Take a look at this post from 7 years ago. The original CivCraft, maybe even before 1.0? See any familiar elements? Some unfamiliar? I was not playing the genre then, but it's clear that time has changed some things while others stay the same.

Civ, as a genre, has evolved from a sandbox for experimentation with building civilizations, trading, and political experimentation, into a game with a firmly established meta. And I don't mean the trap meta, I mean the meta meta: Civ PvP.

The Civ PvP Meta

Civ PvP is a highly involved, complex meta with many different parts to understand and be skilled in. These include vault/trap design, group organization, tactical shotcalling and leadership, and of course the many skills involved in direct PvP, to name a few. The specifics have evolved gradually over many years and through many mechanical changes to the Civ genre and at this point are highly refined.

In addition, supporting all of those activities is resource-intensive, and involves activities that collectively fall under grinding or botting: farming, mining, digging.

This is a real and engaging game in itself with complex and immersive play, and many players have invested heavily in this playstyle because it's challenging and fun for them.

Most of these players have come to believe that a only a group conforming to this meta constitutes a real, competent civiliation, also known as a "power nation": One that has some at least a few highly-skilled PvPers, competent leaders, technical knowhow for planning and construction of vaults, traps and other military infrastructure, and the ability to muster the necessary resources through botting or grinding. The ability to partake in all of these activities while maintaining cordial relations with other power nations and avoiding undesired conflict is considered "politics."

Of course many of these players also still enjoy roleplaying, e-lawyering, media creation, aesthetic builds, and other aspects of the genre, but these are mainly window-dressing, just for flavor, and not essential to the meta.

Crucially, the consequence to this is that nations and players who are primarily focused on builds, trade, roleplay, political discussion, and other emergent aspects but not engaged in the PvP meta, are largely considered incompetent and/or irrelevant.

Winning the Server

Effectively, the "experiment" as it has played out time and again across many iterations has shown that any server that survives long enough eventually ends in a final war, either a soft-lock between power nations that are too big to fail, but whose fighting drives interest and activity in the server to a standstill, or the complete domination of all the other power nations by a single group, after which there is no interest from any power nation in continuing to play, because the server has been "Won". The only way to continue is to wipe the map and/or move on to the next Civ iteration.

People who accept the PvP meta accept that this is, in fact, the goal of civ. You are a power nation if you are working towards this goal. And, relatedly, many players will tell you that this meta is Civ: a natural outcome of self-moderated player interactions with mechanics that permit a measure of defense and lasting consqeuences.

But not everyone agrees.

A Steady-State Meta, the goal of Realms

CivCraft, originally, was simply originally about player self-determination, giving players the tools to protect their own creations, and to punish others who violate whatever norms and rules the players collectively decide. The specific mechanics that have allowed the Civ PvP meta to dominate are seen by the Realms admins as not essential to the genre. They see the Civ PvP meta as just that, a meta, and not Civ itself.

Here on Realms, the administrators' vision for the server does not end in a final war. A server where nations can continually rise and fall, where building, trade, different political systems and cultural phenomena are all relevant parts of the server alongside warfare and PvP, not just as backdrop for PvP. But at the same time, the goal is also to respect the self-determination of the players. Importantly, the final goal is to have this steady-state of changing civilizations enforced via mechanics, not via rules.

This means avoiding soft lock, and somehow mechanically preventing traditional power nations from being able to dominate the server. Eliminating PvP is not desired, but finding a way to achieve this goal without completely alienating those heavily invested in the Civ PvP meta has proven to be extremely difficult.

This idea has been regarded by many as either stupid, an unachievable fantasy, or both. Specifically, mechanics that are powerful enough to make large parts of the Civ PvP meta irrelevant are seen by some as making Realms into a "towny" server, whereas any rules (however temporary) or admin interventions along the same lines are seen as "not civ," against the original intent of player self-determination.

While there is some merit to these objections, there are many players who do not play Civ for the sake of power playing, who are simply interested in the original intent of the genre, and not the PvP meta that has evolved out of it.

It's unclear whether the Steady-State meta envisioned by the admins is possible. But the admins are trying anyway, and they will continue to do so.

So what's your point?

The point is, if you want Realms to simply go back to being another Civ server like any other, where power nations are the meta and not playing to the meta makes you irrelevant, your expectations are contrary to the stated goals of Realms.

If you don't like the idea of a steady-state civ where a single power nation can't eventually dominate the server, or if you view this goal as impossible foolishness, then this probably isn't the server for you. In fact, you might not even be here in the first place if it weren't for the fact that the Civ PvP meta killed the previous iteration and you've got nowhere else to go.

The admins have absolutely made missteps and alienated parts of their player base. The task they've got is not easy. Most Civ server admins don't stick around, the job is difficult and largely thankless. The admins saw what they believed to be the end war already in progress, and some of the actions they have taken to prevent the end of the server have been perceived as haphazard, even capricious. But they have been in support of that vision, and avoiding a server wipe.

I won't try to speak to the specific interventions or mechanics, like the RNG one. But speaking for myself, I like the overall vision they're going for, the steady-state, the mechanics that avoid an eventual end war. If it wasn't going to be these mechanics, it would have been some other mechanics that dethrone the Civ PvP meta. And I think that's worth trying. I don't know if it will succeed, but it's interesting enough that I don't want to see it just fizzle out. And I know I'm not the only one.

This vision for Realms is something new, but it's also a return to something very old, something original to Civ, more original than PvP being the meta, as you can tell by reading the post I linked at the beginning. They need the help of players like you to help them find a way to achieve the steady-state, a state where no one aspect of civilization dominates all of the others, where soft lock between power nations (or global domination by one group) is not an inevitability. The mechanics need work, the rules need work. And that work is the work of a community, not just the admins. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun while we're doing it, it's still a game after all.

If you think this vision has merit, if you want to try to contribute to a server that enables the original goals of CivCraft and not simply a further refinement of Civ PvP, then stick around. Some of us are still having fun.