Cyprus

See also: Cyprus Space Program A city with a futuristic and modern aesthetic founded by Hyp3rion_ and FlowerPower in June 2020 officially, but with the first builds started by Hyp as early as November 2019 in the Old Spawn region.

= Cyprus Contributors and Recruitment = Cyprus has had many contributors since its founding but the primary ones of note are Hyp, FlowerPower, Jack, Toasty, Marbz, Zythose, lordpipe, SteveCraftBlocks, Mintty, Spenduh, Fuad_R, EcksD, eitanzaki, and many others.

Hyp's thoughts on contribution:
"We're always recruiting contributors who are good at building with redstone, are skilled modern and futuristic style builders, or are good at helping with maintaining the Cyp R Us and CLOUD 69 shops. That said, we have to be somewhat selective in our choices because I have high standards as a result of my efforts in maintaining a specific aesthetic, perhaps to my detriment in terms of progress speed. However, Cyprus has grown quite large as it is and I have no intention on lowering my standards just to grow faster. I always have paid well for help and will always appreciate people with something to contribute to the area."

= Cyprus Region Information = The settlement has become very developed with distinct areas and purposes. Cyprus sprawls quite a lot now, and the builds are dispersed over many thousands of blocks. There are builds in the range from (x: -6500, z: 32500) to (x: -4000, 36500), but the main Cyprus claim area is the jungle at (x: -5000, z: 33500) and the surrounding oceans and biomes within 5km for future development. These claims are made due to the lack of any nearby developments in the Old Spawn region and to preserve the very old terrain in this area, which is at least 3 years old at this point, excluding the 1.18+ chunks which are freshly unexplored and undeveloped for future Cyprus developments. Cyprus maintains a strong environmental protection agency and policies in order to preserve the unique beauty of Minecraft's terrain generation.

= Cyprus Distinct Areas =

Main Base Area
This area has Cyprus Tower, Cyprus Hall, Zythose Megalith, Cyprus Sky Gardens, Jack's Base, the trading halls, Animal Tower, and many other builds central to the character of Cyprus. This functions as the primary region of Cyprus with some scenic views as well. There are well-decorated farms and other functional builds integrated into the futuristic aesthetic here.

The Dynmap link encompasses this area: https://ultravanilla.world/#Z4,-5409,33472

Cyprus Village
Constructed nearly entirely by FlowerPower, this village of modern homes has a unique aesthetic of its own. With many quaint houses filled with details, this village is worth a visit in its own right.

This village is also nearby Hyp's starter village to the south, which is a fortified naturally generated village where he started his development of the area (respectfully out of the way so as to preserve the undeveloped integrity of the main jungle and reef area).

You can find this region here on the Dynmap: https://ultravanilla.world/#Z5,-5621,33756

Cyprus Jungle
While it is mostly empty at the time of this writing (August 2022), there have been some developments in the once-untouched jungle. Marbz has constructed a large mansion and is working on another in Marbz Bay (unofficial name) as well as a large mansion built by Hyp and sold to Spenduh for 3 stacks of diamond blocks at the south end of the bay. FlowerPower has built a large gray mansion in the southwest part of the jungle, and Hyp built a house for lordpipe for Christmas 2021 on an island nearby as well.

More recently in July 2022, a birch forest that spawned as part of the 1.18 terrain reset has been converted to a custom biome. This biome is like a lush cave that has surfaced, with many flowers, azalea trees, and mangrove trees added. This area will have modern homes added to it and will likely be its own neighborhood in its own right. Beyond the western portion of the jungle as described, there's also a very large area that is completely untouched with two jungle temples, rivers, lakes, and beautiful coastline, which is likely 1.13-1.14 terrain. This area has not had an official development plan but remains to be used in the future, likely for more modern mansions. The reason this remains undeveloped is because of the high standards and environmental protection, so when the time comes to develop it, it will be carefully planned and thought through.

Here's a focal region on the Dynmap: https://ultravanilla.world/#Z3,-4947,33714

Big Moo and South Cyprus Ocean
With the 1.18 update came the opportunity to get fresh land, and with this was an amazing opportunity to get an entire archipelago of huge mushroom islands and an expansive ocean to the south and west of the main Cyprus Jungle area. The biggest of the mushroom islands is now affectionately known as Big Moo, as it is quite large and contains many mooshrooms. Now, Big Moo's main function is a farm district, including many powerful farms such as a gold farm, a mob farm, and a guardian farm. There will likely be more farms placed on Big Moo, and there is a more lax building code here than the main jungle area due to the unsightly nature of certain farms, despite their functionality. This also has allowed Cyprus to have more access to farms that can't fit in in the main Cyprus area due to the difficulty of making them look nice and tidy in the futuristic aesthetic.

To the east of Big Moo, there's a medium sized island that has been entirely converted to grass for future use as Hyp's private island. It has yet to be developed but there will be a large mansion and facility that will function as Hyp's private residence.

To the southeast of Big Moo and the South Cyprus Ocean, there is a work-in-progress perimeter (as of August 2022). This will contain even more specialized mob farms.

The ocean itself contains over a dozen ocean monuments and six individual mushroom islands.

This region is highlighted in this Dynmap link: https://ultravanilla.world/#Z1,-4768,35210

MinttyFresh's Castle, Cyprus Arena, and Crater Island
MinttyFresh built a huge castle directly on top of an old mountain biome that was never fully utilized until he came around. Somewhat nearby is Cyprus Arena to the east, with a large undeveloped jungle island north of it.

To the northwest of Mintty's castle is a medium sized island used for charging creepers and is pockmarked with many craters. This area is off-limits to visitors for the time being due to its dangerous nature and because it stores many charged creepers to be used for gathering mob heads and other experiments with explosions. Before the 1.19 update, there was a swamp north of the Main Base area that served this function, but it was reset to become a mangrove swamp instead.

Cyprus Arena is a huge circular arena that has 2-way symmetry so it can be used for different PvP playstyles. Built in April 2022, it was originally built to feature the Olympics Finale but it will always be one of the biggest arenas on the server. It's suitable for 1v1s all the way to large team games and was designed with ranged elytra and bow battles in mind as well. It features honey block water elevators, a large game-start indicator light, fire charge cannons, a huge lava divider, bridges, tunnels, and towers. Jack and Hyp use it frequently to burn off steam from building complex farms and machines and to challenge opponents. There has yet to be an official Cyprus PvP Tournament but there likely will be one hosted at some point with a large prize, to be determined (August 2022).

The center of this area is in focus in this Dynmap link: https://ultravanilla.world/#Z3,-5499,32910

= Hyp's Rationale and Cyprus Development History = I initially started Cyprus around 40km from the Old Spawn region because I wanted a very specific biome combination: a large overlap of jungle biome and coral reef. Also, having been a factions player in the years before, and not having had much "trust-based" SMP experience and on an unfamiliar server especially, having a remote base to prevent nearby development and griefing was a desirable feature to me. In addition, the jungle and coral reef biome combination turned out to be quite rare and is part of the reason Cyprus is so far from Old Spawn.

When I first settled the area, there were already a couple small in the northern part of the jungle, made primarily by chipklip if I recall correctly. After contacting him, he said I have the full rights to the jungle. His build was a tunnel with one branch, with a small entrance on the surface. From inference, this was supposed to be something of a vacation home. This remains partially intact but it was derelict before I even developed my starter base further away. I have no plans to restore or preserve it but it remains there today. There's also a dug out hole in a hill near the coast slightly further north of this small development with a wooden dock. Eventually if I want to build here I will likely cover these up, but they remain for now.

From the beginning, I was enchanted by the beauty of this jungle and coral reef, so I strove to keep them as intact as possible, which is why even today you'll find that I design my builds to cover very little actual ground area, and to light up any shadows my large builds create. I cringe when I have to clear out trees, but sometimes it's necessary for builds. This is also part of the reason why many Cyprus builds are "around" the jungle or on small patches of it on top of water instead of directly placed on top of land.

That said, integrating builds into the jungle, while difficult, is the most rewarding because of the beautiful biome foliage color. We have many grass and foliage-infused builds as a result to take advantage of this biome color. This is best displayed for example in the Cyprus Sky Garden build.

Overall, I aim to achieve my initial goals when developing Cyprus which was to cover the whole jungle in beautiful modern and futuristic builds, but seeing as how far the sprawl of farms has gone, it's taking much longer than I anticipated. Perhaps once I have enough of the primary farms necessary to build mansions with a variety of blocks, I'll be able to focus more on decorative builds.

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