1,200 players, 60 days without admins or rules – how Minecraft spawned nations, wars and smuggling

Over two months without a single administrator or imposed rules, more than 1,200 unique players in Minecraft created a complete political map with borders, trade routes, embargos, prisons, libraries and even smuggling. The Eden server, inspired by the legendary CivCraft, has become an unusual experiment in recent weeks.

Eden's principle is simple in theory and incredibly complex in practice. The server runs on a vanilla client – no mods or special launchers needed to connect, but the server side is modified with plugins that fundamentally change gameplay dynamics. The main innovation is regional resource binding, so certain crops and ores are only available in specific biomes.

If your nation settled in the tundra, you desperately need cacti and sand from the desert, and you can only get them through trade – or war. This forces players to talk to each other rather than just hide in a hole. Solo play is intentionally harsh, as experience can't be gained from mobs, and advancing through the tech tree requires expensive factories that need diverse resources from across the map.

Several key mechanics maintain order on the server. The Citadel system allows reinforcing blocks with stone, iron or diamonds – a diamond-reinforced block must be broken up to 2,500 times before it breaks. This makes griefing not impossible, but extremely costly, as destroying a city takes days instead of seconds. The ExilePearl system allows imprisoning a killed player in the Nether if the killer had an ender pearl on their hotbar at the moment of the victim's death. The imprisoned player remains in the Nether until the jailer feeds the pearl with essence – a resource obtained through daily server activity.

Essence is also needed for crafting armor, tools and experience, so holding a prisoner becomes an active choice – is this person worth keeping imprisoned? The pearl's location is visible to the entire server, and other players can mount rescue operations to free the prisoner. Finally, the JukeAlert system allows placing sensors from note blocks that record all actions within range and can even send notifications to Discord. The nation of Auora, for example, covered its entire border with sensors and knows exactly who enters and exits its territory.

Over 60 days, the Eden world map changed beyond recognition. On day 30, it had several major nations:

• Köniwanzu – a huge territory in the frozen north, founded by a leader who traveled over 10,000 blocks from spawn point to snowy lands with his first settlers

• Auora – a northern nation with developed infrastructure and a strategic outpost in another biome for extracting resources unavailable at home

• Yeetistan – a state on a mushroom island whose main exports are leather and beef. Yeetistan has grown its population and can now back up its territorial claims with real force. The capital Shroom Harbor's administrator reported the nation began building a rail network between cities.

• Tianguo – this massive white territory in the west appeared almost out of nowhere. It's an Asian-themed nation maintaining strict isolationism

• Svearike declared a huge section of the southern desert a Free Territory – something like a national park. Whether they can hold these lands remains an open question

• Zenith – a one-person state whose builder creates magnificent structures and plans to open a casino

One of the most interesting stories was the fall of New Bosnia. Six soldiers from this nation attacked the New Beginnings shop at map center coordinates 0,0, run by player DoomControl, nicknamed the "Eden Cowboy." In battle, DoomControl lost ally CaroleBastion – who was pearled to the Nether. But then DoomControl single-handedly defeated all six attackers, sending them into exile, freed his comrade and went on a raid against remaining New Bosnians. New Bosnia effectively ceased to exist.

Trade became the world's circulatory system. Recently the server experienced a real embargo – an unprecedented event for Minecraft. Reports emerged of smugglers secretly transporting resources to Nether-imprisoned players through portals. One imprisoned player managed to become richer than most free citizens simply by trading Nether materials from behind bars. Players even created a Printing Press – a factory mechanic for mass book production, and real libraries began appearing across the server with chronicles of wars and diplomatic events. The world's history already includes 40-page books.

The community compares Eden to EVE Online and a game of Civilization, and one user noted:

People here run entire nations with embargos and national parks, and I'm still trying not to starve to death in Minecraft.

The server is open to everyone, supports both Java and Bedrock, and according to creators will run for years. The Eden world map measuring 20,000 blocks across continues changing every day. Server IP address: play.edenmc.world for those wishing to join. There's also an official Discord and Wiki.