Web Video / MagicGum Civilization Experiments

First released on August 9th, 2021, "100 Players Simulate Civilizations in Minecraft" was a follow up to MagicGum's series of videos on hypothetical civilizations in Minecraft. Having been asked by his fans to actually simulate the circumstances in those videos, MagicGum set up a server to see what would happen. After several servers devolved into murderous rampages, he turned on hardcore mode and set up a place of exile for prisoners. What followed was the first Minecraft Civilization Experiment, which would spawn a host of imitators and create a new genre of Minecraft video.

The premise of the event is simple, 100 players are divided between 5 different regions of the map, each with their own resources and dangers. They would then be put through a series of challenges, up to and including fighting each other in large scale battles for supremacy, that would mimic the challenges and hardships of real world civilization. Whichever civilization or civilizations survived to complete their objectives would be proclaimed victorious.

Following the success of the first Civilization experiment, MagicGum released a follow up on January 28th, 2022, titled "100 Players Develop Kingdoms in Minecraft," which featured updates to the formula, like the replacement of NPC raiders with player controlled Vikings and the focus on medieval cultures and governments. Following this episode, MagicGum released an episode titled "500 Players Colonize Earth in Minecraft", which featured the players being randomly spread out across a replica Earth map to freely form societies and cultures, allowing for the development of advanced technologies and large empires.

---

Tropes include:

• Crown of Power: During the first two of his civilization events, to denote the leaders of the kingdoms, he gave each leader a Protection 10 golden helmet to act as a crown (sometimes reskinned to look the part). In addition to almost making it as powerful as a diamond helmet, it also gained the ability to double the leader's existing health, making the king a Position of Literal Power.

" 100 Players Simulate Civilizations in Minecraft "

• Author Avatar: Each of the admins of the server were allowed to appear in person to the civilizations they managed, and thus became worshiped as gods. They were allowed to guide their civilization, and their civilization often offered them gifts as thanks.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The major battle between "Siberia" and the plains nation is portrayed as this, with the leaders and warriors of both factions duking it out in a massive battle for supremacy on the world stage.
  • Also qualifying includes the various battles with the trade route guardians, which included such epic moments as Clownpierce leading the charge into the Carthaginian archers, Mesa soldiers outflanking the pirates, and the Ice Spikes charging the Ice Archers.
• The Cameo: Due to being friends with Spoke, several players from Spoke's events joined this event, though most weren't mentioned. Other than ClownPierce, there were other members of the watchers, such as Gorilla_PvP, Aprite, and others.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When the Jungle civilization attempted to traverse their trade route, they were ambushed by the Tree Warriors, a fierce tribe of guerrilla fighters. Though the army was able to evade their archers, the melee soldiers jumped right into the middle of the army, causing them to become disorganized and lost in the jungle, allowing them to be picked off one by one due to lacking food from the famine. The Tree Warriors themselves only lost a couple of archers. This led to the jungle civilization vanishing overnight, and caused the other civilizations to be more cautious when crossing their trade routes.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Due to being the first especially popular civilization event, several standard elements were missing or underdeveloped, and several additional elements were also present.
  • Civilizations were confined to barrier surrounded sections of land in the middle of a normal Minecraft world, connected by several "trade routes" that selectively linked the disconnected plots together, unlike later civilization experiments which would involve specially designed and isolated sections of land that would interface directly with each other.
  • Instead of having more traditional civilization zones like Snow, Mountain, or Desert, the first experiment used Ice Spikes, Ocean and Mesa instead.
  • Magic Gum included in the experiment several AI controlled players based on the AI from a previous experiment, which guarded the trade routes. Because Magic Gum was the only one to use the technology, no other video since has featured them.
  • An exile region was provided for those deemed too troublesome by their faction, which most later videos would not provide.
  • During earlier versions of the event, Hardcore mode was not enabled, leading to mass murders and general chaos, which led to Hardcore being enabled.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Invoked by Magic Gum and the various factions in the event to better identify each major civilization
  • The Ice spikes decided to name themselves "Siberia" in reference to their icy terrain, and used the ice spikes themselves as the exteriors of huts similar to the igloos built in similar climes by the Inuit.
  • The Mesa was explicitly stated to be a stand in for America, and especially the western states, by being abundant in natural resources, with its population bloodthirsty and aggressive spreaders of freedom and democracy.
  • The jungle was likened to Vietnam when the Jungle attempted to pass through their trade route, with the Tree Warriors acting as guerillas.
  • The exile zone was explicitly labeled "Australia" in reference to Australia's past as a penal colony, and it was located on hostile terrain in reference to Australia's memetic reputation as a dangerous landmass.
• Historical Domain Character: In a nod to real history, some of the various hostile trade route groups were based on notable groups of people:
  • The mesa region was guarded at the coast across from them by a pirate fortress
  • The plains region was blocked from reaching the Ice Spikes by a mountain base manned by the Carthaginian soldiers of Hannibal himself.
• Grim Up North: The ice spikes were depicted as such because, due to the snow, there was very little in the way of either plants or animals, with the primary source of food being either fishing or the potatoes and carrots dropped by zombies. In fact, the civilization members decided to call themselves "Siberia" to further hammer home the hostility. However, this led to the development of a tightly knit, warrior society, one that carried the wintry vibe home by winning all battles against enemy civilizations.
• Hungry Jungle: The Jungle was depicted as such, from its normal Minecraft qualities of having dense foliage blocking light, allowing for hostile mobs to spawn wherever torches aren't placed, or the lack of passive mobs for easy food, or even a group of hostile Tree Warriors who would ambush any hapless traveler trying to pass into or out of it; the jungle was a hard place to live in, exemplified when the entire Jungle civilization were killed by the aforementioned Tree Warriors.
• Non Player Characters: In addition to the player characters, there were many AI controlled avatars guarding the various trade routes that connected the main regions of the map. Each of them served as Beef Gates for the civilizations to defeat in order to access more regions of the map, thus serving as a check for reckless expansionism, as seen with the Jungle.
• Public Execution: KspNerd was subject to this by the hands of ClownPierce after he leaked the fact that milk cured the hunger effect to the other nations of the world.
• Thirsty Desert: The Mesa was not a nice place to live in, as the main source of wood was existing structures and dead bushes, while the main source of food was fishing, since plants were scarce and animals even scarcer. However, the desert offered tons of easily accessible ore deposits via an abandoned mine, allowing for the people to quickly arm themselves to invade elsewhere.
• Wham Episode:
  • The destruction of the ocean civilization: After their elected leader died via a creeper explosion, the civilization collapsed into chaos due to conflict between criminals and vigilantes in the civilization. After the dust settled, the main competing leader was exiled to Australia for a random, unjustified murder, while only 2 other members survived, with one of them having instead been in the plains the whole time. This eliminated the ocean civilization as a major player in world politics, freeing up the other civilizations to expand and showcasing how not to run a civilization.
  • The destruction of the jungle civilization: As they attempted to pass through their trade route, they were beset by the Tree Warriors, denizens of the deep jungle. When the Jungle evaded the archers, the warriors jumped down from the trees and attacked, splitting up their force and picking them off. Only two members avoided the attack, and soon died awaiting relief from the Mesa. The loss of such a prosperous civilization therefore made all other civilizations much more cautious about traversing their trade nodes.
  • The battle between "Siberia" and Plains: When the Plains and Ice Spikes met in the middle of their trade route, the Plains decided to launch a surprise attack from the mountains to exploit the disorganization after the clearing of the Ice Archers. However, while the Plains killed some of the Ice Spikes members, the Ice Spikes regrouped and killed their warriors, exposing and killing the Plains leader Clownpierce, in the process. Ultimately, this would leave the Plains disorganized and leaderless, causing their forces to be handily defeated and eliminating them as a major power.

" 100 Players Develop Kingdoms in Minecraft "

• "Arabian Nights" Days: The Desert chose to adopt this asthetic, complete with sandstone palaces, a powerful monarchy, and a major religious complex centered around an oracle.
• Chekhov's Gun: You know that redstone mineshaft the Mountain built to the bottom of their mines? Well, when all else fails, retreat.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When the allied army of the Snow, Plains, and Desert attacked the Mountain, their forces proved so numerous that the mountain was completely overwhelmed, with even people like ClownPierce dying. The allied army seemingly lost 0 troops, while the mountain lost many pvpers and their main city to the invaders. The only survivors were those who made it to the mountain mineshaft and escaped underground.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Just like in the previous experiment, each region invokes this in order to set their own national identity.
  • The Desert kingdom looks and acts like a middle eastern sultanate, complete with sandstone buildings, a government sponsored state religion, and dedicated worship of their gods.
  • The swamp kingdom decides to invoke the architectural style of Sumeria with their ziggaurat and swamp based city.
  • The snow people decide to model themselves off of the general idea of Grim Up North after losing most of their civilian population, including allying with the vikings patrolling each trade route and having a heavily communal warrior society like a Norse tribe.
  • The plains models themselves after a traditional European medieval kingdom, including crusades and trade with the desert nation.
• Grim Up North: The Snow biome proved incredibly difficult to live in, as most of the civilian class in Snow died to to plague, famine, and mobs, since, like in normal Minecraft, there aren't many plants to turn into crops. This forced the snow warriors to ally with the surrounding Vikings, who also lived in this environment, after watching from a distance their holiday celebrations. This alliance would prove incredibly strong, being composed primarily of warriors, easily destroying the Swamp state and surviving for long enough to play a major role in defeating the Mountain nation alongside the crusaders.
• It's Probably Nothing: When the snow state starts allying with the vikings, the Mountain people didn't see them as a threat, reasoning that, because Swamp was between them and Snow, and due to their defensive terrain, the Snow state still couldn't defeat their civilization. Little did they know that the Snow state was the least of their worries...
• Poor Communication Kills: It turns out that the proximity chat implemented in this experiment really did have an effect on international diplomacy, as, unlike in the previous event, much more conflict was caused by miscommunication
  • The snow nation terrified everyone with their alliance with the vikings, as everyone else saw this as a massive power multiplier that would allow them to invade their nations. However, Snow actually made friends with the vikings to help in colonizing the frozen wasteland due to the loss of their civilians initially, and only wanted to destroy the mountain state, but refused to elaborate to the other civilizations due to lacking diplomats, leading to all other nations becoming hostile.
  • This came to a head when they tried to ally with the swamp nation in order to reach the mountains; because the Swamp thought the snow civilization was trying to attack them instead, they counterattacked, making Snow think they were actually allied to Mountain, leading to a conflict that destroyed the swamp civilization and made the snow state even more of a pariah.
  • Almost happened again when the snow were surprised at the hostility of the Plains and Desert upon meeting them back at base, but the snow state survived and was able to explain their intentions to the Plains and Desert to end the conflict and form an alliance.
• Run or Die: What basically happens to the Mountain, as they were completely overwhelmed by the alliance invading their mountain base, forcing those who could to escape down the mineshaft before the remaining members blocked off the area to prevent the coalition from following them down into their mines.
• The Scapegoat: After someone murdered the oracle, the desert queen promptly blamed all of the Desert's woes on him, having him executed in order to placate the angry populace.
• Schizo Tech: For some reason, the desert decided to build flying machines in the medieval era, which then led to multiple people falling to their deaths due to not being careful with piloting them.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: After being defeated by the alliance between the Snow civilization and the crusaders, the surviving mountain members tried seeking refuge at the Plains base. Unfortunately the Plains were a member of the crusaders, which the Mountain didn't realize until they reached their base, causing them to try fleeing to the Desert instead, which led to the crusaders discovering and executing them.
• Those Magnificent Flying Machines: The Desert built several of these in order to trade with the plains, which didn't quite work as people kept falling off of them to their deaths, leading to the trade shipment getting stranded.

" 500 Players Colonize Earth in Minecraft "

• Apocalypse How: Class 2 to Class 3a : After AMustachedMan nuked the capital of America with himself in it, the unannounced and random nature of the attack triggered Mutually Assured Destruction, causing all nuclear-capable nations to nuke each others cities, destroying most of the settlements on or just above the planet and seemingly killing most of its people, which also lead to a rehash of the "Night of Fire" that seemingly destroyed what remained of the world.
• Apocalyptic Montage: During The End of the World as We Know It, MagicGum treats us to a montage of all of the important landmarks of the world being nuked, including The Amazon, Taiwan, Carthage, and, finally, the artificial moon.
• Back from the Brink: Following Russia's raid on their original town, the original Chinese were forced to migrate to Taiwan to escape and prepare for a Counter-Attack. There, they rebuilt their civilization, won a war against another claimant to the title of China, and fought off countless further invasions from Russia, to the point of invading other civilizations to demonstrate their military superiority and force other nations into leaving them alone.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: Multiple, since it wouldn't be civilization without a little bit of war.
  • The assault of Russia on the Greenland base
  • The assault of the allied armies on eggcat's base.
  • The assault by "Better" China on Taiwan, followed by Taiwan's assault on Maren, "Better" China's capital.
  • The battle in the Himalayas between the allied nations of the Persian Sultanate and the Philippines against the European "Peacekeepers."
  • The assault on the Great Wall by the Russians.
  • The raids by the Chinese on the rest of the world, most notably Carthage.
  • The British attack on America.
• Cargo Cult: One of the key aspects of African religion was the "Milk of Life", a holy drink said to cure diseases and bless those who drank it. It originated during the ice age in the early days of the event, where the Africans discovered and used a single cow's milk to purge the hunger effect from their bodies, allowing them to survive the age and expand their initial empire.
• The Cavalry: Just after the Persian Sultanate starts being routed by the European "Peacekeepers", the Philippines arrive and rout the Europeans in a surprise attack, though not without heavy losses from the initial battle.
• Chekhov's Gunman: You know eggcat_, that player that was rejected from the North American civilization near the beginning of the event? You know how he was the leader of the Plains in the previous event, right? Well, turns out eggcat_ would have his revenge, and would once again be an important figure in world events.
• Dawn of an Era: Due to the long term nature of this particular civilization event, many events brought about massive changes to the world order that left society much better in their wakes:
  • The fall of eggcat was an important milestone in world history, as well as the milestone by which world history was measured. It signaled an end to the era of strife that lasted until eggcat's ascension to power, which caused the world to breathe a sigh of relief as everyone returned to the status quo ante-bellum.
  • Shortly after the fall of eggcat, due to the failure of the Trost Sanctuary to defend itself against hostile mercenaries, the Sanctuary began building the first Redstone rockets to launch themselves away from the ground to escape the threat of hostile forces, leading to a technological revolution in neighboring regions that cemented redstone weapons as a major component of the server, which would massively impact world events.
  • Similarly, the first ever influx of new players into a Civilization event, best described as "reproduction", heralded the creation of new empires, new cultures, new societies, and conflict between the old guard and new guard empires.
• Detonation Moon: Artificial Moon, but still, kind of a shocking move to nuke a moon.
• Downer Ending: Due to Britain invading and subjugating America with support from Mexico and the Amazon, America's leader, TheMustachedMan, commits suicide by using a nuke on his own civilization, causing all other nations to panic and nuke each other, ending the world.
• End of an Age: Due to the long term nature of this particular civilization event, many events brought about massive changes to the world order that would irrevocably alter society in their wakes:
  • The Night of Fire: a global event where fire and explosions rained from the sky in a reference to global warming, which devastated all civilizations and led to a period of reconstruction that would presage the new era of conflict.
  • The fall of America to the British which led to America nuking itself, leading to The End of the World as We Know It.
• The Famine: To simulate an Ice Age, an event occurred where crops stopped growing and animals froze to death, causing people to run out of food. As the people began to starve, they desperately tried pleading to Magic and his admins for help, resorting to killing each other and fleeing to larger settlements to feed themselves. As a result, many settlements became abandoned due to the starvation while those that survived grew stronger and more powerful as a result.
• Fiction 500: In reference to the real life Mansa Musa, a Malian leader whose wealth from the gold trade crashed entire nations' economies, MagicGum gave 12 stacks of diamonds to a member of the newly founded settlement Sparta, teleporting him into the desert to spread his wealth as he saw fit. He proceeded to give half of the diamonds to Africa in reference to this event, and then gave half back to his home civilization to empower them to provide military services to the Europeans.
• Forever War: The rivalry between Russia and China, which lasted from the very beginning of the event to the very end, involving multiple raids (primarily by Russia), multiple battles, and multiple invasions punctuated by wars within themselves and wars with other nations, which would have a major impact on world politics.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: This world's eggcat first appeared as as random tribesperson wandering around America trying to find people to take him in. After being rejected by most of the civilizations, he decided to start his own in order to get revenge on those who wronged him while taking over the world. His civilization would ultimately return to pillage and enslave the civilizations who wronged them, and, eventually, threatened to take over the rest of the world via a large spy network and elite army. However, this caused most of the other civilizations to ally against him, leading to his death.
• Hit So Hard, the Calendar Felt It: Unlike in our world, the AD system in this world is named after the death of eggcat, due to his war marking a major milestone in the development of international relations.
• It's Raining Men: The British exploited their use of flying machines to deploy men via airdrop on top of their targets, most notably used during their invasion of America.
• Murder, Inc.: After slaughtering the Trost Sanctuary, two Australian mercenaries decided to found a secret Assassin's Guild dedicated to assassination to whoever desired it.
• Mutually Assured Destruction: After nukes were discovered during the Atomic Era, in order to avoid premature nuking of civilizations, the world held a conference to discuss what to do about the presence of nukes. They came to the conclusion that nukes were only to be used in retaliation for other nukes by other civilizations. This held the peace for a time, but ultimately led to the end of the world due to the actions of one man.
• Space Station: Relatively uniquely for a civilization event, one of the civilizations, the Trost Sanctuary, used Minecraft piston rockets to successfully construct an artificial moon to use as a sanctuary for those who could not survive on the surface. Didn't protect them from the nukes though.
• The End of the World as We Know It: As a result of TheMustachedMan's suicide by dropping a nuke on top of his own city, the rest of the world, confused and scared by the random, unclaimed, and unprovoked nuking, began nuking each other in order to fulfill Mutually Assured Destruction. This resulted in many of the major cities of the world, including the Amazon, Carthage, and Taiwan being destroyed, killing droves of people, and leading to the collapse of the world in a blaze of hellfire.
• United Europe: Due to being settled by many related factions, most of Europe became united under the European Union, an empire composed of numerous settlements from Great Britain to Greece. It was a major powerhouse, being the primary belligerent against eggcat and aggressor against newer civilizations such as the Persian Sultanate.
• Watching Troy Burn: When the Chinese were away marveling at the frozen pig, the Russians attacked and pillaged their settlement, which they came back to, having been almost completely burned down. They thus became permanent enemies to the Russians while evacuating to Taiwan in order to avoid further conflict.
• Wham Episode:
  • Eggcat getting revenge on North Star for rejecting him and his people earlier in the event, which marked the rise of his faction as a global power, scaring all other nations.
  • The leader of China betraying and killing eggcat, ending his reign of terror and ushering in an era of world peace
  • AMustachedMan nuking himself to deny America to the British, followed by the rest of the nations nuking each other out of fear.
• Wham Line:
  • "So you want to nuke your own city?" - MagicGum
• Wham Shot:
  • Fire falling from the sky just before the start of the Night of Fire.
• While Rome Burns / Watch the World Die: The last scene of the video features Oddimur watching the world get nuked into oblivion on the coast of his place of exile.