Development

## Beginnings

Development on Imperia first began as a concept about an idea for a new server. One that would stand unique from the rest by having its own aspirations and desires, one that would satisfy the dreams of most towny players out there.

Initially, however, Imperia was not a server. It was an idea for a new plugin, as it was believed that the limitations of Towny force servers to have a specific playstyle, one that servers can not expand upon well. This idea was backed by CoinCoin, who was planning to be a developer for it, if it he had time. However, this idea was quickly dropped as realizations of the time and effort required appeared. Instead, the Staff & Development Team opted for a new server that would expand on the limitations provided by other plugins as much as possible.

## Naming

The server went under the alias "PoliticaMC" for a short while before a proper name was chosen. After several days of careful consideration, shifting through other names such as LegatioMC, AthenaMC, and DiploMC, "Imperia" was settled upon.

The two logos that were created are displayed below.

## Concepts

The original plan was for the server to be centered around Phonon Nodes, a system similar to towny, with a larger emphasis on controlled territory and nations being split into "nodes" containing resources. However, due to limitations around version incompatibilities, the idea was scrapped in favor of Towny. In order to ensure a fresh experience, many goals were set at the start, and only a select few made it to launch.

### Eras & Claiming

This is the point where the server-defining system of Eras & Claiming were introduced. Rather than a concept executed by a plugin or commands, it was merely a concept executed by roleplay, and rules, of course. The claiming system was first introduced as a way to make geopolitics real, and to keep players from going to war unless they absolutely need to, giving a sensation of accomplishment. Eras were introduced to set the server in a more dynamic light, one that wouldn't be defined by "do whatever you want." A start date for the era bounced around all the way from the 1910s to the 2000s, until 1910 was chosen due to its interesting borders and geopolitics for the time, where players could either choose to try and re-live their nation's glory, bring it to said glory, or go on a completely different alt-historical route.

### Wiki

Following the finishing touches on the Era and Claiming system, the Wiki was founded for players to share and remember their experiences on the server. The first pages on the Wiki were obviously the ImperiaMC Wiki main page and its subsequent pages, along with the nation of the German Democratic Republic (nation) and the sports league World League of American Football (WLAF).

The wiki remains available for all users to edit as they wish, and is encouraged. The goal of the server is to have a community that is connected and caring.

### Server Map

After this point, there were two issues left to be tackled: the server map, and the matter of advertisement. Obviously, the server map was the higher priority.

As builders, the development team loved larger scales, and wanted scales closer to 1:200 and 1:100. However, due to Minecraft 1.18's new terrain taking up double the amount of space, it became impossible to host scales past 1:200 and very difficult to host 1:200 scales, especially on cheaper networks as the server was not exactly planned to be running on a top-notch server. Instead, the next largest scale that could theoretically be used was 1:326, which was still hovering at ~450 gigabytes. In order to save on additional space, the server map was reduced to not include the very northern regions and Antarctica.

### Advertisement

Following the completion of the map, it was time to begin advertising. The discord would be posted on server lists and set for a release date in the near future.

### Post-Launch

Upon the time of writing, this part is yet to continue, and is to be seen as what is to come.