====
The other members of Veritas and the related raiding group were furious at Coni’s betrayal and decided to attack the Ruin vault. I was asked to help lead the defence of the vault by Dollaz. Vaults were very weak in Devoted – at this stage there were no bastions and obsidian only reinforcements that were expensive enough to limit their use to the vault proper – meaning very weak ‘glass’ block type rings or walls. In the case of the Ruin Vault there was a singular lantern wall with wooden doors in an undug vault room. The Veritas forces attacked through most of the day, 1 or two at a time early in the morning and then in full force later in the day. This video records the defence in full, starting with Jarl Heisenbergs solo attempts in the morning (Jimmy Pavilion) and then the larger attackers later in the evening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY1zS7mryQo
At the end of the day some of the attackers were pearled and the vault still stood. The next day the Veritas vault was attacked by the World Police and this time it was broken properly, by the book, without any ladder accidents.
==== The Second Vault Defence ====
A little while after this the old Veritas and raider forces made a final effort to take the Ruin vault which had been greatly strengthened since the last fight - although it was still terrible by normal standards. The attack was a failure - ultimately ending with the attackers all pearling into the trapped Rings where they would be unable to escape due to string roofs. The fight is recorded from Santa's perspective in the following video, from 9:30 onwards:
https://youtu.be/trIdgzq9UMo?t=567
This post marks and lists the people pearled in the attacked:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/5o9vcm/wee_pee_wins/
I went inactive at this point but essentially two separate world police nations emerged from this. The first was Volterra – in the same location as Irithyl (Western world border) and with mostly the same people. Second was Ruin, centred on the vault with a town built nearby soon after (close to the centre of the map).
=== Devoted World War 3 - The Chimeran Civil War ===
To set the stage, the World Police split had split into three groups (previously I said two, only two had much power). This group of three nations formed the Chimera alliance. It of course consisted of Ruin, Volterra and New Veritas (a nation made up of Coni, Wheelers and Diet Cola). The alliance was announced on the subreddit by this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/5y1ni7/the_chimera_alliance/
==== The Build Up to War ====
Two incidents occurred spurring on the next world war. JKH, a senator of Volterra, had a sister who lived in a separate town called Wyvernhurst. Under JKH’s guidance it was believed to be inactive and free for the Volterrans to loot – which they did, acquiring significant wealth in the process. However, they were caught on a snitch by the one active member of the town, Happyninja. Needless to say this caused a big fuss which was made worse by Volterra refusing to give back any of the stolen goods.
HappyNinja making this known on the subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/62b42r/real_proof_volterra_raided_their_own_small_ally/
The second incident was a betrayal. The pearls of Saren and a few other newer friends of Santa (a senator of Volterra) were held in the Ruin vault – with a perma pearl sentence – i.e. to never be released. It should be noted that at this point Saren’s storyline and character were not fully revealed – the idea of him not being deserving of perma pearl was not so strange at this time. Secondly, and this was perhaps a retroactive justification, much of the Ruin vault was constructed with old Irithyl wealth which the Volterrans wanted returned to them. So,one night Santa, who was still trusted by Dollaz and had mod access on the Ruin vault spike, entered the Ruin vault and freed the pearls of Saren, Bewsie and several others. Thus the next world war began.
On Santa Freeing people from the Ruin vault:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/62ct4g/volterra_attacks_ruin_vault/
Bystander Commentary on the breakup of the Alliance:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/62bxgc/chimera_alliance_civil_war_discussion_thread/
==== Initial Forays - Attacking the Ruin Vault ====
The Volterrans proposed to attack the Ruin vault. I’m not sure why – I was not involved and heard about it after that fact (obviously because they’re at war, but at this point there was nothing to gain by attacking the Ruin Vault, other than to disable it – but this would have been an exceedingly ambitious goal so early in the war given neither side had lost anyone and were relatively closely matched). In retrospect the reasoning is more obvious - a main proponent of the attack was Saren who was secretly working for Dollaz (Ruin), however, how he pursuaded the rest of Volterra to attack is still a mystery.
Anyway the Volterrans did attack, twice in fact. The first attack is not particularly notable other than the fact that even Mickale, the non-fighting leader of Volterra attended and little was accomplished. The second attack was more interesting, and almost ended the war there and then. It began with minimal preparation – a theme of Vault attacks at this point in time. All the experienced vault breakers had long since left the genre and wheels needed reinventing.
The Volterrans set up an attack bunker at bedrock just outside the Ruin vault. Not surprisingly they were quickly repelled from the rings and forced back inside their bunker where they were trapped. Their only reasonable escape route was a minecart teleporter. I say reasonable because some lucky bastard, in the ensuing chaos to come, did manage to escape via tunnel. Now, things get interesting. If you recall the war began because Santa didn’t want Saren or Bewsie to be perma pearled. These two and several others were fighting on Volterra’s side that day. In fact Saren was leading the attack and was perhaps the largest proponent of the attack. However, unknown to the Volterrans, Saren and co. were in fact secretly working for Dollaz/Ruin. To complicate things further a second group or perhaps single actor, Generalthomas (Aegis in 3.0, MTA in 2.0) also allied with the Volterrans was also planning to betray them. All of these people were inside the Volterran attack bunker – and immediately outside the bunker doors were the waiting Ruin forces.
In perfect timing as the Volterran bunker door was broken the saboteurs simultaneously broke the escape minecart teleporter and began attacking the Volterrans – although this betrayal was not immediately realised in the chaos. This entire event is recorded from a few perspectives but here is one from Jumpysnake – a Ruin defender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=382R_vyVi9E
Amazingly every single Volterran managed to escape – replacing the broken minecart and teleporting to the surface. Later when analysing recordings of the fight Santa realised that he’d been combat tagged by one of the traitors just prior to the ‘real’ fight beginning.
==== Interim Period, Negotiation and Volterra's Refusal to Surrender ====
It was at this point that I returned to the server, happily on good terms with both sides. I collected my wealth from some drop chests in the mountain next to the Ruin vault where I had been digging a city (long since given up) and travelled to the Volterra vault where I logged out in their skybunker. Occasionally I would login and afk xp (on Devoted xp was obtained by afk’ing next to an xp spawner) but otherwise I did nothing having chosen to remain neutral for the time being. I was surprised and flattered that the Volterrans didn’t force me to pick a side whilst keeping me on groups in the bunker. Anyway, small ego trip aside – continuing the story.
The exact details of the aftermath of that second attack on the Ruin vault aren’t fully known to me as I was still sitting on the sidelines at this point. However, as a member of the Volterran discord it was clear to me that they were discussing handing in their pearls and agreeing to peace. I stepped in and volunteered my view of Civcraft and the genre – how handing your pearl in was tantamount to losing the game and calling it quits – placing yourself in the complete trust of your opponents. Negotiation is fine but handing your pearl in is never the correct move and should be reserved for ‘losers’. The post, formatted in something of a parody of a meme text (genre fitting) seemed to hit home as in the following Senate vote it was decided the Volterra would fight – until the end. It was at this point that I joined the Volterra properly, much to the disappointment of Dollaz and Coni. I believe I said something along the lines of ‘I know they’re in the wrong but I like them more’ (how to burn bridges and win friends btw).
==== Order 66 ====
The first problem we faced was removing all the insiders from Volterra. Saren, Kempje, Bewsie, Lazersmoke and Generalthomas. Together they made a formidable force and probably provided more direct pvp capability than the actual Volterrans so a simple brawl would never work – even assuming we couldn’t stop them from running. I proposed a simple plan which took advantage of their mistrust of me – as the newest member of the group who had watched from sidelines (and had a history of big world policing). I would wait until one of them was isolated in the Volterran sky bunker, pearl them, and ideally the others would be baited into the skybunker to try to pearl me at which point they’d be removed from the groups and loyal Volterrans would login to pearl them. The alternative outcome was that after the isolated player was pearled the rest would run. The first outcome was preferable but both removed the insiders. We got lucky and everything went exactly as required.
I say we got lucky, it took a fair amount of waiting for the right moment but eventually Generalthomas was alone in the skybunker with me whilst Saren, Kempje and Bewsie were outside the vault but nearby. I was in a discord call talking to all of them including Generalthomas whilst simultaneously sitting in a skype called with Mickale, Santa, Gregy, THEjkh, and Britishwanderer.
The moment had come – I asked out loud to the skype call ‘Should I just pearl him?’. Now for context I use push to talk on discord and skype has no such function. As one sometimes is I wasn’t sure if I’d accidently pressed my push to talk out of habit whilst saying this – thus warning Generalthomas. Looking back I don’t think I had – there was no record or reaction to it and the other sides voice chat was recorded but this uncertainty essentially forced our hand so I potted up on the floor above, went down the ladder and critted him out – he didn’t pot or fight back. With Generalthomas pearled without incident the rest came to get me. I placed the pearl in a secure chest and climbed to the highest part of the skybunker. Saren and Bewsie were able to get to the upper reaches of the skybunker – Kempje was locked out due to insufficient group access. As Saren and Bewsie reached the top they were also removed from groups. Meanwhile the loyal Volterrans logged in. In the ensuring fight Saren, BewsieJ and Lazersmoke (who stumbled into the vault trying to help) were pearled. Kempje escaped. It was a massive victory and morale within Volterra was at an all-time high (soon to get progressively higher and higher).
This is all recorded in the following excellent video, from Saren’s perspective.
Sarens video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC6kX7peOuc
Santa’s perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyYcPqvbtGY
==== Defending the Volterran Vault ====
However, the World Police were untouched. Certainly they had lost some useful allies and perhaps the chance at an easy victory but their army was intact and still quite literally many times larger than Volterra’s at this time. They were still very keen to remove Volterra from the map. To this end they organised a large attacking force of about twenty people and attacked the Volterran vault. It should be noted once more that on Devoted vaults were incredibly weak with no obsidian rings (sea lantern only) and very weak bastions, if any. Fortunately the vault attack meta was also stunted – attackers would arrive, build a bunker just outside the vault rings and go from there. Under Dollaz’s supervision this is exactly what the world police did.
The attackers had just managed to get their attack bunker setup when the first skirmishes began. There were five defenders, myself, Santa, Gregy, Pride – and an old friend, Malen who always seems to show up when in our hour of need. To be fair to the attackers – some elements were supposedly not entirely aligned with Dollaz’s view point and were, at least in theory, considering working against him, however, in practice every one of the attackers attacked and fought earnestly as shown in the videos.
A series of fights took place at bedrock around the vault perimeter. The defenders would leverage their logistical advantage, potting up, running into the enemy and generally being dangerous enough to force the attackers to also pot up – wasting their pots which were not easily replaced at this point. This is of course an ancient tactic known as ‘Pot ladding’ and will be effective as long as attackers are poorly prepared, which is often – especially with less experienced players.
After several skirmishes the attackers somehow found themselves trapped inside their bunker with Volterrans working to break in, similar to the Volterran attack on the Ruin vault. After a few failed individual breakout moments by the likes of Reiko (yes on the World Police side at the time) the attackers decided to retreat. Unfortunately they hadn’t planned for this part and the only escape route was the way they came in (due to the design of Volterra a minecart teleport wouldn’t work – the vault had a much larger city perimeter wall that couldn’t be pearled over). So all at once the World Police spewed out of their bunker towards the stairs they’d dug when arriving – these weren’t even proper stairs, but one block high jumps. Whilst they were running and, presumably panicking, the Volterran defenders chased – ultimately pearling several of them.
It was another victory for Volterra and a humiliating defeat for the World Police – the first actually since Titan or perhaps America. The fight was well recorded, here are some videos:
This short excerpt by Jumpysnake (World Police) shows the attackers retreating up the staircase whilst being harassed by defenders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay4fcilhvZo
This video is from Gregy’s perspective, ending with the pearling of the attackers at the end of their escape tunnel
https://youtu.be/X6gKatlB57M?t=961
A Volterran statement on the aftermath of the war,
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/642t9h/the_chimeran_civil_war_a_brief_explanation_and/
Zrain complains about being held (pearled)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/66gbvg/volterra_unfairly_holding_my_pearl/
After this defeat an awkward peace was agreed between Volterra and the World Police - 'detailed' here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/6e56z4/peace_between_volterra_ruin/
During this period a redesign of the Volterran vault was commissioned, leading to the creation of Vault Terror which whilst bad by today’s standards was pretty swish for Devoted. It was perhaps 20% complete when the next war began and cheap rings were rush built out of sea lanterns rather than the planned ones made of obsidian. Seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gQ-nfgbAFc
=== Devoted World War 4 - The Rise of VaultTerror ===
==== Lead up to War - The MTA Pearlings ====
However, in true keeping with Devoted, the peace was very brief. Three Volterrans travelled to MTA to sell some obsidian – Gregy, Parasitic and Britishwanderer. The whole incident seemed a little sketchy from the start and rightly so. It turned out to be a trap organised by World Police forces and the non-pvpers Parasitic and Britishwanderer were pearled. This marked the beginning of either the next world war – or perhaps the previous world war recommencing.
This led to a very bold subreddit statement by then Emperor of Volterra, Britishwanderer, condemning the actions of Ruin and warning the server against them. At the same time it put their betrayal in context and guaranteed the Volterran position - fighting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/695j7f/the_ruin_war_of_server_hegemony_why_ruin_is_not/
Notable e-lego philosopher Bondle also comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/69m4dz/bondles_thoughts_on_the_ruinvolterra_war/
==== World Police Late Night Attacks on Volterra ====
The World Police once again moved to attack the Volterran vault. Whilst they had not learnt to setup up correct attack infrastructure they did decide to attack in the timezone Volterra was most weak. Due to this Volterra was only able to muster a single defender against perhaps 10 attackers. That single defender was Santa. In the following video from Santa’s perspective probably the single most lopsided/humiliating fight in civ history occurs. It starts with the World Police leader, Dollaz, dropping his sword:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h3MZbkZo4
Santa was able to solo defend the vault, but it took a toll – one person staying up to defend a vault cannot be continued indefinitely and the attackers, as always (of course) had the timezone advantage. Later JKH was also able to help defend at this awkward hour but it was only a matter of time before they were either pearled or simply overrun by the much larger attacking force.
Coni, leader of New Veritas weighs in on the mess:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/69jh0t/new_veritas_stance_on_the_ruinvolterra_war/
An ambitious solo attack by Ruin newfriend PopKoren (instantly pearled) prompts a meme video:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Devoted/comments/69a1ez/go_to_volterra_they_said_it_will_be_fun_they_said/
==== Operation Hypertard 2 ====
At this point I proposed the second ‘Operation Hypertard’, an old Mirian classification of Operation given to only the most ambitious and probably stupid plans. The first was breaking Cliffnerd’s vault in Civcraft 2.0 (the largest vault on the server) in order to free Celoxia (a success by the way). Operation Hypertard 2 was to end the war by taking the fight to Ruin (thus seizing the timezone advantage – although really this meant roughly equal numbers) and breaking their vault.
The Ruin vault was not like the Volterra vault – it had multiple completed rings with web traps, sky defences at all y-levels which doubled as a rudimentary snitch grid and it was on the whole far more polished and complete. Previous Volterran attempts had failed as documented previously. However, there were several clear weaknesses that could be exploited thanks to vault design at the time (no snitch curtain – sky rings were snitched instead) and weaker bastions that could be pearled into.
The attack plan was detailed with several roles assigned to people. The general idea was to exploit the fact that the skybunker was built slightly above ground level (of course the vault was dug to bedrock) by stealth breaking the rings via skybridge and then when in range pearling onto the skybunker and aoe breaking the bastions. At the same time a group would mirror the skybridge vector but slightly above the rings – thus providing a safe escape route from the skybunker roof should it be needed (pearl down towards the lower bridge and then pearl or run across the lower bridge/rings into the escape tunnel – built with a large opening for easy aiming).Importantly suitable logistics were setup beforehand. A stealth tunnel at y40 (to avoid snitch hits) was dug from the Volterran vault all the way to the Ruin vault the night before and two bunkers were made along the route to guarantee quick and safe repairs/exits.
This all went reasonably to plan with a couple of hitches. The first was Swiftfizz, who was on the Volterran side, said he could get us inside the skybunker (he had group access). We agreed to let him help us which in retrospect, and immediately at the time, proved to be a bad idea. Upon reaching the stage of the vault attack where we pearled onto the skybunker roof we chased a defender (DJMeffy) down into the heart of the bunker, using Swiftfizz’s door access. Whilst we easily took control of the bunker Swiftfizz was removed from the groups, trapping us inside. In retrospect there was probably very little danger of being overwhelmed inside the bunker but being cautious we immediately broke the door to the minecart teleporter down and tp’d to bedrock on top of the vault spike – and walked out of the vault using the aforementioned lower bridge.
Before leaving I made sure we broke a single glass block separting the two floors of the skybunker – this made a vertical gap of greater than four blocks allowing us to minecart teleport into the bunker from above or below (with a little additional prep work), should we wish to. Unfortunately as the vault attack progressed and just as we’d setup a downwards teleporter the plan was discovered by the defenders when Icer (a Volterran build friend) went afk next to the teleporter – revealing it when the defenders came to pearl him.
Despite this small setback the attacks continued – the attackers were continually able to pearl on top of the skybunker and out pvp the defenders whilst being able to leave at any point via the lower bridge. During the battle several defenders were pearled and the Volterrans suffered no pvp casualties. After a day of fighting victory was declared. Volterra became VaultTerror, the World Police and Dollaz were humbled, the Ruin vault was broken – the bad guys had won.
The Attack on the Ruin vault is shown here from Santa’s perspective,
https://youtu.be/SHz6SplDUJE?t=326
Gregy165’s (attacker) perspective:
https://youtu.be/AkpmxdW3QiM?t=346
Jumpsnake’s perspective (Defender), fighting on the skybridge – he was pearled very near the beginning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfjpy4iPnwc
=== Aftermath of the Fourth War, Beginning of CivClassic ===
Anyway that pretty much ends the story of Devoted. With decent vaults prohibitively expensive the Volterran vault was always vulnerable to a solo skybridge at 3am – which was attempted several times. Ultimately the Volterrans chose to leave the server to die, which it did – and to start afresh on a new server – CivClassic. They would end up playing under an old name for some but new for most – Mir. Meanwhile the leftovers of Ruin would form the town of Anguish on CivClassic – and find themselves 200 blocks north of a nation called Charon – which later turned out to be Volterra/Mir playing on brand new accounts. Whilst Anguish and Mir coexisted peacefully for a long time, albeit with perhaps the most militarised border in civ history, ultimately Anguish sided with Lexington in the Somber war making themselves a target and a victim. They were conquered by Mir and World Police forces early in the war. A lot has happened since then but that is CivClassic history – so read other articles on that.
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