Web Video / Minecraft Civilization Experiments

"In a Minecraft social experiment ..."

As the name suggests, Minecraft Civilization Experiments are a type of Minecraft "work" that involve a number of players (usually 100 or above) in a supervised server attempting to simulate human civilization within the medium of Minecraft. Players are usually placed in hardcore mode and split into several teams in several separated locations, all of whom are tasked with surviving the event, either by eliminating all opposing civilizations or establishing world peace. These last over a number of real life days, which are then covered via video.

First originating after Youtuber Magic Gum posted several videos about hypothetical Minecraft civilizations, it soon became an actual phenomenon with multiple channels posting this form of content, culminating in Mr Beast's 1000 Player Civilization event. First starting with Magic Gum's own Civilization Experiments, it soon spread out with Ish and Silver's civilization events, and soon became adopted by other channels. This page covers the major civilization events and their tropes, but links may be included to other civilization events in the corresponding folder below.

Note that, ever since MagicGum popularized the genre, several non-Minecraft civilization and/or civilization-like events have appeared in other Sandbox Survival games. These will be listed in their own section in the folders down below

Civilization Events with Works Pages

Minecraft Civilization Events

• Spoke's 'I Made 100 Players Simulate 1000 Days of Civilization in Minecraft...'
• MagicGum's Civilization Experiments
• Ish's State Experiments
• IhasName's Racist Experiments
• SpeedSilver's Civilization Experiments
• MARKUSK's Civilization Experiments
• Sword4000 Civilization Experiments
• Sipover's 'Minecraft's Best Players Simulate Civilization'

Non-Minecraft Civilization/Civilization-like events:

• Rust: FancyOrb's '3000 Players Create Global Civilizations in Rust...'
• Play-by-Post Games: Project Inkunzi

Civilization Events without Works Pages

Minecraft Civilization Events

• MrBeast's "1000 People Simulate Civilization"

Non-Minecraft Civilization Events

See also the Roleplay civilization server Stoneworks for an additional example.

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Tropes commonly found during these experiments include:

• Anti-Infantry: The Iron Torch, a gigantic tower built by the Aculon Empire that houses and dispenses lava upon any enemy forces below. If that isn't bad enough, it actually turns out to be an incredibly effective weapon. [[spoiler: Not effective enough for Elanuelo to escape his fate, though.
• Anyone Can Die: Since the videos usually directly record what happened during the event, anyone important in the story could die at any time for any reason, major or minor. This is moreso during the events themselves, as, most of the time, they are unscripted, and thus the players' survival depends on their own actions and the actions of others, much of which is hidden or a curveball.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: Many civilization events feature large battles between the bulk of several enemy civilizations, which are often portrayed as such.
• Bittersweet Ending: Ish's 1,000 Player Civilization experiment ends with the Aculon Empire being defeated by the combined effort of the Allied Nations, who, after disposing of Elanuelo, seek to further avenge Turkey by slaughtering all the surrendering Aculonians, including innocents. While the world does bounce back from this conflict and sees the creation of a truly united global alliance, many of the Allied Nation leaders regret the ruthlessness they displayed; despite pardoning other surviving Aculonians who were not part of the massacre, it's made apparent that this newfound peace was gained through the same needless sacrifices that they were trying to avoid in the first place, effectively making them no better than their enemies.
• Cast Herd: In order to allow for competition between civilizations in addition to within, most civilization events divide the players in them up between different regions to build separate civilizations, each of whom have their own plotlines and characters that interact within themselves, then with each other.
  • For example, Ish's first state experiment have the four islands of Plains, Snow, Jungle, and Desert, with Plains, Jungle, and Desert divided between two differing factions each.
• Central Theme: Due to being spun off of Magic Gum's earlier work on societies in Minecraft, the central theme of most civilization videos is: "How do societies develop in novel environments? What factors are involved, and what makes a society successful?"
• Cerebus Syndrome: As a result of both the Permadeath aspects and the world opening up to allow for more and more interaction between players, most civilization events get progressively more and more dramatic over time, starting with basic, local feuds and events and escalating into global wars and events.
• Dangerous Deserter: Drip Chicken and his family quickly become targets of the Sultanate after they make a run for Theria.
• Dirty Coward: In the early days of the Aculon Empire, Elanuelo never showed his face beyond the safety of an underground bunker out of fear that he would be assassinated. This got to the point where the citizens of Snow began to lose confidence that Elanuelo even existed. While he eventually does show his face, it was out of necessity to quickly assuage the doubts of his people.
• Ensemble Cast: Most civilization event videos, instead of just focusing on the actions of one character or one civilization, tend to focus on all of the civilizations and their most important characters equally, explaining all of their roles in the event.
• Final Battle: Many civilization experiments end with a final battle between two major warring factions, oftentimes involving most of the surviving members of every civilization, usually deciding the outcome of a given experiment.
• Frontline General: A common occurrence in Civilization events is that the people leading their armies tend to command from the front line. These include Clownpierce during MagicGum's first civilization event and Ize from SpeedSilver's. This is because:
  • a: Being on the frontline tends to boost your own troops' morale (willingness to fight).
  • b: Oftentimes, leadership is a Position of Literal Power, conferring extra combat bonuses to leaders.
  • and c: Oftentimes, Asskicking Leads to Leadership, and so frontline generals are also the best fighters outside of their special powers.
• Hyperlink Story: The experiments gradually become this as players from different groups begin to interact, with their respective arcs sometimes influencing world events in dynamic ways.
• Non-Linear Sequel: Despite having the same people participating in them, and with the events in some of them repeating, most civilization events are not in the exact same continuity. Instead, the players and their avatars appear throughout all events, while similar events may happen during them, but the events are not part of any overarching continuity, just part of several related stories.
• Opening Narration: Pretty much every single civilization video uses one to explain the premise of the particular experiment being performed, while also explaining the general premise of Civilization videos in general to new viewers.
• Permadeath: Starting in MagicGum's Civilization Experiments, civilization experiments usually discourage constant conflict by turning on Hardcore Mode.
• Poor Communication Kills: Time after time, many civilizations have come to blows after a misunderstanding, either deliberate or otherwise, usually due to not all of the players being able to get in touch with one another, whether through deliberate isolation, or the inability or unwillingness to share voice chat with each other.
  • This happened first during Magic Gum's 2nd Civilization video, where the entire world came to blows with the Snow players due to fearing their alliance with the vikings, even though Snow only had intentions of attacking one of them.
• Video Game Setpiece: Starting with MagicGum's Civilization Experiments, to challenge the players' cooperation and planning skills, some creators include various Once per Episode Scripted Events such as giving everyone the hunger effect, making food stop growing, giving someone on each team The Plague, or having monsters appear to hunt down the players, as well as some more specific events.
• Sequel Hook: Ish's 1,000 Player Civilization experiment ends with the implication that the global peace achieved by the Allied Nations will give rise to future events, and that there might be consequences for the Allied Nations showing no mercy to the surrendering Aculonians.
• Shrine to the Fallen: It's a pretty common occurrence in Civilization videos for players to honor those who have died permanently with graves and gravestones, unless of course if they disliked those who died.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: Wazzock stopping the Jungle nations from going to war with each other by killing several of their diplomats at a meeting to negotiate a peace treaty. While the meeting ultimately does end in hostility, Wazzock believed that by making himself the "villain", the Jungle would finally unite under a common goal.