In no particular order, this is assuming you are in Survival mode.
1.) Build a "construction house" near your site. Don't get fancy, just give it a modest one story, a few torches and a bed. Use this as your base to sleep while you are working on your castle.
2.) You of course will make your castle Creeper proof, but there WILL be occasions where one sneaks in and sneaks up on you. Prepare for this: cobblestone is somewhat resistant... make your floors at least two layers deep of cobblestone, and that should minimize the chunk that will be removed.
3.) Speaking of Creepers appearing in your domicile, THAT is the reason you should not keep chests in large chambers. While you are rooting around in your chest, you are not only totally unaware of what's coming up behind you, the Creeper can destroy the chest in the bargain, giving you a big and urgent cleanup job on top of things. Keep your chests in tight rooms, with doors, that are insanely well-lit. Treasure chambers never need to be more than 5x5: how many of us are going to need more than one double chest to keep our gold and diamonds?
4.) Put your most often used chambers on the ground floor, near the door. Workshops should always be within a few steps of the entrance. Extremely specialized and rarely used rooms should be in the upper reaches. In short, build your castle to suit your usage.
5.) Glass is a wonderful way to improve the appearance of a room, but be careful. Glass lets in tons of light during the day, and absolutely no light during night. That means a room that was sufficiently lit to suppress spawning may in fact turn into a spawning hotbed when the sun goes down.
6.) Consider chandeliers to keep your rooms lit without littering the floor with torches. Mine are simple: one iron bar block (it looks like a chain), or maybe two for extra large rooms... attached to a stone block, with glowstones (or torches) studding it. They look nice and are particularly good for lighting up those dark patches that appear in the middle of large rooms.
7.) Sanctum Sanctorum. The castle should be the one place you never have to worry about a monster spawning. Keep all the rooms lit to the max (don't forget torches on the floorboards). And if a monster DID appear, figure out WHY and fix the problem.
8.) If you are building a large castle, be sure to stop up the stairs of floors in progress at night (or build a "conning tower"-like shack of glass with a door). Your construction floor is very likely to get heavy spawn if you didn't lay torches everywhere.
9.) Never build structures out of gravel or sand. Once one block gets destroyed, all block above it fall. This can cause some extensive damage.
10.) If you are using lava (for a moat, fountain, etc), use a special type of rock as a marker around it. That way if you are doing work below it, you will see a flag that the next rock up is lava. Sure beats getting a surprise face full of magma.
As always, comments, suggestions and corrections are appreciated!
Making all your floors and walls at least two blocks thick is very good advice. Not only does it keep creepers from knocking large holes in everything it also allows you to change floor/wall materials without it showing through the ceiling of the floor below. I personally like to make everything 3 blocks thick. It allows me to change up building materials but still allows me the protection of a cobblestone layer in between.
I also like to build my windowframes with blocks of glowstone or jack o' lanterns in the middle layer. It makes them give off a nice warm glow even after dark.
Another bonus with making floors two squares deep is that you can lay down carpet (dyed wool) without the ceiling below looking like the ceiling of a day care.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1.) Build a "construction house" near your site. Don't get fancy, just give it a modest one story, a few torches and a bed. Use this as your base to sleep while you are working on your castle.
2.) You of course will make your castle Creeper proof, but there WILL be occasions where one sneaks in and sneaks up on you. Prepare for this: cobblestone is somewhat resistant... make your floors at least two layers deep of cobblestone, and that should minimize the chunk that will be removed.
3.) Speaking of Creepers appearing in your domicile, THAT is the reason you should not keep chests in large chambers. While you are rooting around in your chest, you are not only totally unaware of what's coming up behind you, the Creeper can destroy the chest in the bargain, giving you a big and urgent cleanup job on top of things. Keep your chests in tight rooms, with doors, that are insanely well-lit. Treasure chambers never need to be more than 5x5: how many of us are going to need more than one double chest to keep our gold and diamonds?
4.) Put your most often used chambers on the ground floor, near the door. Workshops should always be within a few steps of the entrance. Extremely specialized and rarely used rooms should be in the upper reaches. In short, build your castle to suit your usage.
5.) Glass is a wonderful way to improve the appearance of a room, but be careful. Glass lets in tons of light during the day, and absolutely no light during night. That means a room that was sufficiently lit to suppress spawning may in fact turn into a spawning hotbed when the sun goes down.
6.) Consider chandeliers to keep your rooms lit without littering the floor with torches. Mine are simple: one iron bar block (it looks like a chain), or maybe two for extra large rooms... attached to a stone block, with glowstones (or torches) studding it. They look nice and are particularly good for lighting up those dark patches that appear in the middle of large rooms.
7.) Sanctum Sanctorum. The castle should be the one place you never have to worry about a monster spawning. Keep all the rooms lit to the max (don't forget torches on the floorboards). And if a monster DID appear, figure out WHY and fix the problem.
8.) If you are building a large castle, be sure to stop up the stairs of floors in progress at night (or build a "conning tower"-like shack of glass with a door). Your construction floor is very likely to get heavy spawn if you didn't lay torches everywhere.
9.) Never build structures out of gravel or sand. Once one block gets destroyed, all block above it fall. This can cause some extensive damage.
10.) If you are using lava (for a moat, fountain, etc), use a special type of rock as a marker around it. That way if you are doing work below it, you will see a flag that the next rock up is lava. Sure beats getting a surprise face full of magma.
As always, comments, suggestions and corrections are appreciated!
I also like to build my windowframes with blocks of glowstone or jack o' lanterns in the middle layer. It makes them give off a nice warm glow even after dark.