Infinity War
Infinity War | |||||||
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Valyria City destroyed after months of fighting | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
First Phase Mir |
First Phase NATO: Lone Nations: | ||||||
Second Phase Lone Nations: |
Second Phase Lone Nations: | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Lone Nations: | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
~100 involved individuals |
~70 involved individuals | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
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The Infinity War was a world war of CivClassic. Lasting for over 1.5 years, it was the longest war in the history of the genre, named for its apparent endlessness. It sprung from the NATO-Mir War, which was fought by the nation of Mir against the NATO alliance on CivClassic. This initial conflict took place during a sea of rising tensions, which ultimately inflamed to consume every corner of the map.
Eight months into the initial conflict, a second concurrent war broke out in the south of the map after the Entente and SATO alliances declared war on the Latvian Soccer Dogs. This conflict suddenly grew to involve the nation of Laconia after they blundered six pearls at the disastrous Battle of Hotel California. The Laconian capital, Mt. Doom, became the site of a three month siege. The unaffiliated nation of Corvus, who disliked the Entente, was quickly enlisted in Mt. Doom's defense.
The two wars officially merged after the Ransakistan War. A group of terrorists suddenly appeared, based out of a stealthily constructed megavault, who began carpet-bombing many of the cities of the world with reinforced obsidian. In response, a coalition formed between the UDF, Entente, and Mir, along with several other previously neutral parties. After Corvus and NATO were discovered to be aiding Ransakistan, this coalition became a united front that quickly destroyed the opposing side with overwhelming force.
Prelude to war (early 2019)
The war largely started due to tensions in the city of Mt. Augusta. These tensions date back to the existence of the FRIENDS alliance, which frequently had heated disputes with Mir. The FRIENDS alliance would disintegrate on January 4th, when Hallow left. The NATO alliance quickly rose to take its place in the geopolitical sphere, being composed of many of the nations that were in FRIENDS. Notably, Rhodesia and Laconia did not join this new alliance.
On 4 January 2019, Baes20 (aka Arctikz_), a citizen of the Holy Jaded Empire, entered Mt. Augusta alongside two accounts, 'LeaveMeTallone' and 'Rhiannasbutt'. These three proceeded to break a few laws in MtA and started a small fight with citizens of Mir. In order to escape the Mirians, they ran to bunkers built on property owned by the Holy Jaded Empire. The two players alongside Baes20 were later revealed to be the banned players bewsiej and dovahkiin, using VPNs to bypass their bans.[1]
On 6 January 2019, in response to the actions taken by Baes20, the Mirian Gregy165 went to one of the Holy Jaded Empire's bunkers near Mt. Augusta and attempted to break in. He was engaged and made to retreat by the fighter thomasih,[2] who was much later discovered to be a VPN alt of the banned player poortea. Around this time, a Mirian fighter known as theJKH returned to the server and became a rogue actor, notably, griefing a bunker in Mt. Augusta which was owned by the nation of Rhodesia. In response to this, S4NTA, an officer of Mir, attempted diplomacy with Holy Jaded Emperor ComradeNick,[3] revoking Gregy165 and theJKH's permissions to Mirian bunkers in the area. ComradeNick did not revoke thomasih's bunker permissions. These discussions were ultimately unsuccessful.
Despite efforts to de-escalate, NATO troops were deployed to destroy the Mir bunker in Mt. Augusta on 29 January 2019. This operation was completed overnight.[4] In response, Mir considered all who helped disable their bunker to be pearl-on-sight map-wide.
The next day, 30 January, Mir constructed a trap on the Great Overland Rail (GOR) between The Commonwealth and Mount Augusta. Mirian fighter Ez2Clutch baited NATO fighters to the trap, where a contingent of Mirian fighters were logged out. The trap was successful, resulting in the pearling of Hangoverd, a NATO fighter.[5]
Mir then made a post on the subreddit, named "Let the Hammer Fall", declaring war on the NATO alliance. With this post, 30 January 2019 became the official start date of the war.[6] The NATO alliance at the time consisted of Hallow, the Holy Jaded Empire, Polska, Tel Aviv, Annwyn, Valyria, Columbia, and unofficially Rhodesia. Over a year later, the war would broaden to include many more combatant nations.
NATO-Mir War (mid to late 2019)
Siege of Pinkerton
Mir launched a large scale ground attack against the Holy Jaded Empire-owned Pinkerton vault near Mt. Augusta, and captured it on 2 February. At this time, Pinkerton was a large hole with a diminutive bunker at the center.
SPQR Border Crisis and invasion
In late February, NATO alleged that Mir had established a bunker in SPQR territory, intended to be used as attack infrastructure against Hallow. NATO leader HanTzu approached the leadership of the UNC alliance, of whom SPQR was a member, and inquired about whether or not they were helping Mir.[7] The situation was initially resolved, with the UNC providing an official statement that they would blockade any fighters from either Mir or the NATO alliance. [8]
Tensions flared when the Holy Jaded Empire disabled a rail line running between the city of Roma in the SPQR, and the city of Westminster in the Commonwealth. Imperial leadership claimed that it posed a wartime security threat to the Empire, given that it ran directly underneath its territory. ComradeNick later stated that this was done "for fun" as the rail had no practical use in the war.[citation needed] The rail was restored to an operational status by the UNC, with the Entente alliance assisting in force, despite protests from NATO.
NATO responded to this action with anger, renewing their accusations against the UNC of aiding Mir, and launching a full-scale invasion of the SPQR. The SPQR was quickly occupied with little to no resistance, and their leadership was mostly pearled. This caused the SPQR to be undefended during the Ransakistan conflict, during which it was extensively carpet-bombed with reinforced obsidian.
The Siege of Sempiternal
The Empire of Columbia's vault, Sempiternal, was besieged repeatedly by Mirian forces, until it finally fell on 23 February 2019.
The Sacking of Hallow
The city of Hallow was attacked repeatedly from 24 February, until 17 March 2019, when it was finally sacked by Mirian forces. The city's defensive infrastructure was disabled, but the nearby Hallow vault remained operational.
The Fall of Rhodesia
Rhodesia fell at some point in the early stages of the war. The displaced Rhodesians would later join Columbia, eventually sparking the Columbian Bush War.
Lull period
After the sacking of Hallow, Mir considered the majority of their goals achieved. Mir had taken Pinkerton, broken a NATO vault, sacked many of their cities, and pearled 16 NATO members without taking any losses of their own. While Mir made significant progress on the Hallow vault during their attacks, they did not have high enough numbers nor available free time to break it, though a few NATO members and one NATO leader were pearled attempting to defend it. Mir would withdraw from their attacks and return to their own lands, where they worked on building their city, Charon. The following months were a fairly minor time during the war where both sides continued to be constantly vigilant and ready to react to any situation that arose. In Mir's absence, NATO would recapture Pinkerton and Columbia, extending their influence back over those regions. Skirmishes occurred across the map, from Polska to Mir, where NATO had been setting up tunnels and bunkers to attack Mir proper. There were also various PR campaigns throughout this time. Many discussions with neutral nations were had by both sides. The UNC had proposed to join NATO and Mir at different points, but did not.[citation needed]
Detente
Beginning in May 2019, several NATO nations such as Valyria,[9] Annwyn,[10] and Columbia[11] reached agreements with Mir to peacefully exit the war.
The war broadens (late 2019 to early 2020)
The Latvian Soccer Dogs and the Laconia War - September 28th, 2019 to January 9th, 2020
In September 2019, the Latvian Soccer Dogs alliance, or LSD, was founded by ashnwill with a reported goal of attempting to create a true neutral alliance. Due to the contentious histories of some players involved, and slow establishment of defensive infrastructure in the southwest region of the map, concerns grew within the (largely southern) Entente and SATO alliances. As a result, both alliances controversially declared war on LSD weeks after its formation.[12][13]
The LSD vault Hotel California was attacked by SATO-Entente forces very early in its construction. There was no opposition, due to LSD being too outgunned to do anything about it. The incident resulted directly in the upgrade of a leader's pearl, followed by soccer dogs being ambushed by combat alts in various places around the map. Though no pearls were lost at this time, LSD leadership did not believe that they would find any allies, and began mobilizing for what they believed would be a long guerilla conflict that would force them to abandon their cities. ashnwill briefly tried to organize a small team to break a few accounts (including an alt vault) out of an obsidian-bombed build bunker, but ultimately decided that the situation was hopeless, leading to his suicide at Icenia. His pearl was quickly extradited to Varkonia, where it would remain until the end of the map.
Days later, Laconia unexpectedly offered aid, and harbored the soccer dogs within their fortress capital city, Mt. Doom. Three weeks later, after being given access to the reinforcements by LSD, Laconian forces organized a joint attempt to salvage the vault materials. They were initially successful, but were intercepted on the way back home, leading to the disastrous Battle of Hotel California in the ocean south of Commonwealth and Southshire. The LSD-Laconian forces blundered six pearls, while the other side lost none. Later, Mt. Doom was attacked, starting the Entente-Laconia War in full swing. The leadership of NATO, Corvus, and Laconia began speaking about military cooperation, due to suspicions on NATO's part that the Entente were already helping Mir. Corvus was very active in this war, but only a handful of NATO individuals, such as Baes20 and Robokaiser, ever helped defend the mountain during the siege.
A joint Corvus-Laconia attack against Hjaltland's Eternity vault successfully disabled it for a short time, and was the only successful vault attack against the Coalition during the course of the war. They also planned four aborted attacks against the Varkonia vault, which each involved the use of a flaw in its snitch curtain that created a one-block gap at sky limit, through which a stealth bridge could be conducted. One attempt failed due to discovery of the attack tunnel on the morning-of; while the other three plans involved the help of an insider, Soerxpso. Two of the insider plans failed due to bad luck, while the third successfully opened a bastion corridor to the center of the vault, but ultimately failed due to either bad planning, or HanTzu being stupid, depending who you ask.
The Ransakistan Conflict - December 2019
During December 2019, a group called Ransakistan formed and bombed multiple cities across the map, uniting most of the nations of the world against them. The Ransakistan vault was built mostly from Corvus materials, and the group was also found to be comprised of various NATO members on alts, which contributed to the broadening of the war. Though Ransakistan had a large vault and many fighters, it only lasted a week before being broken by the coalition of SATO, Entente, UDF, and Mir. This led Mir to again request other nations to join their war against NATO, especially after NATO was accused of being directly involved.
The GOR Incident - January 6th, 2020
Following the War of The Coalition, Yoahtl was attempting to foster a relationship with the UDF by assisting Icenia in the construction of rail and iceroad infrastructure. While riding the Great Overland Railway on January 6th, 2020, the Yoahtlan official bgbba was pearled by Reiko on an alt and was upgraded to prisonpearl, trapping him in the End. NATO offered to exchange the pearl for Neotide_, but Yoahtl rejected this deal.[14]The pearling of a neutral nation's leader by NATO disturbed many within the Coalition. The UDF began preparations for Yoahtl to join as a full member, which occurred on February 20th.
UDF Entry Into The War - February 26th, 2020
In the aftermath of the War of The Coalition, the UDF sought to remain neutral in the broader Infinity War. UDF member-states at this time consisted of Icenia, Bloom, Imperial Truidence, and Columbia, which had been inducted only a week prior to the GOR Incident. However, the UDF started to become hostile towards NATO following their involvement with Ransakistan, which had targeted member-state Icenia in their obbybombing campaign. The pearling of a neutral nation's leader in the aforementioned GOR incident only added to the UDF's fear that NATO would begin attacking neutral nations. Tensions reached a breaking point when NATO fighter Urban_2 attacked Columbians Doommad and Kaloa_HG in Rotterdam. Angered, a few UDF Security Councilmen assisted with the Second Siege of Pinkerton on then-secret alternate accounts. A few days later, Robokaiser attacked Kaloa_HG in Valyria, spurring Columbian Security Councilmen to push for UDF intervention. On February 1st, 2020, the UDF Security Council held a vote to declare war on NATO, with the vote unanimously passing. Soon after the UDF joined forces with Mir and the Entente in a restructured Coalition called the Mutual Assistance Command. From this point forward the UDF was unified with the Entente and Mir in their goal to end NATO's presence on the server.
The Fall of Mt. Doom
Mt. Doom was besieged for over 4 months, enduring weekly attacks by the Entente alliance. Despite being severely outmatched in terms of manpower, assets, and logistical capacity, the Laconians managed to persist in their defense.
After success in Ransakistan, Mir sought to further help the Entente in their war against Laconia, especially because Baes20, a NATO member, had been seen defending Laconia. Mirian fighters began scouting at Mt. Doom to gauge their response. In the following weeks, Mir and Hjaltland would incite fights at the ground level in order to secure pearls, which was largely successful. Multiple Laconians were pearled and taken to Hjaltland's vault, and the Mt. Doom rings were slowly being broken. While these attacks were very successful, Mir lost its first of only two pearls in the Infinity War, when Ez2Clutch's internet disconnected on an archer tower, causing him to be pearled by Laconia. As a result, Mir attempted to negotiate with Laconia, offering peace in exchange for Ez2Clutch's pearl. Laconia declined, due to the Entente refusing to make the same promise. In the first and only official NATO operation to aid the Laconian defense at Mt. Doom, the pearl was transferred to the Holy Jaded Empire. The next day, Mir and Hjaltland skybridged Mt. Doom, now joined by SATO and the UDF, finishing off the remaining two operational rings without any resistance.
After the fall of Laconia, some surviving defenders fled to the northwest, hoping to rebuild near NATO forces. At this point the Entente officially joined Mir's war effort against NATO.
After over a year of World Police forces ignoring Laconia's attempts to negotiate, BlueSylvaer opened negotiations between Laconia and Hjaltland. Following weeks of negotiations with Hjaltland, Laconian and Hjaltland leadership finally agreed on terms for the release of Laconian pearls, on the conditions of the transfer of Mt. Doom to Hjaltland and reparations paid to Yoahtl for an earlier broken deal (see Third Laconia War).
Second Siege of Pinkerton
Some time after the fall of Pinkerton to Mirian forces near the start of the war, it was recaptured by the Holy Jaded Empire, who built a new, stronger vault there. This vault fell for the second time, to Coalition forces, some time after the fall of Mt. Doom.
The Fall of Corvus
The Battle of the Crucible
The Siege of Columbia
The war concludes (mid 2020)
The Fall of the Hallow vault - June 27, 2020
On 27 June 2020, Coalition forces broke into the Hallow vault, following a massive siege, with ~60 attackers, lasting over 24 hours. The pearl of FlashMigma was freed, and the pearls of attackers ComradeRick and hockey328 were lost in the process. Kicky, a NATO fighter, was pearled by Mir. Hallow remains the largest vault to be successfully attacked in the history of the genre.
The Fall of the Holy Jaded Empire and Vault 76 - July 18th, 2020
On 18 July 2020, Coalition forces broke the Holy Jaded Empire's vault, Best Western, following another massive 24 hour siege. During the fight, various pearls that had been secured throughout the war were released, including those belonging to Lodish, bgbba, ComradeRick, among others. ObtainableSplat was pearled after falling off of the skybridge, but was later freed when Vault 76 was broken on the same day. The remaining pearls that were unreleased from Best Western by Pirater were carried by CrackerJack to the vault known as the Litterbox. This vault was constructed by the Zoomers, a group of players that joined NATO's side in the Infinity War after migrating from the Geographica server.
The Fall of the Litterbox - July 19th, 2020
On 19 July 2020, Coalition forces broke the last remaining NATO vault, the Litterbox, located near SPQR, which held the last remaining pearls acquired by NATO during the war. This marked the end of NATO as a functioning military force and the conclusion of the war.
Aftermath
The Infinity War had a massive influence on server population and desire to play. Critics of the war claimed that its world wide nature, lack of nuance, and effective permapearling of individuals resulted in a drop-off of player activity. Others claimed that nobody was ever effectively permapearled during the duration of the war, and argue that most captured pearls were simply on POW status, awaiting sentencing and or release for time served until after the conflict ended. However, most pearls from the NATO side were never freed, with the notable exception of Laconia's citizens. The later incarnation of Laconia on CivMC, Doom City, largely abandoned its Infinity War era allegiances, refusing to associate with Rhode Island.
Several nations involved in the war died out, mostly on the NATO side of the conflict for obvious reasons, due to infrastructure destruction and most citizens being pearled. Hallow's citizens would completely move to CivRealms, as would those of the Holy Jaded Empire. Polska was utterly destroyed as a functioning city state. New Sovia, split by the time of the UDF and Entente's official entrance into the war, also ceased to function as a true state. Nations on the Coalition side also suffered to some degree; Bloom, involved in the war on the side of the UDF until its departure from the alliance, briefly went inactive, and then merged with Icenia. Neutral countries were hurt too; the historic Mount Augusta migrated to CivRealms and later went inactive.
Columbia took over stewardship of Hallow and Polska's cities. The Jaded Confederation Custodial State and the Joint Coalition Control areas were created in the former lands of the Holy Jaded Empire to maintain its cities and builds, until Kallos was formed in the area. Many of these joint control areas existed until the conclusion of the map.
References
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDDBSaeV-I
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wiB3bQCjoY
- ↑ https://imgur.com/a/lDUGZkW
- ↑ https://imgur.com/a/WdhvVZ7
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sidj6-0rjyI&list=LLOZdILTfCrvw0
- ↑ https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/alixa4/let_the_hammer_fall/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/awn39e/united_northern_congress_reaffirmation_of/ehnp1te/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/aydgwu/unc_restores_peace_to_spqr/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/b1kiqu/to_whom_it_may_concern_nato_news/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/c404wh/call_me_french_official_annwyn_surrender/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/d8y1ms/peaceful_intentions/
- ↑ https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/d1d0dj/the_ententes_statement_regarding_yesterdays/
- ↑ https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/d1eadr/lsd_pointbypoint_refutation_to_the_ententes/
- ↑ https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/ekzg6m/fra_railroad_accident_report_train_derailment/