Hey folks, it's been a while. When we first announced, our project was still very much in early development, and we had received a wave of support and enthusiasm that we had never seen before. However, with real life posing real issues, shortly after when this dev diary *should* have been posted, we made the decision to go on hiatus to recoup, regroup, and come back to the project with fresh ideas. However, our excitement for this project never went away, and we officially restarted development on the seventh of December! In the time between then and now, we have undergone several meetings and have made substantial progress. And this time, I'm happy to say, it's hard, concrete progress.

- - -

The Plugin Suite

We are proud to announce that we have officially settled upon and implemented the following plugins into the server:

• Descent
• Smeltery
• CivSuite
  • Citadel
  • Namelayer
  • Bastions
  • JukeAlert
  • PrisonPearl
• Energy
• CastleGates
• Nether Factories
• Railswitch
• Brewery
• Chairs

Though we have more to do, and this list is by no means permanent, this is a list of what we will, for sure, be adding or have already added to the server. So what are some of these plugins?

- - -

Nether Factories

This is perhaps one of the plugins we are most excited about. Civ Servers, for the most part, stray away from the Nether. We embrace it. The world will be divided into several continents, separated by large straits and oceans. Though roads, rails, and seaways will of course be common in a landscape like this, we wanted a new form of transport- through the quickest, most hostile landscape known to the player.

The nether will be accessible through special factories. These factories will be configured to require a special structure attached to them, allowing the player to walk through a "gateway" into the nether, though there will be no true portal animation. Nether factories will be incredibly expensive, and it's up to the players to figure out exactly the structure required to activate them. However, once created, Nether factories will allow players to traverse freely between the nether and overworld, opening up a new superhighway for players to not only use, but exploit the resources found naturally within the nether.

- - -

Energy

Energy is a concept seen before often in other civ servers, though under the names of Essence, Stamina, and Mana. Energy is an item given to the player daily (2 per day.) The players will in turn use Energy in things like fueling pearls, factory upkeep and creation, factory recipes, and smeltery recipes. Players can also store Energy by eating it, turning it into a noncorporeal number, safe from theft. The drawback from this, however, is that upon death, you will lose 10% of your energy. So, while incredibly valuable, it will also be risky to store large amounts of energy on your person.

- - -

CastleGates

CastleGates is a plugin that's almost become a staple of civ servers. CastleGates allows players to create drawbridges, portcullises, and more. At the flick of a lever or click of a button, a player can raise or lower a bridge into a castle, open a garage to park a horse, or gain access to an underground vault. Though simple and niche, it allows for a larger set of tools for players to work with when building their cities.

- - -

Growing the Tech Tree

After an extremely long period of deliberation and discussion, spanning many debates and a lengthy meeting, CivReign now has a tech tree unlike any other. Rather than a single tech tree growing from one factory, CivReign has a "grove" of three tech trees- Production, Civil, and Military. These three trees have a layer of depth not seen before through the integration of Smeltery into their recipes. Furthermore, factories and their upgraded forms will require materials from other factories, meaning that a fully developed tech tree will have a web of interaction between the various aspects of the server.

From using Smeltery products to create bronze, to putting a strange factory product into a new brew, production has never been more intricate than before. We don't want to oversell, ourselves, however. The tech tree, while created, may be changed in the future to better balance it and ensure the best experience for the players. We want a tech tree that will be engaging and fun to interact with, but not be scarcitycraft or too shallow to enjoy.

- - -

Sunfrost Basin

Growth rates have not been forgotten and have been officially agreed upon. All crops used in XP recipes (which we also now have) now have a growth time and native biome. These growth rates have been discussed for quite some time, and we're happy with how they're balanced. What we can say is that all regions of the map will be inhabitable, though perhaps not as habitable as you'd like. Different regions will have different access to crops, however not all biomes are equal, and different areas will have to rely on trade or colonization to get access to all crops.

With that being said, we've also discussed XP recipes. We've opted to divide the world into regions, with different regions having different, though relatively equal, requirements for their recipes. Each regional recipe will have materials they can find natively, but others will only be found via trade or conquest.

- - -

Closing Thoughts

CivReign is progressing full speed ahead in development. We now have a rather large team with different divisions working hard to deliver a fun, balanced product that we can hopefully show off in our alpha. That being said, we are not rushing and will take our time to deliver our vision. Though we hope to be a great server that will go down in history as a great success, great successes take time, and as such we won't be throwing out a server that we feel isn't ready yet. However, we're happy to share our progress, and we thank you all for coming along for the ride with us. As a show of gratitude, here's a picture of what we've been working on behind the scenes:

What awaits just below the surface?

As always, please feel free to ask questions and give us your feedback!

Join our Discord!

Donate to our Patreon!