The story of Carthage (3.0) – Part One

We’ve had 12.0(or even more counting some brief attempts that aren’t so widely recognized) iterations so far. Although we still have a plenty of “original” players, a fair share of the current community comes from either 4.0, 7.0 or X newfag influx. Naturally, they missed a lot of key events that shaped /int/craft thus they are not aware of it’s early history (or badly misinformed about it at the very least) – which would be the first four iterations(with autodonger as the owner) the ones generally considered “classic”. And while “hurr durr certainly not nostalgia” 1.0 stays as the most favoured iteration among the oldfags, if you ask me, 3.0 is hella underrated and actually it’s one of the most impactful and interesting iterations of /int/craft.

But why it is so important? One reason(the most would say). The Norse. And yes I agree – this preserving and incredibly dominant faction which would spread grief, rape and terror throughout numerous iterations and wipe out countless towns and nations is certainly the most obvious remain of 3.0. And their great rivalry with Japan, culminating in the epic battle of Sapporo, was one of the most intense and memorable conflicts of /int/craft. However, contrary to many beliefs, 3.0 didn’t resolve only around the Norse. In fact, they came to the server only in the middle of its duration – and at first, they weren’t as powerful and relevant as they like to depict themselves.

So, aside from the Norse, 3.0 was really long-lasting(at least as for an /int/craft iteration) and quite lively for most of the time. The decisive factor which vastly contributed to its longevity and lasting popularity was (definitely not the admin team which in my opinion was worse than terrible) successful foundation and persistence of several thriving, large and self-sustainable factions. It wasn’t the iteration where one faction (typically the Norse) would dominate the political scene so much that no one would be even thinking about standing up against them and the wars didn’t end prematurely after just one gruesome battle which resulted in a complete defeat and destruction of the losing side.

In fact, there were nations in 3.0 that managed to survive and rebuild themselves even after their capitals were burned to the ground and all their riches looted. Dozens of brutal wars, large battles and sieges, political intrigues, revolts, power struggles, personal conflicts and obviously some of the worst examples of admin abuse – that’s 3.0 in a nutshell. And even though, in the end, the Norse indisputably dominated the iteration (actually they triggered the very end of it) and basically “won” 3.0, they aren’t the only faction worth mentioning. Among the many others, there was a faction of – in my opinion – crucial importance to the whole iteration (at least in the European theatre), the faction I was one of the founders, builders and leaders. Carthage.

Holy Roman… Carthage

The initial hegemony of Carthage in 3.0 wasn’t a coincidence. I was lucky enough to have a sizeable group of moderately experienced people. A lot of people may not even recall it, but shortly before launch of actual 3.0, when 2.0 was more than doomed, one of the former Cimmerians(kind of the Norse of 1.0), ashnwill(later member of Carthage and the Norse by the way) announced that he is “taking over /int/craft” and making 3.0, with 1500 AD as the time period. Despite good intentions, he didn’t even launch a proper server(he hosted it on his own PC) and struggled with a bunch of technical difficulties – most of Europeans couldn’t even play because of the lag. And the map he picked was widely criticized too(newer players probably don’t realize how problematic was a selection of the map before Chien started to make them). As you could imagine, it didn’t last for long(2-3 days if I recall correctly).

But for this brief episode(let’s call it 2.5) I recruited a group of people(consisting of my friends from earlier iterations like infamau5, Heshi, redskull and Federico’s affiliates) who later become key members of Carthage. On 2.5 we wanted to establish the Holy Roman Empire, with regular emperor elections and partially autonomous duchies. As 2.5 died almost instantly and 300 BC 3.0 was announced by Swiss_Dave who was entrusted with the head admin position by both the community and the server owner, we decided to stick together and build a new faction there. Why Carthage though? It’s mostly known for losing against Rome, being destroyed and sowed with salt after all. Well… actually first I called for Rome, but it appeared my 2.0 enemy – Edrahil did it first and honestly, I really didn’t want to cooperate with him by any means. We didn’t really like each other(despite being great allies in 1.0). We hated each other even more after 3.0. But more on that later.

So while Rome was already claimed, and we were fully aware of the fact that in /int/craft, Europe and areas in its proximity tend to be the only ones with any political relevance(though actually, 3.0 was an exception in that regard) – remote factions were usually almost exclusively building-oriented and often died out of lack of general activity – we decided to go with historically the second of 2 most powerful countries in the Western Mediterranean Basin in 300 BC. Carthage, the arch-enemy of Rome. Maybe historically it ended up being almost completely wiped out and forgotten(except for famous Hannibal of course – but again he is mostly known because of Rome) and actually we don’t even have any actually Carthaginian accounts left – all we know is from the sources of Romans or Greeks(both were deadly enemies of Carthage – and you can clearly see their bias), but it only added to its mystery and made it a fascinating alternative to the mainstream Roman Republic.

Grace period

Immediately after the launch of 3.0 we went for the shores of the Gulf of Tunis to establish the city of Carthage. Soon after we reached the very first goal, which was typing in “/t new Carthage” in an appropriate location, and before we even managed to build any kind of shelter our small founding team was attacked(and I honestly don’t remember who exactly was that), fortunately, we repelled them quickly and they didn’t try to harass us anymore. Right away we erected some basic constructions like a temporary wall, a spawn building, farms etc. Quickly it appeared that a bustling, crowdy and chaotic place that Carthage was(and it was supposed to be as it would obviously be the centre of our planned empire) isn’t for everyone, Federico went to claim Sardinia(he is Sardinian in real life – and is really passionate about his island’s history) and 420WeedLordz founded a hamlet of some long, complex Arabic(muh RP!) name which would, later on, be renamed to Barbaroi.

As for our “government” we decided to create the Council of Carthage – which would wield basically all the power in the empire, all politically important decisions like declaration of war, alliance or accession of the new city had to be voted in, before a Shophet – in-game leader – would execute the will of the Council which at the start consisted of me, Federico, Jurri and infamau5. Despite some members didn’t trust my leading skills(I was considered rather power-hungry and warmongering) I was still agreed to be the Shophet – probably because in theory, the Council would exert the real authority. Was that a good decision to have such governing body? Many would say only the “absolute” leadership of one person can effectively work for such small “countries” we have in /int/craft. Personally I don’t think the answer is so simple, both systems have considerable ups and downs, but definitely, the Council of Carthage(and in result the empire as well) went through many difficulties and some serious crises.

What about the rest of the world and a general geopolitical situation in the early days of 3.0?  I didn’t mention yet that the Americas would be added for the first time(but unfortunately they were home only to few small and largely inactive settlements) and the fact that map itself was really huge. It was definitely larger than Chien’s maps. But well… honestly at least at first I was focused mostly on Carthage and it’s immediate neighbours – though I don’t think there was much more than that at the start of 3.0 anyway – Western Mediterranean was the most relevant and populous region at the time, hosting 3 sizeable factions – Carthage, Celtiberia and Rome.

The rapid growth of the Roman Republic, which would briefly become the largest faction on the server, with 2 towns in Italy, the island of Sicily and a settlement in Britain, alarmed the two other factions and convinced them to ally up in order to oppose the Roman power. And I must say cooperation with Celtiberia was quite difficult. And that’s mainly because of the person leading that faction, BeefTenderloin – previously we generally were persistent enemies and we didn’t really trust each other, even in the face of greater external threat. Like actually when we still were in the grace period, there was a territorial dispute over the Strait of Gibraltar and at some moment it was close to escalating into a serious conflict. In the end, we managed to get into an agreement – Celtiberia got the Strait on its own but promised not to colonize the coasts of North Africa.

Despite these differences, both factions certainly didn’t want to end up being subjugated by Rome, and after getting over their issues, Carthaginian-Celtiberian alliance worked together to prepare for a potential war. The war very quickly ceased to be just “potential”, it became clear that the Punic war is imminent and that’s not just only due to general hype and enthusiasm of the community around the possibility of role-playing such historical conflict or my warmongering attitude. There simply was no place for political ambitions of both Carthage and Rome in the Western Mediterranean. Especially considering the fact that standing on the Carthaginian wall you could easily see the walls of hostile Roman Syracuse.

And the serious tensions arose, as even before the grace period was lifted, both sides wanted to prove their superiority – in particular, Carthage. Because no killings were allowed yet(and they were punished with the ban) we assembled a small squad to march into Italy, with an intention to demonstrate our military advantage. And while it indicated that Romans aren’t quite prepared for a war(you could simply jump over the wall in Naples) it showed some of our weaknesses as well – poor communication and lack of discipline – as one of ours, apparently not understanding both rules and the purpose of the whole demonstration, simply killed a Roman citizen – getting banned soon before the grace period was going to be lifted which left us with fewer troops.

Aside from the Roman issue, we had quite serious internal problems as well. Even though thanks to some devoted members we managed to finish our ridiculously oversized(and ugly) wall, build other necessary things and start works on the landmark harbour apparently we had a traitor inside. Someone was constantly sabotaging our public supplies and we couldn’t figure out who exactly was that. It wasn’t that much of concern for us though – as a large faction we could resupply relatively easily and we obviously moved the strategical resources to the hidden stashes. Soon after our ally, Beef managed to gain some more of our trust, revealing the traitor, who appeared to be infamau5(who already had a history of betraying me) who asked him in a private message “if he wants to raid Ghoul”. While most of the Council(besides him) wanted him immediately expelled from the faction, in the end, I advocated for him(which turned out to be a big, big mistake) and he was “only” demoted from the Council.

In spite of both foreign and internal challenges, Carthage continued to grow. One of the most important successes for us in the grace period was an incorporation of Jerusalem into Carthaginian Empire. It not only a great addition to our manpower(we actually managed to outgrow Rome in terms of population and become the largest faction on the server) but also allowed us to project power in the Eastern Mediterranean as well. The only issue with Jerusalem were not really trustworthy personalities in there – who just as infamau5 stood up against their own faction in the past. Actually, the point of Jerusalem was to gather people like Skyz0ne, Jinx or Teshup – to benefit from their military capabilities but not to risk having these people in the capital.

So, in the grace period, we already managed to establish quite an empire and the largest faction on the server, additionally being allied with some other strong state against the common foe. There were some clear warning symptoms too and the future of Carthaginian Empire was uncertain. As the grace period was coming to an end, one thing you could say for sure – a conflict between Rome and the combined forces of Carthage and Celtiberia is inevitable.

Part Two