When one thinks of prominent worldbuilding video games, Minecraft multiplayer may not be one of them! Typically, one would probably find two types of servers on two different extremes when it comes to worldbuilding. The first being anarchy servers ala 2b2t, where little if any nationbuilding is done due to the extensive, intense chaos caused by hackers and griefers. The second being Towny servers, which are roleplay-heavy and rely almost entirely on plugins to do all the worldbuilding work for you. Back in 2013, neither of these quite scratched my own itch to do some real worldbuilding; Lore, government, and culture don't really have any significance on a normal Minecraft realm. However, after a year of searching, I finally found something in between the anarchy servers and the roleplay servers that was just right: the Civ genre.

What is Civ?

The "Civ" genre of Minecraft servers (not to be confused with the Civilisation genre of servers that seeks to simulate the Sid Meier series of the same name) properly began over 10 years ago with Civcraft. Civ servers put the power entirely in the hands of the players. As long as you are not hacking, doxxing, or being blatantly bigoted or harassing (and I mean very blatantly), you are allowed to do absolutely anything you want without getting banned. Instead, plugins exist to give players the means to enforce the rules as they see fit without making it impossible to actually break those rules. This allows for the real crafting of laws, nations, and their accompanying governmental systems. Land is limited and resources can only be obtained in specific biomes. While there is room for roleplaying in culture, religions, and lore, the nature of Civ means that real conflict happens over land, ideology, and personality. It is genuinely as close to real-life worldbuilding as one can get in a video game, in my opinion. You can do whatever you want, but be prepared for the consequences, both good and bad!

The Plugins That Make Civ Possible

• Citadel: Citadel allows you to reinforce blocks to make them harder to break, discouraging all but the most dedicated thieves and raiders. Different tiers of enforcement exist, allowing for the crafting of vast fortresses and vaults that take dozens of real life hours to penetrate.

• Prison Pearl: Lawbreakers beware! If someone kills you with a pearl in their hotbar, you are involuntary sent to the Nether to pay for your crimes! Pray that you were imprisoned by a fair society with a just legal system, or else you may be making lifelong friends with the pigmen. But never fear, the Nether is a rich environment that the economies of all nations rely on and with lots do occupy yourself with. And if you instead decide to be righteous, don't forget, raiders and scoundrels can use the same plugin against you to hold you hostage!

• JukeAlert: Proper law enforcement requires proper surveillance. JukeAlert allows you to place noteblocks and jukeboxes and turn them into snitches, which alert you when someone you and your friends don't know comes within its vacinity! Line your border with these and you'll never be blindsided by a foreign invasion again, or use jukeboxes to see who broke into your house when you weren't online. Just take care not to get them smashed!

• FactoryMod: As the land grows fallow and mining takes a lot of real time, many turn to Factories to create vast quantities of items that give you a better deal than if you made them in the vanilla way. This allows people to make supplies for grand building projects as well as become merchants for valuable items you can only get from factories, like EXP!

And many more!

Some Examples of Nations

• Pavia is a patchwork of duchies that elect a Crown Prince as a monarch to lead them. Every so often, there is a Dice Day, where the incumbent Crown Prince rolls a die to determine if they live and continue their rule, or die and pass on their work to the next elected monarch! Pavia also prides itself in its grand building projects, which make up its capital city.

• Danzilona is a radical direct democracy (and is also my home nation, so some slight bias may occur!) whose community dates back over a decade to the first Civ server. We pride ourselves on every citizen having an equal say without having to work their way up a friend group oligarchy that many other Civ nations devolve into. A Danzilonan has also created the game of Civ Hockey, which is actually playable in-game and is our cultural touchstone! Check out a small compilation of Danzilona here or read the constitution we wrote to govern our nation here.

• Lambat is a relatively young presidential republic that is heavily influenced by the Filipino culture of its founders. They pride themselves in their soft power they've gained from being chill and friendly with their neighbours as well as in their newspaper, the Lambat Post which they issue almost every week! Their recent holiday card features a nice compilation of their nation, which you can see here!

• S.P.Q.R. is a roleplay-heavy nation that models itself after Ancient Rome. When in Rome, do as the Romans do! They celebrate traditional Roman holidays, take part in military expeditions, and build grand temples and governmental buildings. An album of their nation can be found here.

Other Resources

• Our wiki, which is entirely player created and written, used to record the lore and history of our nations and our community.

• A political map of the world, also entirely player-made.

• A video about Civ made by a member of our community!

The State of Civ Now

It has been 9 years to the day since the first post advertising Civ on /r/worldbuilding was posted. That post was regarded as highly successful in the community, and some people who joined because of that post continued to play for years! I hope to continue that legacy with this one and introduce you to the latest Civ server that most of the community has coalesced around: /r/CivMC. Many Civ servers have come and gone these past 9 years, but CivMC is just 6 months into its launch and still going strong! We are on Minecraft version 1.18.2 and can be joined on this IP: play.civmc.net. And along with the subreddit, don't forget to join the CivMC discord here.

Please let me know if you have any questions about CivMC. I hope to see you there!