First and foremost, the spooky shit of Volterra 2.0 is over. We're also going to pretend that civtemp didn't even happen, as that was simultaneously shameful and disastrous. In 3.0 our objective is simply to build an impressive, peaceful, and respectable community united under the desire to move forward, build awesome stuff, and ultimately to have fun together. Regular senate/assembly meetings will be the norm and I hope a lively political culture will take shape as we become more established.

As we know, shards are going to have unique resources distributed across them such that no single shard can self-sustain itself. As such, it is necessary to secure resources from different shards, and the best way to do that is to have a wide empire comprised of several cities and towns. This has several benefits:

• The development of unique and autonomous towns within the Empire for different architectural styles and local political systems

• The securing of natural resource access for the rest of the empire by reliable people

• The ability for a diverse and impressive empire to emerge which will be friendly to all newfriends and oldfriends.

Off the bat, I envision 4 main cities in the 3.0 empire:

• Volterra: The capital and hub of the Empire, location of primary monumental builds, and base of the military. Jett and I will be the primary figures in charge of the city's design, as for the politics, we'll see what the residents would like. I envision a imperial senatorial system similar to what we had in 2.0 as well as maybe an assembly of governors for empire-wide governance.

• Icenia/Victoria: Icenia was a great city in 2.0, and although it's been a political roller coaster, it would be fantastic for there to be an Icenia 3.0 which has learned from 2.0. I'd imagine it would again be a bustling and welcoming place for newfriends and oldfriends alike, with improved security and stability. ChrisChrispie will be leading this city with our full support. He has learned from 2.0 and will make Victoria a great hub of newfriends and commerce, backed by the genuine protection of the Volterran Empire.

• Mayan City: Enxo? LPTSO is going to start a mayan-themed city based on his post on the subreddit. This is a great idea and should be able to attract a whole different sphere of builders than what we'd otherwise get with our largely european-based themes. I imagine this would be located in a jungle shard or something with access to cocoa and jungle wood. Looking forwards to seeing how that pans out.

• Vendemmia. It'll be run by Sk8s and the classic Vendemmians will be returning to inhabbit it. I'd be remisced if I didn't issue a public health warning over traveling there until cancer levels drop to safe amounts.

• Who knows! There's a lot of potential for people to start their own cities within the empire and we'll need several large ones for the long-run. If you're interested in creating your own / have a theme in mind / potential people interested, let me know and we can try to set something up. We're pushing cooperation and peace this time around, with a focus on our own towns and friendly relations with others- akin to pursuing "Culture Victory" in Civ V. Blank slate is blank slate as far as we're concerned. Anyone is welcome to prove themselves in Volterra 3.0.

I think it would be amazing if each city is beautiful on its own and that when you sum them all up into one entity, it turns into a glorious and fascinating collection of all kinds of different things, styles, and people, working together to make something meaningful and enduring in 3.0.