Minecraft Forums

Has anyone ever excavated their stronghold ? If so can you help me with the dimensions of this complex. I understand its a ruin,and subject to random generation. But man, I can't make rhyme nor reason of this dig. Any help much appreciated.
Quick update pic. Didn't get much work done. Its beautiful in Orygun. http://mcxphotos.com/shawn.johannesen/ruins

i have parts of the stronghold as low as layer 7 and as high as the surface. it can be as compact as 50 meters or spread out over a 100 meter area. if you are intent on excavating the entire stronghold, be prepared for several weeks of hard digging.

Even in Creative such a task will be painful.
There's no rhyme or reason to the spawning size of a Stronghold.
Good luck with that.

i was just thinking of excavating one yesterday like they do when they fill in an ant hive with plaster then dig around it to see how it looked underground.


It seems (could be random chance) that when fewer above ground structures are generated then that the stronghold is much larger. Current map has 4? village wells but no villages and the stronghold is bigger than ussual. The typical one has 4? levels and is 80? blocks wide and long at it's farthest points.

Edit: because of it's size i decided to only excavate the ender portal room and incorporate that into a building and create a more straight forward access to the libraries.

Quote from IAMBaldur888

Wow. That's one big ants nest. I challenge someone to recreate that in a minecraft world. LOL

They should have also put a notice at the end of the vid: No animals were hurt in the making of this production. Except 4 billion ants.

On my single player world I tried to dismantle a stronghold... I gave up after about 3 days...and had a ton of cracked and mossy brick.

So I've put in maybe eight hours into the dig. Got most of the top exposed. http://mcxphotos.com/shawn.johannesen/stronghold-excavation
At least I think I have. I'm still having a problem picturing the layout.

Quote from SUPERHEAVYDOODY

So I've put in maybe eight hours into the dig. Got most of the top exposed. http://mcxphotos.com...hold-excavation
At least I think I have. I'm still having a problem picturing the layout.

That's some progress there, but unfortunately you've barely scratched the surface there.
(No pun intended.)

Quote from BloodyPhoenix

That's some progress there, but unfortunately you've barely scratched the surface there.
(No pun intended.)

Yes, I've reached bedrock. Still not positive on the width and depth.

I started excavating my stronghold in my 1.8.2 world. I too found parts as high as y:50 and some down to bedrock. Its incredibly big, at its widest its about 100 blocks long. That's only one level too. I gave up after about 3 months of off and on work. Of course I was doing mine on survival, before enchantments, so it was painstakingly slow. Best of luck.

I have had a stronghold cut in two by a large ravine...It looked cool but would have been crazy hard to excavate, however, please post pictures when you are done, I would like to see the work you put into it.

Found a picture for you off the wiki. I would consider this a medium sized stronghold from my experience.


I will post pictures of what I have done when I get home tonight, if I remember.

Quote from JSPRINGY

Found a picture for you off the wiki. I would consider this a medium sized stronghold from my experience.

I will post pictures of what I have done when I get home tonight, if I remember.

Thanks for the image. I don't think mine is as large,but I really have no clue yet.

Quote from JSPRINGY

I started excavating my stronghold in my 1.8.2 world. I too found parts as high as y:50 and some down to bedrock. Its incredibly big, at its widest its about 100 blocks long. That's only one level too. I gave up after about 3 months of off and on work. Of course I was doing mine on survival, before enchantments, so it was painstakingly slow. Best of luck.

Doing it on survival peaceful. No enchantments yet. Not really a survival guy. I should make some quickness hooch.

I've seen a village with gravel roads, a high up well, & no buildings, so who knows what was generated in your world? I've seen a stronghold cross the middle a giant cavern, making it suspended in the open (an entire room of it w/ doors that could be walked around) as well as floating toches in another, so they can be bizzare.

I remembered, so here ya go

These three are from different angles and show different parts



Here's a nice night shot of my Redstone University since I was in town

Did you rebuild the stronghold? Mine has lots of missing parts.

Oh god yes. Its probably hard to see in the pictures, but I used a ton of stone brick patching up holes. There are several cave systems intersecting it and each one gouged it pretty good.

The trick used in the video above is VERY helpful sometimes and works in the current version.

Thanks, but how's this gonna help me? I'm on the Box. I know where my stronghold is. But again,thanks. Btw updates should hopefully be daily,but it's beautiful where I live and I've got a good sized yard.