World Police

The World Police (left) stare down NebulaSSR during the Mount September Ice Road Conflict, August 2021

The World Police (abbreviated WP) has been a label used to describe various people, groups, and organisations throughout almost all of Civ history. Whether they're formal or informal groups, the uniting characteristic of those who've earned the moniker "World Police" is the heavy involvement in international combat operations. This usually involves bounty hunting griefers and raiders but also more notably taking part in wars against PVP-oriented groups, such as the HCF. Though most World Police members are also members of their own nation's security force, what distinguishes them is their cooperation with other members' security forces. Many World Police groups have also been accused of intervening in the affairs of nations that housed no WP members, while others existed as their own independent nations, such as the LADS. Most World Police groups were also not one organisation but rather an informal group of members from many other organisations that simply worked together; however, some WP groups did exist as singular, organised entities, such as Eden or the original World Police from Civcraft 1.0. Regardless of their structures, this page will seek to catalogue all groups and people who have earned the reputation of being World Police across the many Civ servers that have existed so far.

Civcraft 1.0

The Great HCF War and Creation of the World Police

The World Police began as a concept in late 2012 during the Great HCF War. In the iteration before Civcraft 1.0, AncapMinecraft, excessive griefing and raiding was a bannable offence, and the main purpose of the server was largely as an economic experiment. However, with the introduction of Prison Pearl and Citadel in Civcraft 1.0, it changed to a broadly political one. Griefing and raiding were no longer bannable as it was now up to the players to enforce their own safety through the organic crafting of laws and defence apparatuses. Taking advantage of this and attracted by the stakes that now lay at hand, players from the PVP Minecraft server Hardcore Factions (or HCF) planned to come to Civcraft and wreak havoc, testing the limits of the political experiment.

A still from the video "Slaying AnCaps with Russian_Roulette" depicting a fight with the original World Police from the HCF side, December 2012.

On December 20, 2012, HCF forces attacked and occupied Columbia, the largest city on the server at the time. The server largely united against them, with Civcrafters from many different cities coming together to retake Columbia.This informal coalition successfully retook Columbia and Foofed's Vault, which the HCF griefed extensively.The rest of the course of the war followed this formula: the HCF would attack a town, and the World Police would come to defend it and pearl them, absorbing town residents into their ranks as time went on. The result was a coalition of fighters from a variety of backgrounds, including anarchists, Prussians, AnCaps, statists, and nomads.On December 27, the World Police label was officially adopted by this group.

As the months went on, the World Police were continually successful in ultimately repelling HCF attacks despite taking heavy losses and having their cities numerously raided. On February 23, 2013, the WP broke open the HCF's second world border vault, which they had been using to store the pearls of WP fighters and innocent civilians they had been pearling, leading the WP to declare victory.The next two weeks involved cleaning up HCF stragglers, with the WP pearling the last of them on March 9th, bringing a final end to the server's first global conflict.

The Gimmick Brigade and anti-WP Revolution

Main Article: 2013 Revolution

This newfound peace also brought newfound boredom to the World Police, who subsequently used their mass amount of wealth and power generated during the HCF War to follow in the footsteps of their former rivals. During the second week of March 2013, World Police members began going around populated cities on unknown alts and killing people at random.When they were outed by berge403, a WP-aligned fighter during the HCF War, it was then they were declared the Gimmick Brigade.Though they did pay their reps and avoided pearling, their reputation on the server was sullied and planted the seed of anti-WP sentiment on Civ servers for years to come.

In the midst of the Gimmick Brigade scandal, the World Police invaded the small town of Blackstone and pearled resident RKWildCard, accusing him of being tied to the HCF forces that previously lived in the town during the war.As March progressed into April and RK was still imprisoned with what was little evidence against him specifically, many towns formed their own militias to turn on the WP, setting the stage for a distinct, independent World Police for the first time. On April 20th, this coalition of militias marched on the WP vault and began to break it, routing WP defensive attacks in the process.During the vault break, the World Police noted the presence of many HCF fighters that the militias were collaborating with, but most of the server remained unphased and carried on.The next day, the vault was broken, RK was freed, and the rest of the World Police began to be hunted down by the militias and HCF. However, on April 26th, the end of Civcraft 1.0 was announced, bringing an end to the fighting and to the first iteration of the World Police.