Minecraft Forums

Total War was a Minecraft roleplaying server established in December of 2015 by a person known as IronWolf16 in the game. It was set on a map of the world with the idea that the players would rewrite history their own way, forming countries and conquering others. The server shut down in February of 2017 due to some reasons that will be explained later.

I learned about Total War on the 4^th of April 2016 from Caaethil and Selene, a couple of people I had chatted with regularly on the Minecraft Forums. Caaethil was the ruler of Japan, and his faction included several people, including Selene.

I decided to join the server. When I did, I was met by a player named _Leif_Erikson. He welcomed me to the server and gave me an elytra that he had with him. He explained to me that I was in the server’s spawn in Oslo, Norway. I told him that I was going to Japan, and he suggested that I waited until Caaethil joined and invited me to his faction. However, I decided to leave anyway because I had nothing better to do at the time.

While I was on my journey to Norway to Japan, another player joined the game. His name was TypicalProle. He was the leader of a peaceful trading faction named New Pompeii. As I made my journey, I made conversation with him and Leif.

When I arrived at Japan, another player had joined. It was the owner, IronWolf. He said hello and teleported to where I was, curious of what the new guy was doing. He saw that I was in Japan and explained to me that Japan was at war with another faction named Rome. He pointed out to me a small fort next to the Japanese settlement with cannons mounted on the walls and NPC’s patrolling the area. I made a small wooden shack that I lovingly dubbed “Dude Shack,” and I placed signs on the inside saying that I didn’t want to cause trouble for neither Japan nor Rome. Satisfied with a day’s work, I logged off, unknowing of what adventures were to come.

The next day, I logged back onto the server and was surprised at what I saw. My dude shack had been destroyed, obviously not by the Japanese; they knew that I had built my shack there. It must have been the Romans. It was that day that a grudge began against the leader of Rome, Almondraw that I would never let go of.

I logged off of the server; I had nothing to do since Caaethil still wasn’t online to let me join Japan, and the Romans would destroy anything I built. I played on other servers and browsed the Total War Forums while Caaethil and the other members of Japan remained offline, hiding from the Roman bombers that would devastate their homeland if they dared log on. Caaethil was convinced that their patience would win the day; he told us that he had a spy infiltrating Rome by the name of MachoManCal. Japan was filled with hope and anticipation over the next few days.

MachoManCal was put into a faction separate to that of Rome called “Legion.” Almond was a wise general and suspected Cal of being a spy, so he told Cal that he would remain in this separate faction that was allied to Rome until the war between Rome and Japan had ended. This would make it impossible for Cal to sabotage Rome since he would not be able to edit their claims or steal their items. MachoManCal then decided that it would be best to betray Caaethil and side with Rome, which effectively crushed all hope that Caaethil had of winning the war.

Knowing that defeat was inevitable, Caaethil had enough of waiting. He and Selene logged onto the server to have a final battle against Almond and his NPC’s, which they lost, of course, but they earned Almond’s respect by doing it. Caaethil surrendered on the forums soon thereafter. The terms of the surrender were that the faction of Japan would disband and that Caaethil would never again set foot in Eastern Asia. Almond added Japan to the list of factions he had forced to disband that he had posted on the forums in order to discourage any potential enemies of Rome.

Although Caaethil was defeated, he did not stay down for long. Immediately, he and his former faction members traveled across the world to South America to form Brazil. The Brazilians began designing a base that would withstand any siege put against it, with cannons lining the walls, and NPC’s within to protect the keep, but, for now it was only a couple of houses and a small, thin wall to protect the faction from outsiders.

My plan was to join Brazil and help them construct this base, but along the way, another opportunity arose. I met Bobbyorr44 of the faction Axis. I was on my journey from the ruins of Japan back to Brazil (Caaethil and my playing times had still not overlapped, so he was unable to add me to the faction) when Bobby joined the server and declared that he was looking for workers for a restoration project of Berlin. Seeing my chance to be the spy that MachoMan never was, I decided to take him up on his offer.

I joined his faction and went to the faction home located within Berlin. According to Bobby, Berlin had once been a great city, but it had unfortunately been located within a war zone for a while. It had been bombed several times over as factions battled each other in Europe. I was tasked with helping him tear down the old walls of berlin and construct newer, stronger ones with a different material. While we were working, I chatted with Bob. He seemed like a nice guy, and I almost felt sorry for what I was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t let Caaethil down. I quickly gained Bob’s trust and waited for the right time to strike.

Caaethil may be a man of patience, but sometimes I think he is a man of hesitance. He wanted me to locate Bob’s items, but he didn’t want me to take them all in one big heist; he wanted me to steal small things first, things that Bob wouldn’t miss. I sighed and waited, helping bob construct a warship, helping to reconstruct Berlin, gathering resources to build defenses, until finally, Bob showed me what I was looking for.

One day, Bob took me over to Belgium to get some resources that we needed. I stayed outside while he got the things because it might seem a bit suspicious to go around looking for precious items, but I made a mental note to go back and scope out this base of operations later. We went back to building things, and I notified Caaethil that I thought I knew where he kept his items.

Later, when Bob wouldn’t miss me, I snuck back over to Belgium to search it. Inside was a tank, lying ready for the day it would be used, a staircase leading to the second floor, and some other rooms with chests inside. I searched through the chests, recording the inventory on a word document. I found some decent items in the chests, but I followed Caaethil’s orders and did not take any. I also found Bob’s vault, made of obsidian, which contained several sets of armor, a couple of elytra, and some weapons. I also made note of a dock on the back with a ship moored in it. I was anxious to act on my discovery.

A couple of days afterward, the planets practically aligned to give me the best possible situation to get away with a heist. Axis was at war with Rome, Almond was in the process of attacking Berlin, and a new player had joined Axis as a recruit, Grubkiller. I relayed my situation to Caaethil, who reluctantly agreed, knowing that I would probably act anyway.

With the battle drawing closer, support was coming from Britain in the form of the knight, MarrionettePlays. While I was preparing in to begin the heist in Belgium, Marrionette rode up to me on his horse and halted. When he asked me what I was doing, I told him that I was getting supplies and would be at the fight shortly. He was satisfied with that answer, and left me alone, riding off to Berlin to meet with Bob.

Glad to be rid of that unexpected problem, I entered the Belgium base and began stealing the items from the chests and loading them onto the boat which had been moored on the dock behind the base. Once I had all of the items loaded up, I see fire to the base and poured lava on the tank. I also put a sign in front of the door that said “Grubkiller was here,” to make it look as if he had done it instead of me. Then, I set sail across the Atlantic Ocean toward Brazil, where Caaethil waited to receive the items.

When I arrived in Brazil with the items, Caaethil called me a hero and started taking the items into the base. I said goodbye to Caaethil and went back to the faction home to frame Grubkiller, who had just logged on.

I called Grubkiller over to have him look at what he did. As he stared at the ruins of Belgium confused, I condemned him to exile from Axis and kicked him from the faction. Just after I kicked him, Almond’s NPC’s stormed the area, killing Grub and making me combat log, which killed me too. I didn’t care though; the job was done.

After the heist on Belgium, I had a problem. If I left Axis to join Brazil, Bob might suspect that it was actually me who burned down Belgium and took all of the items. At least, that was what Caaethil told me. Luckily, I had convinced one of my friends, Layman9, to join the server, and he wanted to make his own faction in Greenland. I asked Bob if he would let me join Greenland, explaining that Layman was one of my friends. He told me that I could leave Axis without a problem, and I told him that I had fun as a member of Axis, which I did. I then went to Oslo and readied a ship for to bring resources to Greenland, which had none since it was completely covered in snow.

Layman and I had a dream; we would build a giant citadel, with walls and traps and a port and be a colony of Brazil. He wanted to build the citadel out of polished andesite, so I went back and forth from Greenland to Oslo bringing andesite and any other materials he needed. On my first trip, I was passing Iceland on my way to Greenland. As I looked at Iceland from my ship, I noticed a house with a flag waving in the wind. I decided to stop the boat and investigate.

The house was unclaimed, and there was a shop sitting next to it. The shop was not a structure that one could enter; it was made of several rows of wooden pillars with signs attached to them. The signs offered different goods that one could buy by right clicking the sign. I was pleased to see that the prices were much cheaper than the ones in Oslo. I bought some wool for a second boat and turned to the house. Looking inside, I fought nothing of interest. Anything that had been there before my arrival was gone. I am not sure why, but I decided to burn down the house before I left. Maybe I was still addicted to destruction from my time in Berlin, or perhaps I wanted to see if anybody owned it and would react to it being destroyed. Nobody ever said anything about the house.

In Greenland, Layman and I were beginning the construction of the main part of the citadel. It was the shape of a triangular prism standing on one of its triangle faces, and it was tall. Jumping off of the citadel and flying down for more building resources was how I first learned to use an elytra. We started a tree farm for our wooden floors, built a second ship for transporting goods to the island, and had fun in the snow. We were happy, and things looked like they would only get better as we continued working.

Unfortunately, this time of peace and happiness did not last long. I had a short period of inactivity for reasons that I no longer remember, but when I came back, I was not greeted by my familiar, thriving Greenland, but its hollow shell. Instead of having the name “Greenland,” our faction was now called “Legion Greenland.”

Wondering what had happened, I contacted Layman. He told me that while I was gone, a faction called “Legion,” lead by the infamous MachoManCal, had begun an empire. Legion had apparently traveled to Greenland on ships equipped for war and threatened Layman with death if he Greenland did not join the empire as a colony.

The Greenland Dream had been crushed. I left Greenland, unwilling to be under the control of such barbarians, and I joined Brazil. Layman left the server altogether, and with his leaving, Greenland was disbanded.

Brazil had grown much since I had last seen it. Its walls now towered overhead with cannons mounted at the top, ready to face any attackers. The walls had a layer of sand blocks and gravel and a layer of water to slow attackers down. Inside Brazil were farms, a few members’ houses, a museum, which displayed the artifacts taken from Brazil’s enemies, the storehouse, and a small castle that sat in the center which held a meeting room and the armory. The castle was surrounded by Brazil’s NPC’s, ready to defend Caaethil, the king of Brazil.

After looking around every inch of Brazil, I asked Caaethil where I could build a house. He told me that I could build anywhere along the wall, so I picked a spot to build next to Tetra’s house. My house started off small, built out of oak and acacia wood and logs. I built two floors. The first floor had my chests and materials, and my second floor was for decoration. The second floor held a balcony with a small fountain.

My early life in Brazil was relatively uneventful, save for a couple scuffles with Legion that I was not really involved with. It was mostly the other members of Brazil that handled them. Since most of the countries were in Europe, we stayed out of war. During this long period of peace, I kept myself occupied by turning my house into a tower.

The ground floor of the tower was what used to be my house. In the main room with the chests, I constructed a large staircase that spiraled upwards to above the height of the Brazil’s walls. The original tower was constructed entirely out of wood and had some stained glass windows near its top.

After I finished that, I noticed that Brazil’s farms were not thriving, so I decided to build farms on the tower. On the two floors of the tower between the ground floor and the floor that was level with the wall, I constructed semicircles of stone bricks around the tower, and I placed logs on the underside of the semicircles to make it seem as if they were being held up by the “tree” that was my tower. I built semicircles instead of full circles because my tower was too close to the one of the walls to make a complete circle. I filled the semicircles with dirt and small irrigation streams and proceeded to plant wheat, carrots, and potatoes in them. As I was doing this, I noticed that the semicircles stuck out over the fountain on the second floor balcony. Seeing this, I decided to break a hole in the semicircles to allow water from one of the irrigation streams to flow downwards onto the center block of the fountain, creating an interesting waterfall effect.

Caaethil logged on one day and saw what I had constructed. He wasn’t too happy that I was building a massive structure that dwarfed everything else in Brazil and called it a “security liability.” Of course, I didn’t listen to him, and continued to build additions to my tower.

My next addition to my tower was an even larger farm that the ones on attached to the sides of my tower. I built outwards from my tower four staircases that each lead to a hollow quartz cube. Each of the cubes had ladders that lead to the top of the cubes. I connected the cubes with dirt blocks and made a giant square farm that towered over the rest of Brazil. These farms made me a lot of money through selling the crops in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Buenos Aires was an NPC city with admin shops that the players could use to buy and sell goods. While it was unfinished, I was able to sell my crops and buy more quartz for my tower. By selling all the crops from my tower every time I logged on, I became one of the richest players on the server.

Continuing to ignore Caaethil’s sighs of frustration, I built more additions to the tower. From the quartz cubes I built staircases going back to the center of the tower and built a glass platform over the center. On this platform I built a redstone elevator that took me high into the sky and surrounded it with glass. At the top of the elevator, I built a large quartz room with a glass extension that served as an observation deck of the area. Several quartz staircases extended from this room and represented plans for the future. I was planning on building a storage area, a dueling arena, and a meeting room for diplomatic purposes. Before disaster struck, I had built off of one of the staircases a circular ring around the tower. I was planning on building two elevators inside of the ring that would take two opponents to the top floor of the tower, the dueling arena. Unfortunately, as I just mentioned, disaster struck.

But I can’t end the chapter right here. There are still plenty of things to talk about that happened during this time, and I know that Brazil would practically crucify me if I didn’t include them.

One day when I logged on, I decided to search Brazil for secret rooms. I was sure that at least one member of Brazil had a secret room, and I was right.

Like me, Bookwyrm, a fellow member of Brazil, had also built a house along the wall. There was a sign in front of his house that announced it as “Bookwyrm’s Humble Hut!” I decided to take a look inside.

The inside of Wyrm’s hut looked normal enough. Like my house had been, it was constructed mostly of wood and had a few chests in the bottom. After a cursory glance around the hut, I decided to leave, but as I was turning toward the door, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned back around and saw a wooden button attached to one of the blocks in the corner. I couldn’t believe that I had almost been tricked by a button hidden in plain sight.

Hitting the button activated a retracting piston door that lead me down a staircase and a narrow, winding hallway to an evil throne room complete with lava lakes on either side. On the back of the throne, I found a lever that opened a hidden vault underneath the throne. The vault’s chests were empty save for Wyrm’s armor, sword, and shield.

After exploring Wyrm’s not so humble secret lair, I decided to booby trap it as a prank. I placed a couple of pressure plates in different areas of the hallway. One of them was linked to TNT, and the other one was linked to a piston that would take away the block in front of it and drown the player in lava.

A couple weeks later, Bookwyrm triggered the trap and freaked out, thinking that there was a spy or something in the base. Caaethil was also worried by my prank and called for the person who did it to admit to it. They never found out who it was that made those traps.

Another event that warrants inclusion in this chapter is the disbanding of “The Brotherhood.” The Brotherhood was a renamed version of Legion that MachoManCal lead. Caaethil and other Brazilians successfully defended the fort against the members of The Brotherhood until it eventually dissolved. One of the other members of the faction was Grubkiller, the person I framed for destroying Belgium. When he left Brotherhood, he announced that he would be leaving the server for good.

The final (and most important) event is Leif’s abuse. Leif, the same one that welcomed me to the server on my first day, had abused his power as admin by deleting all of Brazil’s NPC’s and replacing them with his own. Leif claimed that he had done so because Caaethil had abused his own powers by giving Brazil’s NPC’s an incredibly short respawn timer.

When Wolf looked into it, he saw that Caaethil did not abuse, so he did not punish him. The next day, Leif quit the server in a fit of rage and removed all of the NPC’s from the server. Then, Leif tried to hack into AlmondRaw’s admin account to continue the rampage after he was deopped. Leif was permanently banned from the server, or so we were told. A player named R9 was promoted to Leif’s old position of Admin, and Caaethil was promoted to the moderator position that R9 got promoted from.

Everything had been going relatively peacefully on the server, at least, for Brazil. I had been working on my tower and farming crops, and the rest of Brazil would log on for a bit and do whatever. MachoManCal and Grubkiller had returned to the server and were causing some trouble, but they were far, far away, in Europe. I had no idea that the destruction which had seemed so distant would soon be on our doorstep.

One day, while I was tending to business around Brazil, Grub logged in and asked me how to operate a cannon. Being the naïve and friendly person I was, I told him how even though he might use it against me, which he did. About 15 minutes after I had instructed him on proper cannon use, I heard an explosion coming from the southern wall. Realizing that Brazil was under attack, I searched through the chests around Brazil for some fighting gear. I found an enchanted bow in one of Tetra’s chests and decided to use it even though enchanted weapons were prohibited on the server.

Upon scaling the wall, I saw Grub in a tiny sky fort of cobblestone balanced on top of a nerd-pole and equipped with a cannon. My blood ran hot has I furiously loaded one of the cannons on the wall and aimed it. I managed to fire it, but the ammo I was using was not powerful enough to destroy the sky fort. Grub then unloaded his cannon full of TNT ammo, much more powerful than the cobblestone ammo I had been using, and blew up the area of the wall upon which I had been standing. I was blown to the side as my cannon was disintegrated along with some of the wall.

Desperately trying to defend my home, I began firing shots from Tetra’s bow at Grub. Unfortunately for me, R9 the moderator had been spectating the battle from inside the sky fort in survival mode, and I mistook him for an attacker. I killed him, and he immediately realized that I was using an enchanted bow since I had killed him too quickly. Then, as I began firing upon Grub, I realized that it was no use. Since Grub’s faction was neutral to Brazil, and he was in his own faction’s territory, my shots could not hurt him. He continued raining hell down on our base while R9 took me aside and berated me for using and enchanted bow. Meanwhile I was screaming at him that Grub was not playing fair since he was attacking without declaring the Templars enemies with Brazil. Finally, R9 confiscated the bow and destroyed it and then told Grub to stop attacking Brazil until the Templars became enemies with us. Grub complied, and I set to work making repairs to my tower, which had taken the brunt of the barrage.

A while later, Caaethil logged on, and he and R9 discussed a punishment for my use of the enchanted bow. They agreed on a 1 day ban and a strike towards a permanent ban from the server. I put up no argument; I had broken the rules after all. But, after I was banned, I began hatching a plot to get my revenge.

I would like to end this chapter with a bit of context on the relationship between R9 and Caaethil. While R9 was technically an admin, Caaethil and R9 were both seen as moderators, and there was a rivalry of some sort between them. Caaethil and R9 each had their own supporters who thought that they were the best moderator and disliked the other one, and there were very tense moments when R9’s faction came close to war with Brazil because, in everyone’s mind, abuse was a real possibility.

The Templars were setting up their siege equipment for an attack on Brazil, and there was nothing I could do to help Caaethil and the others save Brazil... or was there?

I launched a new version of Minecraft on my computer and messaged Caaethil and the others that a friend of mine was going to come on. When the Minecraft launcher opened, I changed the account to one that belonged to my friend, (after getting his permission to use it, of course) and I logged onto the server. When I joined, IggyPopsicles (MachoManCal) and ChargedV2, (a person who had been playing on the server for a while, formerly known as Brotato_) and they offered to recruit me into their faction.

I quickly gained the trust of IggyPopsicles and was promoted to member, which meant I was able to place and break blocks and open doors and chests. A plan soon formed in my mind.

I tabbed out of Minecraft and messaged some people I knew from another Minecraft server, The World of Notch (this server also has a long story I could tell) I was on and told them about the situation. Several of them agreed to help.

When my friends logged onto Total War, I vouched for them and got them into the Templars. When Iggy and Charged left the HQ* in Europe to build siege equipment at Brazil’s walls, a two of us began to place TNT around the base while the other two went to Brazil to “help”.

Unfortunately, the two who went to Brazil had hatched their own plot. They messaged Iggy and told them what I was going to do. I quickly crafted a lever and set off the TNT before they could kick me from the faction and ran from the base as it exploded. In Brazil, Iggy changed the faction home to where the siege equipment was being built and told me to go there. Upon arriving, he kicked me from the faction and said that he would forgive me if I infiltrated Brazil as a spy. Unbeknownst to him, I had already blown up his entire base.

Later, when Iggy found out that his base had been destroyed, he claimed that it had been an offline raid even though he was on at the time I set off the TNT. Also, one of the “friends” that betrayed me almost exposed my true identity, which could’ve gotten me permanently banned since I had dodged the temporary ban with an alternate account. Luckily, nobody connected the dots. At least, nobody said that they had.

*An interesting thing about the Templar base that I had blown up is that the Templars hadn’t built it. The base had been built by a player named King Logan. One day, the Templars attacked Logan’s base, and a fierce battle ensued. I went there to spectate and saw that the two sides were at a stalemate. This gave me the idea to build an arena for Iggy and Logan to duel in in order to decide who won. They went along with the idea and fought. Iggy won, so King Logan disbanded his faction and joined the Templars, transferring his base to them.

After Iggy told me to be a spy for him, the Templars logged off for the night. I alerted Brazil to the siege that could happen at any time. Before the siege happened, my temp ban expired, so I had no more use for my friend’s account. I logged on expecting to everything to be back to normal, but apparently being banned meant I had been kicked out of the faction. This was very, very bad. I told Caaethil to come on the server and add me to the faction before the siege started.

However, before Caaethil could get on the server to add me to the faction, Enderpig, a member of Brazil, joined. On Total War it was against the rules to log off if your base was getting sieged, so Enderpig was stuck on the server until backup could arrive. I was there to help him, but I could not place or break blocks inside of Brazil because I was not in the faction. Also, Enderpig was only a member, not an officer, so he did not have permission to add me to the faction. I had to make my own faction and declare war on the Templars to help him in the fight.

Despite being in a 2v4 where one of us couldn’t even access the base that was getting sieged, Enderpig and I put up a great fight against the Templars. Since I was not able to climb Brazil’s walls and use the cannons to blast Iggy and his pals off his siege tower, I decided to take the fight to them. The siege tower was built on top of a large unfinished ship I had been constructing which was outside of Brazil’s claims. I swam over to the deck and built a tower of my own to rival the Templar’s. Iggy was focused on blasting Brazil with a cannon, but a couple of his goons spotted me as a bridged towards them and got ready to fight.

The battle was wild; we were fighting on a tightrope stretched between two towers over the deck of a ship, with near certain death looming on both sides for anyone clumsy enough to lose their balance. It relatively easy to run on a one-block-wide bridge, but it becomes remarkably harder when arrows are flying at you. I managed to get my own bow from Enderpig though, so I was able to hit Grokky from a distance and momentarily distract him from firing the cannon. He fortified himself against arrow attacks, but the bridge to his tower was almost complete.

Enderpig and I fought the goons on the bridge. It was a rather perilous battle; I even got knocked off a couple times. However, I had a lot of experience with falling to my death from building my tower, and I was able to land safely in the water and climb back up. The Templars, not having the same experience that I did, fell to their deaths like noobs. Enderpig and I got a couple kills and were able to defend Brazil until Caaethil and Bookwyrm arrived.

Enderpig and I were relieved to see Caaethil and Tetra log on. Caaethil added me to the faction, and we came up with a plan to repel the siege. It turns out my tower and all the crops I farmed paid off. My money allowed me to purchase a large chest of war supplies. We set up some cannons on the tippity top of my tower, giving us a height advantage over the Templars. Caaethil, Enderpig, and Bookwyrm manned the cannons, and I jumped off the towers with an elytra for an aerial assault.

Our attack worked, and we managed to destroy the siege tower and chase the Templars around the outside of our base. They tried making another tower, but they eventually gave up and hid in a small water-covered base. Iggy spent the next 10 minutes arguing with a faction that was allied with both Brazil and Templars, demanding that they come to his aid. The leader of this faction, ScratchyErik2002, decided to remain neutral in a conflict between two of his allies, much to Iggy’s frustration. Meanwhile, the Brazilians rejoiced; the siege had been repelled!

Iggy would later claim victory for the Templars, citing the destruction of Caaethil’s keep as proof the siege was successful. I claimed victory for Brazil since my majestic tower, obviously much larger and more important than Caaethil’s keep, remained mostly intact.

This the only major battle between Brazil and Templars. Iggy tried a second assault by driving a ram into Brazil’s wall but, hilariously, his ram was stopped by a double chest that happened to be on the other side, preventing him from getting out of the ram on Brazil’s side. Eventually, Templars disbanded without ever capturing Brazil, making the Brazilians the clear winners of this war. I captured some screenshots (mostly chat) during the siege and posted them online here: https://templarssuck.weebly.com/ Also, some screenshots I took while being a spy can be found here: https://ispyspyspy.weebly.com/

Iggy remained on the server and became a hermit, living in his water fort outside of Brazil’s walls. He changed his skin to one of the members of the Beatles and converted the fort into a potato farm. He did not attack Brazil again, but there was one incident where he infiltrated my tower.

Apparently, the far edge of one side of my tower stuck out from Brazil’s claim, meaning anybody could build in this area. Iggy took advantage of this and built a grotto onto the side of my tower with a door connecting the two. This pissed me off, and I seriously considered blowing it up with a cannon. We never went to war again though, so there was no opportunity. Caaethil was a shrewd leader in the sense that he was not keen to start unnecessary conflicts.

I enjoyed the new period of peace for Brazil, but some problems arose within the peace. The members of Brazil were not very active. Caaethil, being the shrewd leader he is, only gave one person in the faction the officer rank, who happened to become very inactive. With a lack of action happening in our secluded area of the world coupled with a lethargic ruling class that was not available to handle pressing matters of the state, life in Brazil became very boring, until a new adventure called my name.

Brazil became very boring. I spent my days mindlessly grinding money and talking to players on the server. Although the server’s map was of the entire earth, most of the civilizations had settled in Europe. All of the action was happening across the ocean!

One day, I logged onto the server and saw that there was a conflict about to happen. It was Russia vs Mongolia and Germany. Fed up with my sedentary lifestyle, I decided to hit the road and watch the fight happen. I traveled all the way to Germany and spectated the battle.

I can’t quite remember whether it was on a whim or planned, but I took a bunch of screenshots of the conflict to share with everyone. I managed to get several high-quality screenshots. One of my favorites was a picture of two Russians crouching above a German right before they pounced on him.

I could not enter wars myself due to my ties with Brazil, which was isolationist, but I could show up to the battlefield as a neutral party to record what happened for the entertainment of everyone on the server. I set up the studio for Total War News outside of Germany since I was not interested in running back and forth from Brazil for every fistfight.

I made a weebly website for Total War News and called my segment “Last War Today”. I made blog posts with the screenshots I took from battles as well as some I took on my studio set. The program was well-received by the general plugin, and it seemed like I had found a new niche in the Total War community. However, despite being well-liked, I was not untouchable, as I would soon find out.

TWN website: https://romeandrussiavsgermanyandmongolia.weebly.com/