World War 1
The battlefield east of Paris

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Launch date	15 January 2021
Historical era	1900-1918
Map	Stongduke Earth (Old world crop)
Host	Xethyr
Length	4 weeks
Peak playercount	251
Plugin	Nodes
Map download

Iteration chronology
i33	i34	i35

Not to be confused with 16.0 or 25.0.

World War 1, officially called The Great War and often referred to as i34, was an iteration hosted from 15 January to 6 February 2021 by Xethyr, in his first attempt at hosting. It is notable for the “Scramble for Africa” event, as well as for the intensity of its warfare that nonetheless resulted in no clear victor; the Great Powers fought for a cumulative 24 hours across three weekends, but none of them lost their capital. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest iterations of all time.

It held the record for highest player count on /int/craft (251) for over two years, until finally beaten by Xeth's succeeding server, World War 2. It also holds the record, tied with World War 2, for being the longest-lasting modern iteration – 4 weeks, including five days of war.

Xeth had previously been the lead developer of the Nodes plugin, as used on i32. The end of i32 marked the end of the Onions adminship, and afterwards there was some uncertainty as to the future (or end) of /int/craft, as there was no clear host to take charge. It was initially debated whether to sell Nodes to the public, but this did not come to be.

In early September 2020, a full four months before the eventual launch, Xeth revealed to his circle of confidants that he had begun development on a new /int/craft iteration, that it was to have a 1900s theme, and that it would be launched around Christmas. He gained the tentative support of Jonathan after the latter failed to convince Xeth to drop the project. By October, the initial build of the guns plugin was already being alpha-tested by in-the-know PvPfags like Falklands and numried. News of the upcoming iteration spread slowly, by word of mouth. A public announcement was deliberately delayed until only 3 weeks before the launch, which was scheduled for 15th January of 2021.

In the midst of development, a separate team led by uhFiliate planned and hosted a server in December 2020, beating Xeth's project to launch despite their development actually starting much later. The other server was initially called i32.5 (so as to signify a lower-stakes server and not upstage WW1), but came to be known as i33 and later as Epochcraft 1. This server annoyed some involved with WW1 development, but was of little concern to Xeth himself. Some metagroups like Strykergang and the British skipped i32.5 to avoid burnout for the upcoming WW1, which now had much anticipation and hype building up around it.

In addition to new custom guns based on the Quality Armory plugin, other development tasks included porting Nodes to Minecraft 1.16 and adding more features to it, creating a new vehicles plugin that was to be both more functional and better-balanced than Onions' vehicles, and making an ambitious new map. Most server config was done by Xeth.

Chien's world map had been traditionally used by /int/craft iterations with a global theme, but that map was becoming outdated by 2020, having been made in 2015 or 2016. It also had some faults in it and was a bit small; it was one of Chien's earlier works. Xeth had hoped to enlist a mapmaker to make a new, updated world map for the upcoming server, as well as for reusability on future servers. Chien was initially contacted by Xeth for this project, but he declined, citing lack of time. Stongduke, map painter for i30 and i31, was then contacted instead, and he eagerly accepted.

Whereas previous maps used readily-available online heightmaps such as Tangram as a basis, this had some limitations. The new map was made with a more advanced process, allowing for greater accuracy and customization. Jonathan began the process with the ArcGIS program to render a custom heightmap using the favored Miller projection. Perfectly-aligned river, lake, ocean, and climate maps were also generated for reference. Next, the heightmap was pre-processed by a script created by Xeth and Jonathan, which rebalanced elevation to fit Minecraft gameplay, smoothed terrain, added pixel-perfect coastlines, and generated smooth dropoff between land and underwater terrain. Finally, this corrected image was given to Stongduke to form the basis of the WorldPainter project, where he would repaint above-ground terrain, and add biomes, rivers, etc.

Stongduke put a high level of autism into making the map, completing it in just a few days despite the many hours of work. Progress was supervised by Xeth and Jonathan as well as checked by others knowledgeable in geography, such as Dab and LeiteArts. This insight from many contributors greatly helped the map accuracy. Nonetheless, the map still had some critics after launch.

The map was published by Stongduke on PlanetMinecraft, where it became very popular and has since been used on many other servers. The PMC version of the map differs from the /int/craft version, however, as it has ores and other survival necessities that the /int/craft version omits.

The map was cropped for use on i34, limited to just the Old World (Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania west of the international date line). The Nodes province map was made by Jonathan, Itsame, and Dab.

The server was announced to the public only 3 weeks before launch, and the Discord created just 2 weeks before. As a result, there was a lot less e-drama compared to previous iterations, a big improvement from i32.

Some in-the-know nation leaders had claimed their upcoming nations for months in advance, such as Strykergang on France, Leite on Germany, and the British on.. Britain. Others put in their claims after the public announcement, like WoopWooper on China, Norse on Sweden-Norway and Denmark, and TrenchByte on Russia. There were many large nations, with none emerging a head above the others, again unlike the Onions iterations. Perhaps the most-feared power was the resurgent Norse, who had increased their number by a merger with 4craft's /a/ group.

Overall, the months since Onionscraft seemed to have done good for the community; the people were eager to play a new server, and WW1 attracted unprecedented interest, including huge turnout from almost all the contemporary metagroups. Absent were only really Brogrammer's and manslay3r's groups, and polandcrafters.

Peak player count during the launch spike was 155, a fair bit less than the 200+ of i32. In the initial few days, there was much seething over resource generation rates, especially mining rates. A poll was held on Discord in which the players voted, practically unanimously, to buff the mining rates. However, Xeth ignored the results of this poll.

Unlike previous servers, the political situation manifested roughly as expected from pre-launch interest numbers; there were no surprise major nations.

On the first Saturday, the day after launch, a special janny-organized war was held between factions in North and South Italy. This was an ahistorical war meant to settle the dispute over two rival groups who wanted to play as Italy, one led by PhantomGuy and GavinGoodman, and the other by WarcorpTM and Wendell09. South Italy had a legion of many foreign volunteers come in from various other countries; North Italy only had the support of the Kalmar Union (the merged Norse faction). After a short battle, South Italy won and annexed most of North Italy's territory; Switzerland kept a part as reward for their assistance.

A pre-claimed town called “Africa” (with black color) occupied much of the African continent from the server launch, except for the northern and southern coasts, where some player towns were established. On 1pm EST on Sunday, Nodes war was enabled with the Africa town on a whitelist. So, players could capture (but not annex) land owned by Africa, and capture territories already captured by others; that latter quirk created some conflict among the interested colonial powers. Some players missed out on the initial wave of action, as the opening of Africa was only announced on Discord a few hours before (only announced on the website the previous night).

When a claim flag was placed in Africa, a swarm of “Zulus” (reskinned Minecraft skeletons) would spawn in, shooting off bows at the wh*Tes. The wh*Tes found themselves much inferior to the Afrikangs at fighting, and so the claiming meta regressed into underhanded strategies like placing flags from inside shelter and placing flags from horseback.

All the major and mid-tier European nations, as well as Morocco, took part in the Scramble. Perhaps the most successful colonization effort was by the Dutch, who efficiently claimed most of southern Africa south of the modern DR Congo. Kalmar had a huge territory in western Africa, also, but this brought them into conflict with Morocco and others. France and Germany quarreled over central and eastern Africa. Switzerland took the Congo area. The British claimed south from their outpost of Egypt into Sudan, but their progress was rudely disputed by the Serbians, creating a British-Serbian rivalry. Finally, the Ottomans and Russian each took small outposts in Tanzania and Kenya.

On Monday night, a conference was finally held to settle African borders. There was some controversy because LeiteArts, the leader of Germany, was absent since he was sleeping. He was dubbed “SleepyArts” by some. In the conference, three “disputed zones” were established, that allowed players to keep fighting over land where border demarcation could not be agreed upon. One was in West Africa, between Kalmar and Morocco; one was around Chad, between Kalmar and Serbia; the last was in Egypt and Sudan, between the British and Serbia. The former and latter of these zones were extensively fought over, with territories switching hands many times. By the Africa meme's end on Friday, the eastern zone was annexed to the British, and the western zone was split between Kalmar and Morocco.

The Scramble was, overall, an appreciated new feature for /int/craft. In addition to the PvE minigame against the Africans, it also increased the stakes of PvP during the first week for the nations with disputed claims. There was some complaint over the 24-hour-a-day nature of the war, though, and even some irritation over the necessity of having a mid-week campaign to defend territory.

The server had five days of general war across 3 war weekends (six war days if the Italian civil war on the second day is counted as another). The second-to-last war day was whitelisted, dedicated to claiming some inactive nations and a special janny-sanctioned war. The other four had no restrictions. The three Saturday war windows (on 1/23, 1/30, and 2/6) were 6 hours long; the two Sunday war windows (on 1/24 and 1/31) were 3 hours long.

The Norse and Moroccans held an enmity due to their rivalry over western Africa during the Scramble. The Norse thus made the Moroccans their first target in proper war. The Norse were superior in skill, number, and equipment, but it still took 4 hours of the first war day to capture all the Moroccan core territory. With the fall of Safi, Moroccan players fled to Japan.

Kalmar had previously provided military support to the North Italians, the opposing claimant to the eventually victorious South Italians. In the midst of the Norse-Moroccan War, some Italians had made an attempt to sneakily claim some backwater territory in northern Norway and Finland. After the fall of Safi, a reduced Norse force landed on Sicily to deliver retribution. By the end of time, they held a commanding position over the Italian capital Palermo.

Afterwards, the Italians chose to delete their nation, unclaiming their land for free, rather than surrender to humiliating Norse terms or continuing the fight. This left Norse and Switzerland splitting the peninsula, and Kalmar committing to the Franco-German battle for their Sunday's war.

China, under WoopWooper, and Japan, under o_Dannyboy, had memeraided each other throughout the week. Initially, China was more successful, but the enraged Japanese grew in number and, by the first war day, had enough strength to launch an invasion of mainland China. They were aided by Mongolia and hired Swiss mercenaries. The Japanese were just chunks away from capturing the Qing capital Lanzhou before the first war day ended.

On the second war day, the Swiss were not present, but the Japanese had the help of the exiled Moroccans instead. Lanzhou was finally captured near the end of the 3 hours' window, however due to accusations of illegal “sky claiming”, the occupation was undone by the janny, but then reinstated after review of evidence. After the battle, the Qing began the long march, moving their capital to western China and constructing a new base there.

During the second week, many reports surfaced of Moroccans using hacks, and so they were banned by Xeth, and Japan harshly punished for harboring them; roughly 2/3 of the Japanese national stockpile was destroyed as collective punishment. After this, the Japanese ragequit the server, leaving China the default winner of the war despite their defeats in battle. In later war days, the Chinese took back some of the lost land from the now-inactive Japanese, and conquered Mongolia.

The British Empire, led by Jonathan, and the “Balkan Sovereignty” (Serbia+Greece), led by TheSpookyBone, had fought over African claims. The Serbians had the early initiative, but the British rebuilt their strength and owned the disputed zone by the end. The two parties were in truce talks on Friday, but it failed, and so the British planned to fight Serbia during the first war day.

Just prior to the first war window, the Ottomans joined nations with Serbia, creating the “Byzantine Sovereignty”. This was viewed as a huge betrayal by the British, as the Ottomans had previously been allied with the British against Serbia. The war began with the British capture of Paraitonion, the Serbian fort on the Egyptian coast, and the seizure of remaining Serbian African lands. The British then attacked Ottoman Syria, overwhelming the small town of Damascus. As this was ongoing, the Serbs diverted to assist the French in their war against Germany. Britain then launched an amphibious landing against Constantinople via Gallipoli. This was defeated after two hours, but still accomplished the strategic aim of drawing off the Serbs from the Brits' German ally. The British had about 30 online on the first day, and the Byzantines about 20.

The succeeding Sunday war day was fought entirely in Syria and Lebanon, except for some Serbian attempts at backclaiming. This time, the Byzantines had hired the help of the Swiss mercenaries, turning the balance of power in their favor. The Byzantines and allies came just chunks away from recapturing Damascus, but the Brits managed to undo the damage and were counter-pushing into northern Syria by time's end. The Byzantines had made an ally of Iran, who declared war on Britain and tried some failed attacks on India and elsewhere.

The next Saturday, the war was fought on many fronts. During the week, the Byzantines had also convinced Spain to join the war on their side. The Byzantines, with the Swiss and the Spanish, planned to open the war window with an assault on British Gibraltar, a critical supply link for the British due to Londoners needing to use its port to enter the Mediterranean. The assault failed; the Spanish capital of Sevilla was captured by the British and remaining allied troops routed. Simultaneously, British troops fought off the Ottomans in Syria and launched an invasion of Iran. The Serbians resorted to using an exploit in the ports plugin in an attempt to win; by changing enemy port permissions, they were able to teleport into British-owned ports. They tried to capture Gibraltar several times by this method, and even tried an attack on London, but it was all defeated. The war ended with British in control of Gibraltar, Spain, Iran, Syria and Lebanon, Cyprus, and even a corridor in Turkey right up to Constantinople's wall.

In the next week, mutually unwilling to fight the same war for a third weekend in a row, the British and Byzantines finally signed a truce. However, both sent troops to fight on opposing sides during the final chapter of the Franco-German War. Despite the many Byzantine diplomatic successes, the British foiled all their war aims, and the conflict ended with the British up on territory.

On the second war day, as British were busy in Syria, the Dutch colony of Batavia (Indonesia) launched a war against the neighboring British colony of Singapore. Singapore was defended by just 2 soldiers, VivianJames and Xethyr (on an alt), but they somehow withstood the Dutch siege for 3 hours. Afterwards, a truce was signed by British and Dutch leadership.

World War 1 has been retroactively seen as a high water mark for /int/craft, and the culmination of the Fili-Onions era of servers. Subsequent servers failed to live up to its level of success, arguably until Xeth's second iteration, i38, by which time, 2 years later, the playerbase had dramatically changed.

World War 1 saw the last appearance of many famous metagroups, including the British, Trenchgang, WoopWooper's group, the united TaP group, and the united Strykergang. It also arguably saw the peak strength of the neo-Norse, Spookygang, and Domsquad (the Swiss). One of the few groups on i34 to go on to greater success was Morocco, who became known as the Fleepers and became a major power on i35, i36, and Epochcrafts 3 and 4.

Note: This may not be an exhaustive list.

• Afghanistan
  • ★ Kabul
• Baltic Confederacy
  • ★ Veliky
• British Empire
  • ★ London
  • Aden
  • Delhi
  • Dunedin
  • Gibraltar
  • Judea
  • Melbourne
  • Singapore
  • Suez
• Byzantine Sovereignty
  • Serbia
    • ★★ Belgrade
    • Paraitonion
  • Austria
    • ★ Vienna
  • Greece
    • ★ Athens
  • Ottomans
    • ★ Constantinople
    • Damascus
    • Erzurum
• China
  • ★ Lanzhou
• France
  • ★ Paris
  • Algiers
  • Dijon
  • Marseilles
  • Pondicherry
• German Empire
  • ★ Berlin
  • Augusta
  • Frankfurt
  • Konigsberg
  • Strassburg
• Italy (North)
  • ★ Florence
• Italy (South, Unified)
  • ★ Palermo
  • Benghazi
  • Sardinia
  • Tripoli
• Japan
  • ★ Tokyo
  • Firipin
  • Korea
  • Sakata
  • Siberia
  • Taiwan
• Kalmar Union
  • ★ Christiania
  • Christiansborg
  • Copenhagen
  • Reykjavik
  • Stockholm
  • Tarrafalborg
• Mongolia
  • ★ Urga
• Morocco
  • ★ Safi
  • Dubai
  • Lisboa
  • Macau
  • Rabat
• Netherlands
  • ★ Cape Town
  • Amsterdam
  • Batavia
  • Neueschwabenland
• Persia
  • ★ Tehran
  • Yazd
• Romania
  • ★ Targoviste
  • Tulcea
• Russian Empire
  • ★ Moscow
  • Chelyabinsk
  • Kazan
  • Leningrad
  • Minsk
  • Penza
  • Srikakulam
  • Yakutsk
• Siam
  • ★ Bangkok
• Spain
  • ★ Sevilla
• St. Pantaleon
  • ★ St. Pantaleon
• Switzerland
  • ★ Bern
• Tibet
  • ★ Deng
  • Brunei
  • Pogland
  • Shardu
• United States
  • ★ Basilan