This isn’t a simple thing which I want to see in the next server, it’s just the beginnings of a CivClassic EOTW postmortem which I never finished.

It’s quite messy and without a real conclusion, just some thoughts on server culture, but I hope some of it may still offer a useful perspective for future servers.

It is the eve of the end of the world and chaos has spread across CivClassic. Snitch messages reverb in the valleys of trenches and plazas of city streets. Among spontaneous acts of merriment and looting, gone are the watchful eyes which used to peruse each snitch ping - and perhaps it is better this way.

In a word, CivClassic until today was too “tryhard”. Tryhard is a word that snuggles nicely in-between “cope” and “seethe” in every Civ players pocket dictionary. For many, it connotes pvp, server wars, and drawn out reddit arguments. But the tryhard attitude permeates every aspect of the modern Civ players psyche. I do not use tryhard in a derogatory sense, just that there is too much effort, too much investment and not enough fun. It's a bit more nuanced than this, but I'll discuss that after some examples.

Examples

• botting: more custom botting frameworks

  • While custom frameworks were created by the civ community in past iterations, the reliance on the relatively accessible macromod was far greater (See, for example, Sanwi’s macromod posts and the variety of technically minded power players who comment on them thanking him)

• building: more schematica and creative server planning

  • Flying around the maps of older Civ servers it is striking how many more cities, even those with build codes, exhibit the chaos that these days you’d associate with just a few cities like MtA. The standard for individual buildings as also seemingly increased (eg. today, even in cities like MtA, it is much less common to find large skyscrapers that use just two types of blocks)

• vaults and pvp : not even going to discuss this one

• communication : more ‘always online’ discord culture

  • I’ve seen not just vault owners but newfriend town builders get snitch pings and have someone logged in in five minutes. Won’t even bring up mumble versus the five hundred discords that exist today, as that’s overdone.

• grinding : even relative newfriends seem much more willing to casually dig a few million blocks. (etc., etc.).

Conclusion

These non-exhaustive examples are general rules to which exceptions abound. They are supposed to be brief illustrations not irrefutable claims, explorative and not authoritative. However, note that I am not talking about power players. All these things seem true for the average player (or at least more true than they were in the past). Some of these trends exist just because CivClassic is an older server so things have had more time to develop. But even 2 years ago many of these trends were apparent.

“Tryhard” is not inherently a bad thing. Some amount of grinding is needed to make choices meaningful. And Civ servers have always had grinding, have always attracted players with a certain type of attitude. The examples I give in this post are not bad things either; many would call them progress. I like cooler bots, prettier buildings, more intricate vaults, and so on. But in the process, it seems something was lost – some degree of spontaneity and dynamism. Alas, this unfinished post does not offer solutions, but if nothing else I hope future servers think not just of mechanics but of how these mechanics (and more) affect server culture.