Metagroup is a term originating from the early iterations of /int/craft used to describe a group of players or friends who consistently play together, typically in the same nation or geographical area.

The development of each group through the ages and how they interact with eachother –be it enemy or ally– has shaped the course of not only the politics of individual iterations, but the overall dynamic of /int/craft itself.

In the early iterations of intcraft, the majority of the playerbase were unrelated posters from int. Most towns created across these iterations were ad-hoc, or ghouliphates and retained little group identity. Some Metagroups existed as well.

Ad-hoc towns

It was commonplace to play with past enemies, and attack past friends, as the high frequency of iterations in 2015 allowed interpersonal conflicts and drama many opportunities to be acted out with the server constantly being reset.

This method of ad-hoc, 'startup' towns in early intcraft iterations oftentimes had major structural problems. It was common for towns to be plagued with unstable and ineffective leaders, coups of these leaders, griefing, Jinxing, military incompetence, and an overall lack of organization.

Ghouliphates/Ghoul Doctrine

Named after oldfag roguelich, this method of town building relies upon quantity over quality. To follow the Ghoul doctrine is to invite literally everybody to your town in an attempt to gain as much manpower as possible.

Typically the structure of a ghouliphate would center around its leader, and be supported by a small group of regulars –usually repeat members of the ghouliphate– who would act as an upper class of sorts. Below them would be the mass of randoms and newfags invited upon joining the server.

This style of town lacks the cohesion of a traditional metagroup as a consequence of being made up of randoms. Due to this inherent lack of connection between members, ghouliphates have almost always been militarily inneffective (when superior manpower =/= victory) and when poorly led can suffer very unstable internal politics.

Ghouliphates are however capable of establishing themselves as proper metagroups in the long run under strong, consistent leadership with Strykergang being the most famous example.

Early Metagroups

The few metagroups that did exist at this time were existing groups of friends from other minecraft servers. Chief among these proto-metagroups was the Norse, whose dominance and influence characterized much of /int/craft's early history.

The Bronies, another 'proto-metagroup' also began playing in this era. They faced the wrath of the Norse on numerous occasions, most notably in the Siege of Cadiz in 10.0.

The Norse would prove early on that the inherent structure of an established metagroup was far superior to that of both the ad-hoc town and the ghouliphate in almost every aspect. Higher quality towns, stable leadership, trust, and military coordination were luxuries for most towns, but the norm for the Norse.

Much of the meme culture of the day was centered around the Norse. Their victims would bitterly recount the Norse misdeeds , and the Norse themselves would proudly flaunt the superiority of their beautiful cities and power.

Intcraft in 2016 saw the demographics of the server begin to shift in unprecedented ways.

First, /int/craft by now had seen enough wars and memeraids for the metagame begin to develop. Rudimentary things such as Basic meta walls, early chest room designs, diplomacy, and skype/discord/teamspeak communications became standard for most towns.

Second, By 16.0, most of /int/craft's old guard -including the Norse- had been burnt out of the server. Player numbers dropped off signifigantly for most of 2016, beginning the dark age. Iterations then were many in number, but few in quality. This resulted in metagroups (by now the vast majority of the overall playerbase) focusing their efforts on higher quality gun servers. The traditional melee iteration died with these changes due to being seen as less fun, and thus /int/craft became more of a bi-yearly event server than the monthy one it was before.

Consequences of Server Scarcity and Consolidation

The creeping scarcity of new iterations, the increasing competitiveness of war, and the consolidation of Metagroups desperate for survival, War took prevalence over most other traditional aspects of /int/craft. It is probably not wrong to say that 24.0 was fundementally a different server than that of 11.0 despite the many mechanical similarities between the two servers. By 2017, players knew what to expect, and planned accordingly.

Metagroups, if they wished to survive in this era and beyond, were forced to adapt to the times. The two most prominent metagroups that formed in this period of time display a polarizing dichotomy of how critically essential the competitive metagame had become, often meaning life or death.

The rise of Ncordo

'Ncordogang', centered around its namesake leader was a series of very large ghouliphates that exploded in size in 2016 due to constantly memeraiding small towns into submission and dominating the ingame culture, later coalescing into a proper metagroup around 24.0. While the sole superpower of the low pop dark age, they interestingly fell completely flat in every major iteration they've ever participated in when faced with direct, equal competition.

Why is this? Ncordo, despite his charisma, was oftentimes unable to control his large population, and preferred a laissez faire approach in his towns allowing much freedom for his members–often to a fault. For example, Ncordoist towns never fully adopted the chestroom style of resource management, opting instead for players to claim their own private towny plots and gather their own resources with only a minor storage of essential supplies at the towns spawn at best. There are many stories of players in Ncordoist towns unable to access key resources or defensive positions during invasion, resulting in their demise. Infamously in 24.0, a gigantic megaproject built by player Colaboy2012 was used by the invading Bronies as a red carpet leading right to the towns homeblock.

For the reasons above Ncordoist towns lacked general cohesion, were often physically atomized, and as a result were laughably incompetent in warfare throughout their entire history. As mentioned previously, it typically did not take much outside pressure for the whole group to crumble. Ncordo, and even later (for additional reasons) under Crippo, have yet to survive a foreign invasion.

Strykergang's origins

Strykergang predated Ncordo's rise by only a few months. Stryker, like Ncordo, would begin playing intcraft as an irrelvant buildfag who quickly rose to prominence. Both groups would fight eachother in war no less than four times over a span of 5 years, with only Stryker ever tasting victory. This can be explained by the stark differences in Stryker's Leadership and doctrines.

Strykergang was a group fundementally shaped by the practical, realistic, highly competitive spirit of Stryker; and the harsh reality of war. The group initially had mixed success, but used its experiences to forge itself into a group capable of survival, conquest, and even complete domination. They established foundational rules and philosophies for itself such as consolidating all resources in the spawnroom, building large and thick walls, building regulations, hierarchical leadership, and aggressive diplomacy all in service of survival and military effectiveness because without that they saw no reason to play at all.

To simplify, Strykergang's ethos was always centered around winning the server by preemptively putting away its threats, by any means. Strykergang's diplomacy and realpolitik was undoubtedly its greatest adaptation and answer to the 'game' of intcraft. As a whole, Strykergang was typically not the largest or strongest group, usually finding itself 2nd or 3rd place. The group's leadership therefore was eternally paranoid about foreign invasions –especially after their humiliating defeat to the Pones in 24.0– and as a response compensated by forming coalitions of common interest and creating Meta Alliances.

This unfortunately meant a lot of the 'soul' was refined out of the typical experience for the sake of efficiency. Ingame diplomacy and roleplay, ingame culture like books and even memes all saw