AHOC Book 1

§r ~~~~~~ §l AHOC Book 1 §r ~~~~~~ §o by §r Ritzycat

A History of CivRealms, by Ritzycat - - - - - - - - - - - - Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - CivRealms, in comparison to other servers, has a relatively shorter history. However, its history has been packed with dynamic politics and interesting

development. Thus, we have a very unique server: one that cherishes the creation and sustenance of city-states and nations and promotes building and statecraft amongst the server's many nations. Nonetheless, the server has maintained a

fairly small population. CivRealms has, well, always been a fairly dead server. Only in its earlier days did it commonly reach 15 or 20 players on at once. As I write this book and in the months preceding, I rarely saw more than 10 online. However, the

low population on the server has not restricted the beauty and glory of this server. As someone who joined CivRealms on the first day it was created, I have seen the best and worst the server has been through. CivRealms has been a very

interesting journey and I am proud to say I have been a part of it. Without further ado, I present my own personal history of the server. I will not attempt to conceal my objectiveness or bias towards certain groups and individuals throughout the

CivRealms narrative. This history is written partially in response to Akellian's utterly awful personal account of the events in Lisgrad. Nonetheless, I have created this book in the hopes of ensuring the history of CivRealms is preserved for future

players to read. On the Reddit and other forums the players of CivRealms often discussed successful methods and unsuccessful methods. I aim to display those who succeeded and those who did not succeed in my book, and attempt to understand the

strategies they used in order to succeed on CivRealms. This will hopefully provide some ideas to the future players (or current players) of the server on different ways they can create or build their nation on CivRealms. I now present, CivRealms,

told through the eyes of Ritzycat. - - - - - - - - - - - - Chapter 1: The Founding of Lisgrad - - - - - - - - - - - - Some time in the Spring of 2013 I received a message from _ROM_, one of my close friends. I had played on several of his previous

servers such as Monolith, N+, "Four Kingdoms", among others. A common trend among them all was that they promoted a more passive, creative gameplay, but in the context of a sociopolitical atmosphere. Nonetheless, his

details invitation to CivRealms seemed to exemplify all of the traits he had attempted before and put them into one. On paper, the server looked almost exactly like CivCraft. I played briefly on CivCraft but the server was too large for me; I got lost

too easily. I thought CivRealms would be an opportunity to attempt the "CivCraft" atmosphere on a more reasonable scale. So, I joined him on TeamSpeak and I planned on joining the server the day it was released. So, I did. My first day logging into the

server, I invited a few friends of mine to come play with me, notably Ty0619 and rugdoc95. Utilizing the random spawn upon death feature, I killed myself until I found a good flat area to build a city. I found a "mid-point" between 3 different biomes: a

jungle, a desert, and a hills biome, and decided to build a city there. Yes, it was somewhat arbitrary, however the location proved to be useful and helped make that city very unique in the coming months. So, 8,000 blocks away from spawn, I decided to

found the city of Lisgrad, on the later-named continent of Lisgrad, obviously named after the city itself. Lisgrad was the only major city on the continent for the course of that map's existence. In my series of books, I intend on referring to the city

of Lisgrad as simply Lisgrad, and the continent as Lisgrad(c). Thus, the oldest city on CivRealms was born. Lisgrad originally did not really have any advanced governing system. It was mostly myself and a few friends and I was essentially a dictator.

At the time we were not really interested in adopting any advanced political system. As the days and weeks went by, several new cities sprouted up on the mainland continent (the one at 0,0). The most famous of them, Luxemburg, named after the socialist

Rosa Luxemberg, stood until the server itself fell. Other cities on the mainland included the 0,0 Settlement (it never really had an official name), Redemptia, Dakun and a small outpost known as the Lightpoint Refuge. In the very early days of CivRealms

I was not really involved that much in the political scene at 0,0. Due to Lisgrad's far distance from 0,0, we were never really exposed to much of the politics. It was only months later until Lisgrad became entangled in the affairs that were affecting

the whole server. Now, back to the city of Lisgrad. We did not really adopt an advanced architectural scheme back in Lisgrad. First, simple walls were erected, which were later built upon. Revolution Square was built in the center of the town,

essentially a huge pavilion with a pedestal in the center. Private homes were never built in Lisgrad because as I got more of my friends on the server (from SCoM, the Socialist Commune of Minecraft), I had plans to transition the city from a dictatorship

to a socialist republic. Outside of the previously mentioned objects, nothing of any particular importance was built in early Lisgrad, other than expansive road infrastructure and communal storage. - - - - - - - - - - - - Chapter 2: The Golden Age

- - - - - - - - - - - - I often like to call the time around 2 months or so after Lisgrad's foundation to be the server's golden age. By this time, Luxemburg and Redemptia were thriving on the 0,0 continent and Lisgrad was undergoing its most expansive

architectural projects. Tornare and Dill_Weasel had consolidated power at 0,0, which originally a beneficial aspect to the server, later became an oppressive entity. It was during this time several influential people joined the city of Lisgrad through

SCoM, such as Akellian, TerrorTailor, and Captain_Juan. It was also the time when the first constitution of Lisgrad was adopted. One of the server's players, gingechris, created a map of 0,0 and many of the other continents. Many other settlements

sprouted up across the world, however I unfortunately do not have the names or history of them. The rail tunnel between 0,0 and Lisgrad was finished by residents of 0,0, the first time in history Lisgrad was connected to the 0,0 continent. This ended

up being a good and a bad thing. In Lisgrad, work was started on the University of Lisgrad and an enhanced communal storage system was created. The walls were upscaled and a scheme of nether bricks and varying stone types was created. This was also

the time when the Bashnya Lisgrada was constructed, which essentially means the "Tower of Lisgrad". Of all the buildings in the ruins of Lisgrad in the future, the Bashnya Lisgrada was the only one that remained completely intact. Work on the

Ministerial Parliament was begun and finished several weeks later. It included a courthouse, offices for all of the ministers in the to-be created nation, and a passport office. A massive hole was dug behind Lisgrad, with its intent to be some

sort of bunker or safe haven but it was never completed. Other infrastructure like post offices, general housing, barracks, ports, and monster grinders were created. It truly was the glory days of Lisgrad. At one point it had the highest

population on the server. However, that soon gave way to the centralization of power at 0,0. This was also the time when Lisgrad adopted its first constitution and included the founding of the United Libertarian Socialist Republics (ULSR).

Under the new constitution that was voted in by a simple majority vote, Ritzycat was elected the first president, for a term of 30 day. Akellian claims that Lisgrad was run by two factions - Halcyon and SCoM. This is completely untrue. The

ULSR was a completely seperate entity, and had no affiliation to either SCoM or Halcyon. Akellian, due to his location in the French timezone, was rarely online to participate in the votes we had. It was agreed upon in the constitution that

The Ministries and General Secretary will handle all day-to-day affairs, which were clearly outlined in the constitution. There was no vagueness. The Ministries included those of Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Finance, Justice, and Defense.

Issues such as going to war, building a new city, or constructing a new building, were to be dedicated by a direct democratic vote involving all citizens of the ULSR. Akellian wanted a completely democratic "state" that voted on absolutely every

issue. This would have easily proved to have been very inefficient, and would have greatly furthered Lisgrad's downfall in the coming weeks of war and unrest. Akellian also claims that there was no communal sharing of resources. That is

blatantly untrue, as all resources in Lisgrad were stored in the communal storage. You can ask any other member of Lisgrad of that. They will all attest to all of the resources being stored in the communal storage. There simply is no argument there.

Additionally, Akellian, without issuing a democratic vote, left the city of Lisgrad to create an outpost called Gramsci's Lake, under the ULSR. However he gave no access to the resources there to any other ULSR members and utilized the resources

there for his own private purposes. He contributed nothing to the city of Lisgrad and the unrest he caused based on his personal desire contributed to the downfall of Lisgrad in the coming weeks. Additionally, two members of the ULSR, rugdoc95

and Ty0619, betrayed the ULSR. They pearled myself, Akellian, and several other citizens as they raided the vaults and took a few anvils. They then left to create their own state, ironically named the "Republic of Amicitia". - - - - - - - - - - - -

Chapter 3: The Fall of Lisgrad - - - - - - - - - - - - The story of Lisgrad's fall is often lost because towards the server's end, 0,0 was engulfed in its own political conflicts. Lisgrad, in its safe haven on the other side of the world, did not

really have any importance to most of the 0,0 towns. Lisgrad's first major loss was the Great Fire of Lisgrad. The fire was mysteriously caused overnight by one of the Lisgrad citizens. At the time, most of the roads were constructed of

wood and had minimal reinforcements. Lisgrad's lack of frequent visitors did not require that such fortified roads be built. Nonetheless, in one night the majority of the city's roads and many other important buildings, including the Ministerial

Parliament, The postal offices, the local railway network, communal storage, and many communal homes suffered extensive damage. It took over a week to repair the damage. It was difficult to point out who did it because of the lack of snitches.

However, it soon became obvious that it was a member of the new Republic of Amicitia who had set up their capital roughly 1,200 blocks from Lisgrad. After the fire, I issued a bounty on luke1232d, the one who we assumed the fire was started by. He

had logged in with several flint and steels and was known to be closely related to those who defected in the Republic of Amicitia. Nonetheless, he was immediately pearled. In the coming weeks, most of the citizens decided to help repair Lisgrad.

--==O==-- §o This historic account is from the l a n d s of CivRealms. As such, it is p a r t o f t h e §8§oOtherworldly Series§0§o of b o o k s that have been acquired f r o m other worlds by t h e Maester Alliance.§r --==O==--

§o Transcribed by §r §l Maester Flaminius §r§o of the §r§l Tenpo Assembly §r §o on §r April 12th 2015

§l Maester Alliance §r §6§l Tenpo Assembly Scriptorium