RomeCraft II

#### About

RomeCraft II (alternately RomeCraft 2, RC2, or RomeCraft: Mithridatvm in reference to the server) is an upcoming resource pack for Minecraft 1.20.1 hosted by Atexur. The current release date based on current progress is towards the beginning of Q2 2024.

#### Beginnings

From 2021 to early 2023, the RomeCraft 2 discord server shows its origins as a series of prospective historical settings, with Atexur and Williamhansolo discussing ideas for late Roman settings based on AngloCraft's success (a server based on the Viking Age in Britannia), and Kingdom (a now defunct medieval-based roleplay server).

Atexur and NinthAquila created the idea of RomeCraft: Mithridatvm with the intent of establishing a new server based around the Asiatic Vespers of the Mithridatic Wars circa 88 BCE, focusing on a small number of player-refugees which would roleplay through a number of maps. Storylines would be planned out to span a number of months, ranging from the initial days of the city, growing tensions between Roman and Greek citizens, and culminating in the murder of the Romans.

Work began on the resource pack towards the start of the second half of 2023. The team, consisting of Atexur, Ryukurock, Clintorus, Williamhansolo, NinthAquila and a small number of others had broad experience with servers and were veterans of RomeCraft, though with limited experience in development. Atexur took on the mantle as the lead developer for much of the resource pack, learning how to create new models, add new textures, and create his own pixel art. Quirnalis, Sammich (of Antiqua Italia), and Dwarfosi (of AngloCraft) all contributed with advice and assets. Atexur reached out to other RomeCraft veterans, and invited korean to the team as a historian in early August. Notably, korean disagreed with the concept of what he described as the 'successor' servers post-Stugace, believing them to be too small in scope and too restrictive and a core reason as to why the playerbase had been declining.

Atexur and korean refined the concepts behind the RomeCraft project, and established the new resource pack as RomeCraft II, and the next server to be RomeCraft: Mithridatvm. Seeing the successes of servers such as Stoneworks and Mvndicraft, the two prompted the rethinking of Mithridatvm; rather than having the focus being upon a small amount of people in a small area with an emphasis on hardcore roleplay, the idea became instead to look at the popularity of Minecraft and the original RomeCraft, and emphasise building civilisations, roleplaying in them, and fighting between them. RomeCraft: Mithridatvm was expanded in scale as a result, with a main survival map of Anatolia and the Levant and a number of smaller focus maps to appeal to players new and old alike.

##### Information

As lead developer, Atexur repaired and reorganised many broken assets with the help of MinerFox, and created many of his own. With RomeCraft II, the ambition of the team is to allow as many cultures as possible to be featured, with notable inclusions being Rome, the Greek cities, Celts, Germans, Scythians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, and more. Reer123 is presently designing the new map of Anatolia and the Levant, while Rykurock is currently developing custom mobs for the pack, beginning with changes to basic hostile mobs as representatives of different cultures, and having recently being working on expansion to Mithridatvm's Tartarus world. Korean serves as lead historian, providing not just research and historical expertise, but pages of fluff when the need arises.