History of the Club

Introduction

La Gran Manzana club is the main club of a series of club branches where members move amongst themselves to participate in Club Wars in the Simcity BuildIt game.

The first branch to be founded was called Gran Manzana Sub, and was long in operation with the intention of recruiting new members to teach them all the tricks of War, to help in the big battles of La Gran Manzana Club. From this first branch came great members such as Cielos y Estrellas, Avi or New San Fernando.

Unfortunately it had to be abandoned due to a temporary cession of the presidency by Antis (founder of the club) to Arendelle, which, for unknown reasons, stopped playing, thus leaving the club destitute.

Among the current branch clubs is branch 1 (Isla Atlas -Elite-), which was founded to recover from the hard battles in La Gran Manzana, but given the level of its members, it soon reached too high a level for such a task and it was decided to found branch 2 (Isla Atlas), which currently fulfils the function of recovery!

All of them were founded by one of the most relevant members of the club, Atlantis. It currently has 5 cities (the aforementioned main city Atlantis, and its secondary cities, Antis, Sit, Tis and Atlantis), two of which preside over each of the two branches.

Veteran Members

The oldest member to date of La Gran Manzana is the president, Santa Fe, a very experienced and high-level gamer.

Later came Braavos, Tierras del Silencio and Zion, respectively. But many members before them were part of this club, expanding it in its early days!

The club was founded by La Gran Manzana giving his name to the club, a gamer of good standing but who ceased to be active, thus handing over the presidency to the aforementioned and current president Santa Fe.

The vice-presidents were Tierra de Leones and Almeraya, two of the most charismatic members in the club's history who, unfortunately, had to leave due to different circumstances and, together with other members such as Gades and Nerad, took the club to the 4th scenary in the Club Wars.

Later on, back in 2019, Braavos, currently the second oldest gamer in the club, joined the club. He joined without any experience and without knowing anything about War, but thanks to Santa Fe and Tierra de Leones he learned what he needed to be an important and top-level gamer today!

Later, the current vice presidents of La Gran Manzana, Tierras del Silencio and Zion joined the team. They also started out inexperienced, but with everyone's help they have become key players for the club.

Rising through the scenaries in Club Wars

Silencio, as he is also known, is an expert gamer in Club Wars and Club Challenge and together with Zion (pioneer in having second cities with low experience level) and his second city Zioncita, along with Santa Fe, Tierra de Leones and Braavos, took the club to a higher level in the battles making better scores but not managing to move up to scenary 5 in Club Wars.

Many new gamers joined but contributed very little and, for a while, the club stagnated in scenary 4. Despite being a very combative club, it was unable to climb to the desired scenary 5, frustrating some of its members, so it was decided to increase the club's membership with a higher war scenary.

Thanks to this, new members of a higher level joined the club, such as Entrepiernas, who, although his stay was short, contributed that little bit needed, added to the contribution of the veterans, to finally achieve the desired promotion to the scenary 5 of club wars!

Although the first experiences were negative, being defeated, the members of the club grew stronger every day and, although at the beginning it was an up and down, in a short time they finally managed to get a foothold in scenary 5!!!!

New moments

But the club's big shift towards excellence came with the entry of one of the most high-profile gamers in the club's history: Atlantis!

He joined in March 2020 and his entrance was a sensational one.

Although he did not have a very high War rank, he did have a lot of city experience, coming from a club he had been with for several years.

His calling card in the first War was to make a lot of commodities (nails, boards, vegetables, glue, paint, etc.), and leave them in his trade depot for everyone to repair more easily.

It was all a great help to everyone and was an absolute success!

It also encouraged each member to dedicate himself to a specific commercial building, and to put it at the service of the others, so that, in case you needed something specific from a commercial building, you only had to visit that member's trade depot to get it without the need to ask for it.

All of these and many other tricks were implemented and, to this day, remain hallmarks of the club's success.

Atlantis also incorporated its second city (Antis), a city of medium level but that provided the necessary plus to continue increasing the level of the club.

With all of this and the addition of many new top gamers such as Terminus, Bencity, Otter Beach, and Nuevo Toledo, the club reached scenary 6 of War, the highest level possible, a place it would never leave again!

Ups and downs of the club

The club was consolidated with a very stable and competitive team, but in a bad losing streak of the club, several important members decided to leave like New Toledo or Terminus without much justification and, Bencity and Otter, mostly because of the difficulty of communication as they are English speaking.

These were very important losses that the club undoubtedly suffered! But, far from giving up or giving in, the club tried to pull itself together as quickly as possible.

That was where Braavos and Atlantis took matters into their own hands and established a very special bond, where they agreed on all the ideas of one or the other with great humility and respect, with the ambition to continue growing to higher heights, always respecting the rank of each one and always consulting with the president Santa Fe, who never put problems to the proposals presented.

Improving and strengthening the club

In this way, thanks to the new membership proposals and requirements, a new batch of members joined the club and, although many of them were inexperienced, they made up for it with the enthusiasm and dedication they showed.

Cities like Life, Checoville or Bosque de Alamos soon made a slot for themselves and became very important parts of the club!

The team was always very hard fighting and competitive, and became a winning club, but the growth made the opponents harder and harder to win. So the wear and tear in each war was at its maximum and it was decided to only fight on Fridays to be able to recover during the week and thus be more competitive.

At that time, another of the most active members joined the club, Bahia Negra, supportive and supercompetitive, which added to the growth of Checoville and Life, the club became very powerful. The great strength of the club was that there was always someone on guard.

Más competitividad y nivel

The super promotion to elite level came with a visit from Nubba, who came into the club to buy cards and returned to her club. But quickly Essos (second city of Braavos), followed her to battle in his club, meet her and offer her to participate in a war in La Gran Manzana, which she accepted.

Nubba's level was stellar, but not only that! She was a great partner and collaborator, and she didn't come alone, she brought with her two other cities, Dana and Nuca, also of a very high level, and Playa Chip, another member of her club, also of a very high level!

The whole club was enchanted with them for their good work and for expanding the team exponentially and, in turn, they were enchanted with the club for the continuous activity and competitiveness.

This is how La Gran Manzana club has become a spectacular club, with a solid base of members, in addition to Cielos y Estrellas, Avi or New San Fernando, members coming from Gran Manzana Sub (subsidiary club founded by Antis), who, despite starting from scratch, and thanks to the teachings of Antis and the great commitment of all of them, have reached a spectacular level, expanding the level of the club even more if possible.

Excellence!

But the most important thing, and what makes the club very special and makes everyone who joins want to stay, are the people who make it up: good people, companions and supportive; the greatest virtue of the club!!!.

* Editor: Braavos.

Gran Manzana Sub is the first club branch of the main Gran Manzana club (grey shield) of Simcity BuildIt.

The creation of the first branch came from the idea of having another club to recruit new members with the potential for battles, although it was also thought as a way to easily battle with big cities and recover War Simoleons (purple coins).

After the departure of several important members of the main club it was necessary to do something different than waiting for new gamers to decide to join Gran Manzana club, so it was decided to go looking for new members while creating the new branch.

In October 2020 the branch was finally founded under the name "Gran Manzana Sub". The club was created with the city Antis (second city of Atlantis), so that the city of Essos (second city of Braavos) would go for other clubs seeing the possibility of recruiting new assets, apart from helping this club to start growing.

The name of the club is derived from the original "La Gran Manzana" and "Sub" indicating that it was below the first. Due to the restriction on the number of characters in club names, "Gran Manzana Sub" was chosen.

From this branch club came such important gamers as Cielos y Estrellas, Avi, New San Fernando, or Arandelle, among others.

Anecdotes

Initially the club had quite a few anecdotes. One of them was the belief that if all the major cities were to battle there, it would be an easy war to collect the War Simoleons. So one of the first, if not the first war, many of the major tier cities of La Gran Manzana went to battle in the new branch. The surprise was when in the matching, most of the opponents were hackers (crackers). Atlantis' surprise made some gamers in the chat room say "...but what the f...", something that some gamers remember fondly. Of course, that War was lost. The second battle was exactly the same, so it was decided to go back to the big cities, back to La Gran Manzana, and continue with the small ones in this newly created club.

Another anecdote of this subsidiary was the very hard beginnings. People didn't join, and it was very hard to reach the minimum of 10 gamers to start doing continuous wars.

Loss of the club

The loss of the club branch was due to an unfortunate concatenation of events.

At the time, Antis was the only secondary city in Atlantis, and after many months stuck in the club branch, he decided to give up the presidency to go out and do battle in the main club and/or other clubs. At that time Cielos y Estrellas was fully trusted, and he handed over the presidency to her without any problem.

After the successful ceding of the presidency, Cielos y Estrellas left the club to return the presidency, and it went to Arendelle, another fully trusted and active gamer. Arendelle, at the time, told Antis that she did not want the presidency, but Antis trusted her and assured her that nothing was wrong, to be calm and to make Antis vice-president, which he did immediately.

As the weeks went by, Arendelle began to play less and less until one war when she didn't show up. It was then that Antis asked her, and she replied that she was taking a new job in two days and could barely get into the game. After the jet lag between Chile (Arandelle) and Spain (Antis), the latter's response was to pass the presidency on to her.

Unfortunately, at that time, a senior (with the ability to activate battles), who even Antis does not remember his name, activated a club war. Arandelle replied, already in the War, that without any problems, he tried but could not do it because the war had already started. From then on, Arandelle disappeared completely, and the club was left with only one vice-president (Antis), which had dire consequences for months.

With the president gone and only one vice-president, Gran Manzana Sub was left at the mercy of Antis' actions as vice-president. This city was locked out of the club forever, because as the only vice-president (and without the president's action), if Antis left, the club would be left without any control; and if he got back in, there would be no vice-president to promote him to senior to have a modicum of control. Furthermore, the seniors don't even have the ability to remove gamers, so in the event of any eventuality with any of them, the club could not defend itself.

Blocked for months since January 2021, and leaving notes to Arandelle continuously, Antis contacted the developers of the game after 4 months of absence of the president, giving him an answer, to say the least, unusual: "they could not do anything because they could not kick anyone out and besides that gamer had created that club and they were not the ones to remove the president". It is clear that the developers did not understand ANYTHING about the letter that Antis sent them, and we were constantly seeing how the developers were kicking people out of the clubs because they suspected them of being hackers.

This last news was the beginning of the announced end of that club branch.

What happened to the "Gran Manzana Sub " club in the end?

Antis, just before he stepped down as vice-president of the club (in about June 2021), promoted all the members of the club to Seniors, so that if anyone wanted to stay, they could activate battles. Nobody would be able to control the incoming and outgoing gamers, but at least they could enjoy what little the club could offer them anymore. There were people who stayed there at the announcement, and, at the time of writing, are still there.

* Editor: Atlantis.

After the imminent loss of the branch "Gran Manzana Sub", the creation of another club "from scratch" was initiated.

Atlantis created a third city called Tis (currently La Atlantida), to create the new club. He knew it would take months before the club had enough capacity for the gamers to leave "Gran Manzana Sub" for good. Atlantis asked Braavos for the name to create the new club, and Braavos suggested a name that had to do with Atlantis, since this gamer was going to create it.

The actual origin of "Atlantis", as described by Platón in his "Timeo y Critias" texts, is from a great warrior island called Atlas Island, which existed some 9,500 years before Christ in the Atlantic Ocean. It is not known whether the stories are true or a invention.

This is where the club's name comes from: "Isla Atlas", which was the initial name before being changed to "Isla Atlas -Elite-" in October 2021.

The Beginnings

The club was created in May 2021.

Although it was thought that the beginnings would be as hard as in the creation of "Gran Manzana Sub", the truth is that they were not. And the greatness of the club lies in its gamers, who give everything for others and the club itself, both in easy and difficult moments.

Gamers like Cielos y Estrellas, Nubba, or Braavos, gave up their second cities (Raccon City, Nuca. Mese, or Volantis) and even gamers like Avi moved to play in the new subsidiary to expand the club since its creation. In about a month, the club achieved club level 3, and in a few more days, the long-awaited level 4, which opened the door to the "big transition".

Final move from "Gran Manzana Sub" to "Isla Atlas".

In June 2021, Antis resolutely left the first subsidiary to begin what would be a new stage in the new club. Antis was leaving the vice presidency of the club he founded, allowing him freedom of movement between clubs. And the first War he did, after at least 6 months of blocking, was in "La Gran Manzana" together with his main city Atlantis, and many other gamers.

Evolution of Isla Atlas and name change

The fact that all the big cities went to Isla Atlas as a recovery club, expanded the club to scenary 6 quite quickly. So much so, that in October 2021 a third club had to be created to keep the level low and serve as a recovery club for large cities coming from hard battles from "La Gran Manzana". And in Isla Atlas it was already difficult to win battles.

So after the creation of this third club, the name of Isla Atlas was changed to Isla Atlas -Elite-, with the objective of being a select club where only the cities with level and availability would do battles against rivals of great complexity.

Isla Atlas (the current Isla Atlas) is the third club created from the main club "La Gran Manzana". Its creation was due to the need to create a new recovery club.

Once it was decided that it had to be created, Atlantis ceded a club it had created since July 2021, which it owned as a place to leave some of its 5 cities while playing with others. It already had level 2 club, which avoided the initial "bottleneck" in the creation of the club, and the dreaded confrontations with banned hackers that could occur in the scenary 1 of war.

While it was owned by Atlantis it had several names: "Almacén", "Exnaltados", or "Exnatados".

Once owned by the club, the name Isla Atlas was adopted, and both clubs remained for some weeks with the same name, but with a different crest. This Isla Atlas was green, indicating "Initiation", and the older one kept its blue color in the shield.

At the end of November 2021 it reached club scenary 4.

The idea of the club's web arose as a result of some tests of some advanced versions of Content Management software that Atlantis had to do for his work. Taking advantage of the fact that the tests had to be done with content, simulating a case as real and diverse as possible, he used the club's own content.

About a week before starting the tests, he was asking in the club's chat for all relevant data (history, gamers, tricks, etc.).

These tests started on Sunday, December 5, 2021, and ended two days later (Tuesday, December 7). At the end, all the structure and part of the actual content was done (including images), and Atlantis took advantage of the work to continue developing a private website that would be useful for all club members.

The logo was created on December 9, 2021, inspired by the letters "Build It" from the game logo. It was incorporated into the website immediately, in the header and in the copyright.

The website was created privately (as an Intranet) with password access for two reasons: when it was shown to the club members on Sunday, December 12, 2021, it was unfinished, and; the Internet output of the website required some internal parameters that were not done and needed some time and study, to guarantee the success on the net (besides that an exclusive domain could be purchased for the website).

Since its creation, the usefulness of putting it on the Internet was valued because:

• given the infinity of tricks that were going to be shown, it could have great success;
• old gamers, who over time have disappeared, could return due to the indexing of Internet search engines;
• it could serve as a recruiting ground for new gamers, as the site offers a way to contact the club.

The website is online since Sunday, 6-2-2022, at 15:05h.

The web is in continuous expansion of content, thanks to the information provided by all the components of the club, and the SEO work is maintained until the end of March 2022.

Both the logo and the website were updated in January 2024, being available in February 2024.

2021 (December)

The club's current situation could not be more active. As of December 19, 2021, there are 22 fully active gamers (plus 2 or 3 who play intermittently), with more than 35 cities in play.

The "Isla Atlas" club (at club level 4) is used, at this date, as a starting club for inexperienced gamers, and as a recovery for cities that have battled in the higher level clubs. Battles in this club are quite continuous.

The club "Isla Atlas -Elite-" (at club arena 6, the maximum level of the game at this moment), is used for tough and competitive battles. They are organized approximately every week and only leveled gamers go, whose availability is high in the two days the war lasts. It reached 681st place in the world club ranking on 2-2-2022 with 4495 points.

La Gran Manzana club (in club arena 6 as well) is the original club and we do something similar to the Isla Atlas -Elite- club. Some old members are kept there, and we all like to get together. We usually do war there every 10 days or so.

2022 (March)

In March 2022, there are more than 28 active gamers, and the "Isla Atlas" club is at war arena 6 with more than 4100 points. La Gran Manzana club has been momentarily abandoned after the unknown inactivity of the president and fellow Santa Fe.

Braavos creates in February 2022 a new club called "ESSOS", which as of March 11 is bordering on level 3 battle.

And the website, with hardly any visits from search engines due to lack of initial indexing, continues to grow in visits thanks to social networks and its own promotion in the SimCity BuildIt game chats. Its content continues to grow.

2022 (November)

In the evolution of every club, there are special moments. And November is one of them, with the creation by Atlantis of a YouTube channel to show in video the tricks of the game. No hacks or hacking, just good manners, best practices and real tricks of the game. The channel is:

youtube.com/@AtlantisIslaAtlas

The new channel will be launched on November 15th, although it has been prepared since September of the same year.

But in addition, at this moment there are already new clubs added to Isla Atlas:

• ESSOS (Escudo Águila)
• Carlota
• Continuus
• Maple Pecan -Chicou-
• Tzanjuyub
• Asturies

All maintain the internal rules of club membership, forming a new big family of colleagues and friends. And also the original clubs are maintained:

• Isla Atlas
• Isla Atlas -Élite-
• Isla Atlas 2 (third club created by Atlantis)

2023 (April)

After the first 6 months since the creation, the first stage of the YouTube Channel ends, with 77 videos uploaded and a little more than 300 subscribers. It seems that the videos are well received, so the improvement of these is studied during the following 2 months, to maintain the quality of the videos and the interest that they arouse.

2023 (June)

The second stage of the channel begins, improving the resolution quality of the videos (up to 4K), with improved audio, and new components that maintain the interest in the videos of the channel and, in some videos, comments are opened to interact with followers offering a new interaction between all.

At the beginning of this stage on Sunday, June 18, 2023, the channel has 450 subscribers.

2023 (July)

Braavos, great companion and friend, has to leave the game. He leaves his Essos club in charge of Davitta (who, for personal reasons, is replaced for the moment by Sara, who owns two cities). Braavos leaves all his cities outside Isla Atlas, with no prospect of returning to the game. He has been a great master of War. Everyone wishes his return. He is the biggest casualty of the club since its foundation.

2024 (January)

The YouTube Channel begins its journey in English. The videos start to be seen in English on January 4, 2024, experiencing more views than the Spanish homonyms in their day.

In this month the S U B L I M EX club joins the Isla Atlas group, captained by Leg7ionman, who starts from scratch in arena 1 of battles.

Braavos, Cielos and Avi, three old playmates, come back together from time to time to play Isla Atlas.

2024 (March)

The Discord server is enabled, with multiple rooms to share information about the game and the latest information among like-minded people. In the same way as Telegram, but more adapted to games, Discord offers more advantages, better access, and greater control and integration with YouTube.

2024 (April)

On April 14, 2024 the new website is released, much more professional, after 3 months of development; together with the private (and paid) YouTube channel. Both are released at the same time as complements to the public channel, offering what no other channel can offer about SimCity BuildIt: exclusivity, membership, advanced visibility of public videos, access to the private area of the website, and access to a Discord group for in-game consultations.