So I started over my world. Did I really need clay -- not at all, but it was an excuse to start over. I'm weird like that.... one could ask why I dont just keep my old world.... but for some reason I only want to play one.
As such, my huge castle (Castle Catoblepas) is now gone with the wind.
Before you begin, decide if the castle is going to have a keep or not. Keeps are pretty good for keeping the spawn out, and any Creepers you encounter while going out in the morning are likely to just take out keep wall, and not your precious architecture. But, if you add one after the fact, you're gonna have windows viewing nothing but wall, which looks dumb. If you are playing on Peaceful, there's really not much use for it.
Take note of your elevation. A caslte on the hilltop/mountaintop is awesome -- majestic. But be mindful that will limit your vertical capacity. For instance, on my new world, I scoped out a huge mountaintop for my new castle, but noticed the cloudline was a mere 10 squares up. You only have about 10 more squares after that, and as I like to make 5-space-high floors (with carpet, adding another floor), that's not going to give me a lot of room. That's only gonna be like 4 stories.
Build your castle with practicality in mind. Useful rooms should be one floor of the entrance. Aesthetic rooms like libraries, art galleries and so forth should be on upper levels. Scaling stairs through frivolous rooms so you can go to your bed chamber on the 5th floor gets really old after a while.
Build a fireplace: set sandstone (or another rock thats not stone or cobblestone) around in an O shape against the wall and then put a line in front of it. Now pour lava into the 3-square long indentation. Its not just for looks -- you can use it as your garbage disposal... just walk up to it (the mantle will stop you from touching the lava if you built it right) and drop items into the fire.
Unless you are playing on hard difficulty, resist using iron doors if you have multiple entrances. Yes, they look awesome, but they also can only open on one side, and if you didn't leave through that way, you can't get in.
BUILD CHAMBERS FOR YOUR CHESTS. Please, please, please take this one away if nothing else. You do NOT want a Creeper exploding behind you while you are rifling through a chest, because it WILL destroy items in the chest. Having 12 diamonds get vaporized is not fun, on top of having to scramble to collect dozens of items and put them in temporary chests before they decay. I really think the Creeper spawn is broken, and in a large room, one could pop into existence even if you are sure its bright enough. But if you make a little 4x4 closed area lined with torches and a door, the Creeper wont explode right next to the chest (if you open the door and whack him back).
Tag your lava levels. I enjoy making lava moats. Something makes me smile about monsters falling into a fiery doom without any effort from me (even though I lose the chance to loot their items), but I have been burned before (literally) because I'm working on a level beneath the level and "HELLO!!!" here comes a magma shower. Or you could be working mining through lava, and then come downstairs to find you now have Pompeii's Last Day in your basement. To prevent this, pick a certain rock type (bricks a good choice) for the bed of your lava flows. Brick does not occur unless you place it, so if you see it, it's your sign that there's lava above this brick. It will avoid unpleasant surprises.
Don't Build The Borg Ship. Purely aesthetic squabble, but many people just build a gigantic stone box for their castle. Castles should have a tiered look, where upper levels are thinner than lower levels, and spires are used as well for decoration. Building a big stone crawdad tower is functional but lacks flair.
Use Carpet. Sheep wool makes fine carpet, as you can dye it. A nice sandstone room with a red carpet looks much more classy than just a dank cobblestone chamber. Just remember that it takes a LOT of wool to fill a room. Black is good, but black is also a pain in the butt to get if you don't have a squid farm somewhere.
Beware of Iceberg Building. This is a problem I had with Castle Catoblepas. As I kept building, I ran out of room up top, so I started to delve sublevels in the basement. After about the fourth level, the entrance (ground level) was further and further away. This makes the whole castle flow lopsided. Its silly to go up, enter, just to go down again. This one is kind of tied to #2.
Keep Window Symmetry in mind. It's easy to see where to place windows from the inside. The problem is, you need to have the windows line up, or it looks weird from a distance. The windows need to line up, and if they are in the same trunk (ie the keep, the second level) they should probably be the same dimensions. Bilateral symmetry is usually good: [][][][][][][][][][] should look like []WWW[][]WWW[].
Netherrack adds a nice effect on spires. Eternal flames punctuating the tops of your spires look pretty cool. Just be ready for the constant crackle SFX... not as annoying as nonstop barking, but still can get old.
Build a dungeon. I posted earlier about the one I did. It's like this. Build a sizeable chamber, preferably in a low level of your castle. I'd build at leas 20x20. Then build yourself a wall of glass so you can see what you have in there, and a walkway at the very top (be sure its at least 4 squares up), also of glass. Now where the glass meets the floor, build some lava blade grinders, and a stream of water underneath. Viola... you now have a resource machine. If the monsters arent getting near the lava, hop up on the walkway to lure them in that direction (make sure theres at least one hole so they can detect you).
NEVER build anything out of Gravel or Sand with a castle. Why? Because they collapse when theres a space beneath them, totally messing up your design. Use sandstone or regular stone instead.
Keep in mind, the larger the room, the harder it is to light. Once an area is 7 or lower, you're running the risk of a Creeper appearing any time, especially if you only mount torches on walls. So...
Build Chandeliers. I use wood blocks... just pop two together, and then line it with torches. Better yet, use glowstone (but dont worry about the torches at that point, it doesnt really get you anything to add them).
Level out the land around your castle. When you come out in the morning, your first priority should be to locate where the creepers are (in the morning, there's gonna be 3-4 around your castle, guaranteed). Keeping a hill-grade around your castle is just asking for one to ambush you. A good vantage view of level land does wonders prevent this from happening.
A courtyard can be handy for suicide. Boy that sounds messed up, but its true in Minecraft. If you are down to one heart, in your own castle, just climb to your highest castle point and fall off into your courtyard. You won't lose any of your items, as they will all be contained safely, and you're gonna respawn not too far away. Beats gobbling up resources for the same effect.
I got more but that's plenty to start. Thoughts? Feedback? Derision?
Awesome post, it's obvious you have some pretty extensive knowledge on castle building. I myself also take a fancy to building castles, but now that I've moved to the Xbox version of Minecraft, I've built things out of practicality instead of looks. When I did start a castle, though, It looked nice and was practical, but was just very short on room since I built it on a mountain. With my new castle, I want to focus on making the dungeon and basement creepy and maze-like to deter my friends from stealing. How do you think I should do this?
Although it is possible to open iron doors both ways.
How? I tried putting a switch on both sides, and one would never respond. Oh, and I don't know if its a bug, but I noticed when you put two iron doors next to each other, the switches will never align (one is up, one is down). Is there a way to fix that?
Put a button or pressure plate on both sides of the door and it'll open. If you use a lever, it constantly sends a signal, so the door stays open. With buttons or pressure plates, the signal is only temporary
From what I've seen from people talking about double iron doors, you have to invert one of the doors in order for it to work as it should.
I like to use netherack instead of lava for fireplaces. Gives you a nice crackling fire. Of course I burned all the wood flooring off my castle the first time I tried it.
How? I tried putting a switch on both sides, and one would never respond. Oh, and I don't know if its a bug, but I noticed when you put two iron doors next to each other, the switches will never align (one is up, one is down). Is there a way to fix that?
I've done it, but Don't know how to explain it.
Uhhh.
1.)Place the door.
2.)place a level to the left of it.
3.)place a lever to the right of it.
4.)flip the lever on the left. go to other side.
5.)place another lever
6.)break the lever that has already been flipped.
I don't remember how to do it, but both levers need to be in the up position when the door is open.
I like to use netherack instead of lava for fireplaces. Gives you a nice crackling fire. Of course I burned all the wood flooring off my castle the first time I tried it.
lol, yah me too. i had a wooden house and i didn't put stone around my fire place on a server and when i went back on, my house was burned to the ground. Lol!
The only problem I have with this is #5: you can make one that opens for one side, but also one that opens for both sides. Just put a button on both sides and you're good to go.
Yes,yes i have it! Dispensers of arrows Dispensers of arrows with lava chest full of equipments lot of Iron Golem army gate me archer sword clothes enchanted Put flags PREPARE FOR WAR!!!!!!Single Player i don't have mods here tryminecraftforfree.com name Player! : S
What version should I do it in?
I love the end, and the new blocks, but I like the terrain of 1.7.3.
Well if you're on Xbox you are probably on the same version as everyone else unless you're deleting patches.
Just use the current version. Get all the goodies! I'm still hesitant to start any major projects since 4J stated at one point that TU12 would be out in July [same tweet where they said it would not make June release] [no date given, could be tomorrow, could be end of month].
Just spin up a world and have at it! If you want to experiment quickly and easily make it a Creative world. I like to mock up some of my major structures in Creative before ever making them in survival. I have a big flatworld full of diff random structures.
As such, my huge castle (Castle Catoblepas) is now gone with the wind.
I got more but that's plenty to start. Thoughts? Feedback? Derision?
Land clearing is great advice for even just making a basic house.
Although it is possible to open iron doors both ways.
How? I tried putting a switch on both sides, and one would never respond. Oh, and I don't know if its a bug, but I noticed when you put two iron doors next to each other, the switches will never align (one is up, one is down). Is there a way to fix that?
From what I've seen from people talking about double iron doors, you have to invert one of the doors in order for it to work as it should.
FINALLY I FOUND ANOTHER STAR TREK FAN WOOO!
(Btw love your tips :D)
I've done it, but Don't know how to explain it.
Uhhh.
1.)Place the door.
2.)place a level to the left of it.
3.)place a lever to the right of it.
4.)flip the lever on the left. go to other side.
5.)place another lever
6.)break the lever that has already been flipped.
I don't remember how to do it, but both levers need to be in the up position when the door is open.
I was gonna build a castle on a server. Really good tips. lol, yah me too. i had a wooden house and i didn't put stone around my fire place on a server and when i went back on, my house was burned to the ground. Lol!
What version should I do it in?
I love the end, and the new blocks, but I like the terrain of 1.7.3.
Well if you're on Xbox you are probably on the same version as everyone else unless you're deleting patches.
Just use the current version. Get all the goodies! I'm still hesitant to start any major projects since 4J stated at one point that TU12 would be out in July [same tweet where they said it would not make June release] [no date given, could be tomorrow, could be end of month].
Just spin up a world and have at it! If you want to experiment quickly and easily make it a Creative world. I like to mock up some of my major structures in Creative before ever making them in survival. I have a big flatworld full of diff random structures.