So I successfully built an iron golem "farm" in a natural village, without min/maxing the whole thing so villagers are boxed in tiny cells, or with "houses" that are really just doors all in a line with single blocks behind them. The village still looks like a village and the villagers are free to wander about (except for the librarians - they are on house arrest at the moment so we can find them easily). Their homes are at least 2x3 and in a few cases are quite a bit bigger.
The middle of the village is a...ahem..."reflecting pool" exactly 16x16, with water flowing towards the middle where the...ahem...water pumps are that keep the pool flowing (a 2x2 hole). The hole drops about 10 blocks into your standard water stream/lava blade/hopper/chest setup. The villagers are happily ignorant of the horrors that take place under their village...
A little work with a spreadsheet let me position the villager homes' front (and in some cases back) doors such that the centroid of the village is within 0.15 of the actual center of the 2x2 drop hole.
Net result: about 10 stacks of iron ingots every day (I go AFC while at work or sleeping). Far, far more than I will ever use, unless I start making buildings out of iron blocks. Also nowhere near as efficient as "IRON TITAN" or any of the other less natural designs.
Nothing earth-shattering about this; I just wanted to post my results for the next person like me who is researching doing an "organic" (built into a natural village) farm. And now, a few tips to make it easier:
1) When you find the village you want to use, look for or terraform a flat area at least 32 x 32 that is inside or nearby the existing village. This gives room for the reflecting pool, decent villager apartments/condos, and walking space in front and behind the buildings. Needs to be close by so villagers will "notice" your new apartments - otherwise you have to drag/push them into the new neighborhood you build. If you want to use existing homes as part of the design, great! Just keep in mind the geometry of the doors that you end up with (more below).
2) Pick your center spot (where the middle of the reflecting pool/golem trap will be) and place a 2x2 section of sand or red wool or something to mark where the drop hole will go. Then measure off 7 blocks in each direction and put 2 blocks of sand/wool to mark the edges of the 16x16 area. You can also mark the corners if you want, for easy measuring of door location. Place fences completely around the 16x16 area (one block outside of your sand/wool markers).
3) Start building your villager apartments/houses around the fence line, leaving a couple of blocks between condos and fence for you to walk on. You have quite a bit of freedom to design any type of house you want, so long as all of the 21+ doors have a centroid (average X, Z value) in the middle of the 2x2 sand/wool marker you placed in step 2. The apartment blocks do not need to be straight rectangles like shown in the image.
4) Destroy original villager homes (just breaking the door is sufficient, though I razed my old village homes to the ground and left the church - with no door - as a monument) so that villagers start to migrate into their new, modern apartments.
5) Build out the reflecting pool, drop-hole, and lava blade/hopper/chest system using any of the online guides. For access, I built a trap-door and vertical shaft about 30 squares from the center of the reflecting pool, then tunneled under the pool to build the golem processor. The fall does not need to be very far - just enough to get the golem underground and into a stream headed towards his hot-stone head massage.
6) Make sure that the water flows in the pool end right at the edge of the drop hole - no flowing over the hole into a waterfall, or the golem will just stay at the bottom of the waterfall and not get pushed towards the lava blade.
The attached picture shows the general layout of my village. The grey "villager condos" area can be expanded to your heart's content, as long as the doors are arranged to keep the centroid in the 2x2 drop hole. If you start to go vertical with doors (a 2nd story of apartments, for example), you'll need to make sure the reflecting pool is also at a proper height. But since more houses/villagers doesn't really equal more iron from golems, I'm keeping my village and pool at ground level.
I'll see if I can make a video and put it up. I'm a complete n00b to making gameplay videos on the Xbox One, so it'll be a challenge.
I have at least 700 blocks of iron now, and I get probably 30-40 blocks a day from the farm. I don't know I haven't really kept track, I just basically have all the iron I'm ever going to need. I used to have a double-chest in my base labeled "Wood blocks, coal, charcoal, metals", but now I need one just labeled "Iron" and another "Everything else". :-)
Next project is to expand/redesign the condos so they look more natural. I might add a bunch of doors, too, 'cause I need another librarian or maybe a blacksmith (village didn't come with one) to spawn.
davidmrecord - post your design back to this thread, if you remember! I went with the simplest, "I know it will work" design, but I'm interested to see other designs.
I'll see if I can make a video and put it up. I'm a complete n00b to making gameplay videos on the Xbox One, so it'll be a challenge.
I have at least 700 blocks of iron now, and I get probably 30-40 blocks a day from the farm. I don't know I haven't really kept track, I just basically have all the iron I'm ever going to need. I used to have a double-chest in my base labeled "Wood blocks, coal, charcoal, metals", but now I need one just labeled "Iron" and another "Everything else". :-)
Next project is to expand/redesign the condos so they look more natural. I might add a bunch of doors, too, 'cause I need another librarian or maybe a blacksmith (village didn't come with one) to spawn.
davidmrecord - post your design back to this thread, if you remember! I went with the simplest, "I know it will work" design, but I'm interested to see other designs.
I'm working on a new build style (I'm building in 16x16 chunks, actual chunks, in + grouping at in 5 block elevation difference) so it doesn't look organic, but taking your idea to make a village look natural I'm giving each villager pod a 16x16 space with doors, I put a fence around the unsafe swim zone but noticed that the iron golems sometimes like to spawn next to the fences (so going to have to steal a block from the villagers. but so far it actually looks better than a row of doors and little villager pods and still produces the same amount of iron.
My GT is davidmrecord feel free to add me and jump on. The idea with my new world is to do as little exploration as possible as I'm building out from spawn point in 16 x 16 increments... (at this point I've done a lot of framing but have a lot to do in terms of polishing.
So I successfully built an iron golem "farm" in a natural village, without min/maxing the whole thing so villagers are boxed in tiny cells, or with "houses" that are really just doors all in a line with single blocks behind them. The village still looks like a village and the villagers are free to wander about (except for the librarians - they are on house arrest at the moment so we can find them easily). Their homes are at least 2x3 and in a few cases are quite a bit bigger.
The middle of the village is a...ahem..."reflecting pool" exactly 16x16, with water flowing towards the middle where the...ahem...water pumps are that keep the pool flowing (a 2x2 hole). The hole drops about 10 blocks into your standard water stream/lava blade/hopper/chest setup. The villagers are happily ignorant of the horrors that take place under their village...
A little work with a spreadsheet let me position the villager homes' front (and in some cases back) doors such that the centroid of the village is within 0.15 of the actual center of the 2x2 drop hole.
Net result: about 10 stacks of iron ingots every day (I go AFC while at work or sleeping). Far, far more than I will ever use, unless I start making buildings out of iron blocks. Also nowhere near as efficient as "IRON TITAN" or any of the other less natural designs.
Nothing earth-shattering about this; I just wanted to post my results for the next person like me who is researching doing an "organic" (built into a natural village) farm. And now, a few tips to make it easier:
1) When you find the village you want to use, look for or terraform a flat area at least 32 x 32 that is inside or nearby the existing village. This gives room for the reflecting pool, decent villager apartments/condos, and walking space in front and behind the buildings. Needs to be close by so villagers will "notice" your new apartments - otherwise you have to drag/push them into the new neighborhood you build. If you want to use existing homes as part of the design, great! Just keep in mind the geometry of the doors that you end up with (more below).
2) Pick your center spot (where the middle of the reflecting pool/golem trap will be) and place a 2x2 section of sand or red wool or something to mark where the drop hole will go. Then measure off 7 blocks in each direction and put 2 blocks of sand/wool to mark the edges of the 16x16 area. You can also mark the corners if you want, for easy measuring of door location. Place fences completely around the 16x16 area (one block outside of your sand/wool markers).
3) Start building your villager apartments/houses around the fence line, leaving a couple of blocks between condos and fence for you to walk on. You have quite a bit of freedom to design any type of house you want, so long as all of the 21+ doors have a centroid (average X, Z value) in the middle of the 2x2 sand/wool marker you placed in step 2. The apartment blocks do not need to be straight rectangles like shown in the image.
4) Destroy original villager homes (just breaking the door is sufficient, though I razed my old village homes to the ground and left the church - with no door - as a monument) so that villagers start to migrate into their new, modern apartments.
5) Build out the reflecting pool, drop-hole, and lava blade/hopper/chest system using any of the online guides. For access, I built a trap-door and vertical shaft about 30 squares from the center of the reflecting pool, then tunneled under the pool to build the golem processor. The fall does not need to be very far - just enough to get the golem underground and into a stream headed towards his hot-stone head massage.
6) Make sure that the water flows in the pool end right at the edge of the drop hole - no flowing over the hole into a waterfall, or the golem will just stay at the bottom of the waterfall and not get pushed towards the lava blade.
The attached picture shows the general layout of my village. The grey "villager condos" area can be expanded to your heart's content, as long as the doors are arranged to keep the centroid in the 2x2 drop hole. If you start to go vertical with doors (a 2nd story of apartments, for example), you'll need to make sure the reflecting pool is also at a proper height. But since more houses/villagers doesn't really equal more iron from golems, I'm keeping my village and pool at ground level.
Hope this helps the next me!
Can you add me so I can check it out ?
Gt - macca s b0y
I'd love to see. Do you have a video?
I like this idea, although I'm going to try something slightly different, and see how it goes.
I'll see if I can make a video and put it up. I'm a complete n00b to making gameplay videos on the Xbox One, so it'll be a challenge.
I have at least 700 blocks of iron now, and I get probably 30-40 blocks a day from the farm. I don't know I haven't really kept track, I just basically have all the iron I'm ever going to need. I used to have a double-chest in my base labeled "Wood blocks, coal, charcoal, metals", but now I need one just labeled "Iron" and another "Everything else". :-)
Next project is to expand/redesign the condos so they look more natural. I might add a bunch of doors, too, 'cause I need another librarian or maybe a blacksmith (village didn't come with one) to spawn.
davidmrecord - post your design back to this thread, if you remember! I went with the simplest, "I know it will work" design, but I'm interested to see other designs.
Really easy to get a video. Just take a tour of the build, and save a video of however long it is and it auto posts to xboxdvr.com
I'm working on a new build style (I'm building in 16x16 chunks, actual chunks, in + grouping at in 5 block elevation difference) so it doesn't look organic, but taking your idea to make a village look natural I'm giving each villager pod a 16x16 space with doors, I put a fence around the unsafe swim zone but noticed that the iron golems sometimes like to spawn next to the fences (so going to have to steal a block from the villagers. but so far it actually looks better than a row of doors and little villager pods and still produces the same amount of iron.
My GT is davidmrecord feel free to add me and jump on. The idea with my new world is to do as little exploration as possible as I'm building out from spawn point in 16 x 16 increments... (at this point I've done a lot of framing but have a lot to do in terms of polishing.