New forest hills are nice, but I'm often annoyed at how often you can't see them. I note you had to treetop for that pic.
I can't remember the purpose of this next picture. "Pretty terrain" maybe? That's usually it half of the time.
You can't wait too long after playing to write it up! I eventually got to the point that I (almost) always wrote up my play session before my next play session.
I really like the nu-terrain mountains except the round spikes they sometimes have on the top. I resorted to complex tricks to avoid them.
I assume the valley between the two mountain ranges was a river? That's really nice. I wish water features normally worked like that.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Well, if there's forests from the hill up until whatever your render distance is, then yeah, you won't see them from afar. Tree canopies would need to be much taller for that.
If I was able to write these up right after the fact, then I'd just have them posted at the same time. Part of the delay is precisely because it takes me time to upload the pictures and write it up. It's not often I remember the exact reason for taking a picture. As I mentioned, it usually is "I like this particular terrain from this particular angle, so I'll try and say why I think I like it if this picture makes the cut". And sometimes, I don't know (at least in words) why I like it, so that may be part of it too. If I had to guess, that's in a spot where a lot of biome variety was going on in that area (and more than just the pictured ones), and there was a small bay of the ocean reaching in and there were a lot of subtle forest hills along the shore with a shallow mountain nearby.
The peaks on mountains are probably a design choice. Those are probably the types of mountains they were going for, and I personally like them. They still sometimes result in ridges instead, especially with ones that aren't as tall.
There's a number of mountains all near one another so I'm not sure which valley you're referring to, but no, there wasn't a river in any of them. The only river was one that was ending in the corner of the map, and that wasn't between two mountains.
You can tell between the two old growth taiga variants from the shape of the trees. Spruce taigas tend to have trees where the whole trunk is covered by leaves, whereas pine taigas have trees with only a small clump of leaves at the top, much like the shape of an arrow.
The mountain views from that last map were lovely. Nice to have all three peak variants on the same map as well.
Here's the first half of the largest outing of this region.
First up is a couple of quickly encountered shipwrecks, both of which had their cabin.
Not long after, was an igloo, and it had a basement.
Something that is either amusing or sad (or both) occurred here, and I'll let you decide.
My shovel has Fortune III on it. Apparently, this results in a 100% chance of it dropping flint.
I did... not... know this!
I looked it up and apparently this is not a recent thing, so it's just something I never knew. If I had to guess, it's probably because the scaling isn't intuitive/linear like most other things fortune affects, so I simply presumed it wouldn't be a guaranteed thing.
Since I can't do villager trading, arrows are limited to what I find from skeletons, and crafting. With crafting, I'm often gated by flint and will simply craft some when I accumulate a few stacks of it. I didn't even have a permanent chicken farm until recently, and even then, it's in my sister village since it's not often needed.
Well... this was a delight to discover and may change things. So I started gathering some, and it was here that an early issue was encountered. My inventory was already full!
So I finished this map and headed back home for my ender chest. I should have known to bring it for an extra long outing regardless, as just the structure loots and other things would have overwhelmed me. Now that I'm playing a version with bundles, I also should look into those.
So I'll let you decide whether this outing is 9 maps or 10 maps.
The second map to the South brought me to an ice spikes biome. I might not be fond of frozen oceans, but the nearest-thing-to-a-land-alternative goes the other way and is one of my favorites.
To the South, along the border of the snowy/ice region was something I don't think (?)I've found yet in this world, but have often seen pictures of, and that was a "ring" or raised terrain caused by either plateau terrain or mountains, with lower altitude land in the center.
Sometimes there will be a "river" looped and surrounding a small central island. I didn't get that part here, but there was a lake. Or maybe this could be seen a s a "looped river" without the central land island within it? Either way...
The fact that it occurs where a climate region change is going on makes it especially unique.
There was a nice cave here too.
Here's a look at it from another side.
This is right on the edge of the map I'm doing, so I'll likely see it again... in the far future.
I'd probably want to build something here in a long-term world, but it would make for a less than ideal spot for a home for an exploration world.
Opposite that, was more ice plains across a frozen river.
North was two ruined portals, although only the first had anything worthwhile.
Along the South is where the terrain started getting more hilly, but also bare. I can't stop appreciating how 1.18 gave the game proper world generation and made things like this possible.
I wondered if this meant mountains might be ahead. Some those might actually be mountains.
Coming down the other side of the next range ahead of me, I missed a cave opening, but saw it when I turned around. I was too far passed it at this point to bother backtracking to look at it from closer. I had a long exploration ahead.
The next map brought another surprise; snowy taigas offer a wolf variant too! I don't know where all the new wolves are. I sort of just befriend them as I encounter them if they are new, so I have two more now.
I found a pretty big cave opening on a small plains area near the end of the map.
I love the cave entrance variety terrain produces now. Not all cave entrances are the typical circular cave carvers like before.
The next map started like the first; with a pair of shipwrecks and both had the cabin.
I'm... not sure what happened here?
It looks like an iceberg covered in snow had a ravine carve through it and render most of it hollow? Either way, it looked interesting.
The end of the map brought a refreshing sight; temperate climate to the east! This snowy/ice region wouldn't be massive after all! At least, not East and West, which is good because I know it's pretty big North to South.
I found a ruined portal here, and it had a gold block... but I think I lost this one to the lava (if it wasn't this one, then that happens at one of them).
It did have horse armor though.
The Northeast of this map, which was temperate climate, had signs this could be a mountainous region ahead, although I wouldn't be venturing any further East.
There were some pretty impressive caves to be found here.
More mountains were indeed showing themselves.
As were more caves.
At the beginning of the next map was a shipwreck stuck up in the ice. These can sometimes generate in pretty wild places in Bedrock, such as in the sky, and while that doesn't seem to happen in Java (?), it reminded me of that. Like all shipwrecks found so far on this outing, it had a cabin.
The next map continues the trend of temperate climate to the East, and more so than the map that was just finished, so more warmer climate is coming up... for a little while.
With the outing (approximately) halfway done, I'd stop there. the next update will cover the remainder of it.
Many large inland lakes do seem to generate as a result of rivers looping in on themselves. If the loop is quick and sharp or the river is particularly wide, the resulting "island" tends to be smaller or doesn't exist at all. I've also encountered cases where two parallel rivers near a confluence suddenly turn on each other, which can also create islands.
The climate variety around that lake is nice, with the temperate forest, colder taiga and snowy plains. It's also pretty incredible seeing ice spikes cover such a large fraction of one map (the first one in your update). I especially like the hillside views; I almost always seem to find them in flatter areas.
As for the ruined portal, I usually fill in the lava pool if a gold block has generated within or directly above it. The pools are typically only one block deep so it's quick getting rid of them.
I'm still not sure which ruined portal it was I lost the gold block to. It may have been a different portal. I just recall that it happened eventually.
Regardless of which one it was, I think how it occurred was because of lava that was in neighboring space, but covered by a block above it, which hid it.
I never knew Fortune upped the chance of gravel. And certainly not to 100%!
.
The way nu-terrain generates rivers, as the near-zero region of a perlinesque noise, is able to generate "lakes" where a large region is near zero and becomes a sort of lake (although almost always just a really wide region of a river). This is particularly true where two rivers cross, because that means there can't be any far-from-zero regions nearby in any direction.
That weird Ice spike, whatever it is, is way more interesting than the vanilla Ice Spikes, which I've never been much impressed by (hence the tree-meets-ice crystals of the RTG Plus mod).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The temperate region of the next map started revealing attractive terrain. There were small mountains, but nothing substantial (yet?), and a lot of higher altitude terrain with a mix of temperate and colder forests, and rivers deeply cutting through the land. This made for some climbing... but not as exhausting as 1.8 would have been on a typical day, and the terrain was far more rewarding for the effort here.
Further North was a village.
On the next pass South, I got another picture of the first mountain and some forests and rivers because... "pretty terrain".
Back in the colder climate was another village, but it seemed small... not just unusually small, but impossibly so? Where was the actual gathering location? They always have one. Not only that, but there was no villagers? I looked inside to confirm and found this chest at least, and it had diamond horse armor.
Upon coming back outside, I found that there was a proper village here.
I had come from the left, so that little hill pictured behind the village hid it from me at first.
There was a very large cave not far from that village, along the border of the cold and temperate region.
More "pretty terrain". Sometimes the horizon lines catch my eye.
I would be heading West for the next map, so... it was more cold climate, and mostly frozen ocean.
That's pretty much all it was, but I found two shipwrecks in it, one submerged. Both had their cabin chest.
The next map was more varied, with some plains, taiga, windswept hills, and non snowy areas to break things up a bit more.
Another village was found in the cold climate.
As was a shipwreck, but for once, it had no cabin.
Near the end of the map, another village was found...
...And near the start of the following map, a temperate village was after that.
There was a ruined portal in plains Northwest, and it had something so rare that I forgot it could be found in a chest; a bell.
I wasn't done finding villages just yet. Another temperate one was very close to the first one on the map. It was in the plains, but generated mostly in the flower forest it was near, so it had a great feel.
But something off a shore just to the East surprised me more than anything; a hot region!?
That's a quick shift, but I need a hot and dry region. Alas, I won't be able to look into it yet, but it's a better sign than not for the future.
I headed North and the terrain again changed back to more hills and forests like it was two maps South. There was also ocean. I spotted a shipwreck, but didn't check it as it was off the map enough.
I soon encountered more ocean that I had to progress through, but due to the time of day nearing night, I sat my dogs on the shore and only went out partway and would return. Not far North was a steep cliff.
I returned to my dogs before night and broke my pattern to return South and then head North by land first. Another mountain was here, and while I usually just tame dogs if I come across this, in these biomes, I was being a bit more active in searching for them due to how rare they are.
Alas, the first pass had none.
Here's the same oceanside cliff pictured earlier.
Since I expected the land to go close to the North of the map ahead, I again left my dogs and went to map the Northeast ocean. In doing so, I found that cliff was part of and island... sort of. It's really part of the same land mass, but it's separated by a river so it counts.
On the North side was a village that under normal conditions, shouldn't have been able to spawn, but it is times like this I'm glad for the leniency in where they can spawn. This would make a very fun village to convert and make more naturally usable for the villagers.
Doubly so since they seem to need help building!
Just West was a shipwreck, but it had no cabin.
I returned to my dogs and continued on.
On the next pass by the mountain, I found a wolf!
It was only one (I think they only ever spawn in packs of one?), but it's the rarest type and I'm only after two of each type, so that's a good start.
To the South was another village.
On the final map was some welcome variety. There was frozen ocean, frozen lakes, snowy taiga, groves, mountains, and ice spikes, but there was nothing substantial to show after what I've seen so far. Enough to make it a relaxing finish instead of being monotonous frozen ocean though.
There was a ruined portal, and it had both a golden apple and golden carrots.
And to conclude with, one final village. There was a lot of those on this outing!
After such a long trip, seeing home was relieving. I added some sugar cane along the river so that it would grow as I came and went to bolster my paper supply. I would later add a couple more spots nearby.
And now, it's time for largest map update of this region...
"Ummm... okay then!"
For my next addition, I'd head straight North and do a column of four maps. I can't even say the cold regions are done, because remember there's another at the very Northern edge of where I'm about to head. *sigh*
It's over halfway completed at least!?
I also returned to Rubyville to store some items and returns my new dogs. I have quite the collection going?
This made me realize I might need a better home for them, as the villagers may push them into corners or even out the door. But I'll refrain from speaking further on that as I'll have some plans to share, which this can fall under, after this region is finished. They are big plans. Oh, and don't worry, I know the past episodes (and these new ones) need a table of contents added. I'm going to completely redo the first post and move the very first update into the second post, and that way the first one can serve as the introduction and table of contents. But I'm going to wait until after this region to do that due to the upcoming plans...
The snowy (grove) wolf is the only variant that spawns alone; when I explored a large mountain range a while ago I also only ended up getting one. Congrats on your wolf collection so far!
Yeah, if I haven't made a mistake in what varieties exist, I have all wolf types except two, and I need six more wolves total since I'm trying to get two of each (I imagine I can probably breed for them if I have one, but I'm looking to find two naturally).
The one found in groves and the Black one found in one of the old growth spruce biomes are both types that I have, but only one.
The two varieties found in savanna (only certain savannas?) and badlands biomes I need entirely. So my original desire to find a hot/dry climate area is boosted by this, as that is where I'll find at least one of the new wolves.
The beginning of the next area had a pretty large cave in a forest.
Take note of the pillager outpost in one of the pictures. I don't show this individually, but will be coming back to it soon.
Nearby was another one, although not nearly as large.
A river to the east had a ruined portal. There was nothing valuable within its chest, but it did have two gold blocks. I'd sometimes rather have it that way.
The pillager outpost had a new horn for me...
...Which meant it was time to gloat with it by establishing dominance with their item in their terrain. They also built this in a spot with beautiful views.
Sometimes I wonder if that upsets them, but of course it would. Moments after that picture, I received a few arrows as a pair of later spawns followed me up the tower.
Near the beginning of the next map was another ruined portal, and this one had better chest contents, as well as a gold block.
I saw a possible interesting cave coming up on the map as I neared it, but it was "just a hole". It was still interesting.
Another ruined portal was found in the East. This one also had an unrewarding chest, but a gold block.
A pretty small village was found in the North, and the terrain started revealing cherry groves. With this, the forests started becoming more plains.
North was another village in the plains.
Ocean was appearing to the North, and bordering it was a shattered savanna biome. Something I've learned is that this biome somewhat goes against normal temperature/climate cues. While it typically only generates in temperate or warm climates, it does not indicate a hot climate, and instead usually generates by its lonesome. That single small savanna tree/biome I found before? I bet that was actually a shattered savanna instead of an actual savanna now.
Near that was windswept hills, which meant llamas!
The ocean to the North had a turned shipwreck.
Under the shattered savanna was a very large ruined portal. The chest contents weren't great, but good enough to take some. There was also a gold block, but the portal height meant a time investment (and risk since there were mobs) that I felt it was worth skipping.
The final Northernmost map meant a return to the icy/snow region, and much of it was also ocean. There was another ruined portal here. Again, chest contents were "good enough to show as I took something" but not great.
Forests in the East had a pretty large cave which I first spotted through a very small opening in the ground.
Where the cold region meets the temperate region was a village.
West of that was an igloo which came with a basement. I'm lucking out on that with the last few I've found.
With the final map completed, I returned and updated the map.
The next outing, which will be unusually short compared to all these rest, will be a row of four maps in the Southern unexplored area. After that, I'll have two more outings split across three updates (the final one is the largest/split one).
The pillagers at an outpost are usually more actively hostile than those in a patrol and will pursue the player from a greater distance, 64 blocks I believe? To avoid inconveniences I usually cover up the top of the staircase when checking the chest — though I suppose they shouldn't be a big problem in netherite armor.
I find that cherry groves typically spawn in or adjacently to plains and rarely directly around forests.
Cherry groves seem to me like meadows in that they only spawn on higher altitudes. You'll sometimes find them neighboring forests, but yes, they seem largely isolated to whatever terrain "conditions" that cause those vast expanses of (usually) flatter land and plateaus, which are usually dominated by plains (but sometimes have forests), and sometimes there will be actual mountains in them (in which case it will be less flat). So those "vast plains and plateaus with meadows or cherry groves" areas seem to be a common arrangement. I've often found the cherry groves bordering with forests though (my second home was built right on such an area), probably because whatever "conditions" are causing that type of area is ending and a different is beginning. At least, that's all my observation based on seeing trends in-game. Someone like Zeno could probably better explain what's going on with the actual terrain generation itself.
Season 3: Episode 10
I don't think I've ever done three updates in three days? Anyway...
The next outing begins in the Southeast of the remaining area, and then I'll do a row of four maps heading East.
The first map starts with windswept hills, and within them I find a village with a witch hut nearby.
If this seems familiar, it should be. This is the spot I passed through heading East when first entering this region blind, to find a place to settle.
North of the village was more windswept hills and rivers, but in the very Northwest it shifted to plains with forests, and any higher altitude wasn't windswept hills anymore. A small cherry grove even showed up.
I won't be heading there this update since that's to the North, but that will be where the following outing starts.
I don't dislike windswept hills at all (it has llamas, and they're usually not too extreme like the 1.7 era extreme hills counterparts)... but when I find an area that is a lot of them, with (non-mangrove) swamp and taiga... it half reminds of of 1.7 era terrain generation for some reason, and I don't know why. So this felt like leaving less interesting terrain and moving to more modern terrain in a way. It could also because the area "feels" cooler and I'm searching for hotter climate right now, even though I don't anticipate finding any on this outing since I'm crossing the edge of a cold climate.
The windswept hills area did have a couple of surprises near the center of the map though.
I'm not sure if this counts as a "cave" or not since the bottom is still fully grass, but stuff like this you would never see prior to 1.18, and I love it. When these actually end up forming on a more flat surface and lead into deeper swiss cheese caves, they tend to be my favorite types of entrances.
The second thing was a shattered savanna biome.
This sort of confirms in my mind that the lone tree I saw long ago (which is very nearby, diagonally opposite the shattered savanna biomes of this one) was just an incomplete attempt at one of these, and not a very small hot zone.
To the East, the terrain shifts to normal forest so the windswept hills area ends.
On the very Western edge of second map, the forest ends and ocean begins. And... that largely continues for the next two and a half maps. That's why this update is able to be so short. I cross frozen ocean in the middle and spot land at points to the North, but there's nothing worth showing until the final map.
First is this sideturned shipwreck on a small island (very fitting, haha). It's North of that taiga village spotted along the cliff side two updates ago, and you can just spot it in the distance.
Before making landfall to the terrain in the Northeast, I finish the ocean. While doing so, I spot a ruined portal on a hill along the shore. It has golden carrots (and a good view of the surrounding area).
Two very large cavern entrances are found a little Northwest from there.
In the Northeast itself was a mountain. It may look small (and it sort of is), but I'm already on very high altitude terrain here in a meadow. Most of this land mass was a gradual hill from the shore up to this point.
I looked for wolves in the small grove, but didn't find any, as expected.
From the top of the mountain, I looked East and saw a lovely view! I won't be heading there for a long time, however.
Looking North also showed some nice terrain.
I will be heading there, but not yet. That will end up being the final map I do, actually.
A close eye may spot two large cave openings.
The first, smaller and closer one, wasn't as impressive from a closer angle so I let this be the sole picture of it.
The second I didn't check since it was off the map and would check it when doing the final map. Unfortunately... I end up forgetting about it because when doing the final map, I am able to fill it in from the edge of the cherry grove and forget about it since I don't see it over the hill. Perhaps I should have crossed those hills, after all... (I'm not sorry!)
As it's still in the corner near unexplored terrain, there's a chance to remember it eventually though.
With the final map done, I head home and update the map.
It's almost done!
Here's how I plan to finish the remaining area.
The next update will be the Yellow area, and the Orange area will come after split cross two updates.
Shattered savannas don't have the same temperature requirements that other savanna variants do. They can generate both in temperate and hot regions (and often in isolation, i.e. not around other savannas) and so don't always indicate hot zones. From what I've seen, windswept hills seem to be the opposite, being able to generate in temperate, cold and snowy regions. When these two biomes are found next to each other it's usually in a temperate region with very high erosion values.
Yeah, I knew shattered savannas were their own thing that didn't quite follow climate norms, but I didn't know windswept hills were like that too.
I'm not sure what it is about the latter that makes them feel like 1.7 era terrain, but maybe it's the erosion. They feel similar to the ruggedness of that era, and the taiga and swamps often being nearby seem to match.
Windswept hills seems to be one of the few biomes whose terrain hasn't been visually affected much by 1.18. That 1.7 feel is probably with the high erosion as you said, namely the steep cliffs, overhangs and floating islands that were reminiscent of terrain in that era. Perhaps the mostly barren stone-and-grass landscape somewhat contributes too.
I don't dislike windswept hills at all (it has llamas, and they're usually not too extreme like the 1.7 era extreme hills counterparts)... but when I find an area that is a lot of them, with (non-mangrove) swamp and taiga... it half reminds of of 1.7 era terrain generation for some reason, and I don't know why
Um - this is not mysterious? It's extreme terrain becoming boring by repetition, a hallmark of 1.7 era Extreme Hills, and some other things as well, like the cliff-y hills.
What was the biome in the 5th from last pic, with the orange flowers and the low snowy hills in the distance? That grass color looks unfamiliar.
The contrast between the often impressive vistas of 1.18 era generation on the ground and the meh maps is very striking here.
Have you thought about updating the title under your avatar? It resets to "newly spawned" after an image change and it's just so strange to see you tagged as "newly spawned".
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
New forest hills are nice, but I'm often annoyed at how often you can't see them. I note you had to treetop for that pic.
You can't wait too long after playing to write it up! I eventually got to the point that I (almost) always wrote up my play session before my next play session.
I really like the nu-terrain mountains except the round spikes they sometimes have on the top. I resorted to complex tricks to avoid them.
I assume the valley between the two mountain ranges was a river? That's really nice. I wish water features normally worked like that.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Well, if there's forests from the hill up until whatever your render distance is, then yeah, you won't see them from afar. Tree canopies would need to be much taller for that.
If I was able to write these up right after the fact, then I'd just have them posted at the same time. Part of the delay is precisely because it takes me time to upload the pictures and write it up. It's not often I remember the exact reason for taking a picture. As I mentioned, it usually is "I like this particular terrain from this particular angle, so I'll try and say why I think I like it if this picture makes the cut". And sometimes, I don't know (at least in words) why I like it, so that may be part of it too. If I had to guess, that's in a spot where a lot of biome variety was going on in that area (and more than just the pictured ones), and there was a small bay of the ocean reaching in and there were a lot of subtle forest hills along the shore with a shallow mountain nearby.
The peaks on mountains are probably a design choice. Those are probably the types of mountains they were going for, and I personally like them. They still sometimes result in ridges instead, especially with ones that aren't as tall.
There's a number of mountains all near one another so I'm not sure which valley you're referring to, but no, there wasn't a river in any of them. The only river was one that was ending in the corner of the map, and that wasn't between two mountains.
You can tell between the two old growth taiga variants from the shape of the trees. Spruce taigas tend to have trees where the whole trunk is covered by leaves, whereas pine taigas have trees with only a small clump of leaves at the top, much like the shape of an arrow.
The mountain views from that last map were lovely. Nice to have all three peak variants on the same map as well.
Season 3: Episode 7


Here's the first half of the largest outing of this region.
First up is a couple of quickly encountered shipwrecks, both of which had their cabin.
Not long after, was an igloo, and it had a basement.
Something that is either amusing or sad (or both) occurred here, and I'll let you decide.
My shovel has Fortune III on it. Apparently, this results in a 100% chance of it dropping flint.
I did... not... know this!
I looked it up and apparently this is not a recent thing, so it's just something I never knew. If I had to guess, it's probably because the scaling isn't intuitive/linear like most other things fortune affects, so I simply presumed it wouldn't be a guaranteed thing.
Since I can't do villager trading, arrows are limited to what I find from skeletons, and crafting. With crafting, I'm often gated by flint and will simply craft some when I accumulate a few stacks of it. I didn't even have a permanent chicken farm until recently, and even then, it's in my sister village since it's not often needed.
Well... this was a delight to discover and may change things. So I started gathering some, and it was here that an early issue was encountered. My inventory was already full!
So I finished this map and headed back home for my ender chest. I should have known to bring it for an extra long outing regardless, as just the structure loots and other things would have overwhelmed me. Now that I'm playing a version with bundles, I also should look into those.
So I'll let you decide whether this outing is 9 maps or 10 maps.
The second map to the South brought me to an ice spikes biome. I might not be fond of frozen oceans, but the nearest-thing-to-a-land-alternative goes the other way and is one of my favorites.
To the South, along the border of the snowy/ice region was something I don't think (?)I've found yet in this world, but have often seen pictures of, and that was a "ring" or raised terrain caused by either plateau terrain or mountains, with lower altitude land in the center.
Sometimes there will be a "river" looped and surrounding a small central island. I didn't get that part here, but there was a lake. Or maybe this could be seen a s a "looped river" without the central land island within it? Either way...
The fact that it occurs where a climate region change is going on makes it especially unique.
There was a nice cave here too.
Here's a look at it from another side.
This is right on the edge of the map I'm doing, so I'll likely see it again... in the far future.
I'd probably want to build something here in a long-term world, but it would make for a less than ideal spot for a home for an exploration world.
Opposite that, was more ice plains across a frozen river.
North was two ruined portals, although only the first had anything worthwhile.
Along the South is where the terrain started getting more hilly, but also bare. I can't stop appreciating how 1.18 gave the game proper world generation and made things like this possible.
I wondered if this meant mountains might be ahead. Some those might actually be mountains.
Coming down the other side of the next range ahead of me, I missed a cave opening, but saw it when I turned around. I was too far passed it at this point to bother backtracking to look at it from closer. I had a long exploration ahead.
The next map brought another surprise; snowy taigas offer a wolf variant too! I don't know where all the new wolves are. I sort of just befriend them as I encounter them if they are new, so I have two more now.
I found a pretty big cave opening on a small plains area near the end of the map.
I love the cave entrance variety terrain produces now. Not all cave entrances are the typical circular cave carvers like before.
The next map started like the first; with a pair of shipwrecks and both had the cabin.
I'm... not sure what happened here?
It looks like an iceberg covered in snow had a ravine carve through it and render most of it hollow? Either way, it looked interesting.
The end of the map brought a refreshing sight; temperate climate to the east! This snowy/ice region wouldn't be massive after all! At least, not East and West, which is good because I know it's pretty big North to South.
I found a ruined portal here, and it had a gold block... but I think I lost this one to the lava (if it wasn't this one, then that happens at one of them).
It did have horse armor though.
The Northeast of this map, which was temperate climate, had signs this could be a mountainous region ahead, although I wouldn't be venturing any further East.
There were some pretty impressive caves to be found here.
More mountains were indeed showing themselves.
As were more caves.
At the beginning of the next map was a shipwreck stuck up in the ice. These can sometimes generate in pretty wild places in Bedrock, such as in the sky, and while that doesn't seem to happen in Java (?), it reminded me of that. Like all shipwrecks found so far on this outing, it had a cabin.
The next map continues the trend of temperate climate to the East, and more so than the map that was just finished, so more warmer climate is coming up... for a little while.
With the outing (approximately) halfway done, I'd stop there. the next update will cover the remainder of it.
Many large inland lakes do seem to generate as a result of rivers looping in on themselves. If the loop is quick and sharp or the river is particularly wide, the resulting "island" tends to be smaller or doesn't exist at all. I've also encountered cases where two parallel rivers near a confluence suddenly turn on each other, which can also create islands.
The climate variety around that lake is nice, with the temperate forest, colder taiga and snowy plains. It's also pretty incredible seeing ice spikes cover such a large fraction of one map (the first one in your update). I especially like the hillside views; I almost always seem to find them in flatter areas.
As for the ruined portal, I usually fill in the lava pool if a gold block has generated within or directly above it. The pools are typically only one block deep so it's quick getting rid of them.
I'm still not sure which ruined portal it was I lost the gold block to. It may have been a different portal. I just recall that it happened eventually.
Regardless of which one it was, I think how it occurred was because of lava that was in neighboring space, but covered by a block above it, which hid it.
I never knew Fortune upped the chance of gravel. And certainly not to 100%!
.
The way nu-terrain generates rivers, as the near-zero region of a perlinesque noise, is able to generate "lakes" where a large region is near zero and becomes a sort of lake (although almost always just a really wide region of a river). This is particularly true where two rivers cross, because that means there can't be any far-from-zero regions nearby in any direction.
That weird Ice spike, whatever it is, is way more interesting than the vanilla Ice Spikes, which I've never been much impressed by (hence the tree-meets-ice crystals of the RTG Plus mod).
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Season 3: Episode 8

The temperate region of the next map started revealing attractive terrain. There were small mountains, but nothing substantial (yet?), and a lot of higher altitude terrain with a mix of temperate and colder forests, and rivers deeply cutting through the land. This made for some climbing... but not as exhausting as 1.8 would have been on a typical day, and the terrain was far more rewarding for the effort here.
On the next pass South, I got another picture of the first mountain and some forests and rivers because... "pretty terrain".
Back in the colder climate was another village, but it seemed small... not just unusually small, but impossibly so? Where was the actual gathering location? They always have one. Not only that, but there was no villagers? I looked inside to confirm and found this chest at least, and it had diamond horse armor.
Upon coming back outside, I found that there was a proper village here.
I had come from the left, so that little hill pictured behind the village hid it from me at first.
There was a very large cave not far from that village, along the border of the cold and temperate region.
More "pretty terrain". Sometimes the horizon lines catch my eye.
I would be heading West for the next map, so... it was more cold climate, and mostly frozen ocean.
That's pretty much all it was, but I found two shipwrecks in it, one submerged. Both had their cabin chest.
The next map was more varied, with some plains, taiga, windswept hills, and non snowy areas to break things up a bit more.
Another village was found in the cold climate.
As was a shipwreck, but for once, it had no cabin.
Near the end of the map, another village was found...
...And near the start of the following map, a temperate village was after that.
There was a ruined portal in plains Northwest, and it had something so rare that I forgot it could be found in a chest; a bell.
I wasn't done finding villages just yet. Another temperate one was very close to the first one on the map. It was in the plains, but generated mostly in the flower forest it was near, so it had a great feel.
But something off a shore just to the East surprised me more than anything; a hot region!?
That's a quick shift, but I need a hot and dry region. Alas, I won't be able to look into it yet, but it's a better sign than not for the future.
I headed North and the terrain again changed back to more hills and forests like it was two maps South. There was also ocean. I spotted a shipwreck, but didn't check it as it was off the map enough.
I soon encountered more ocean that I had to progress through, but due to the time of day nearing night, I sat my dogs on the shore and only went out partway and would return. Not far North was a steep cliff.
I returned to my dogs before night and broke my pattern to return South and then head North by land first. Another mountain was here, and while I usually just tame dogs if I come across this, in these biomes, I was being a bit more active in searching for them due to how rare they are.
Alas, the first pass had none.
Here's the same oceanside cliff pictured earlier.
Since I expected the land to go close to the North of the map ahead, I again left my dogs and went to map the Northeast ocean. In doing so, I found that cliff was part of and island... sort of. It's really part of the same land mass, but it's separated by a river so it counts.
On the North side was a village that under normal conditions, shouldn't have been able to spawn, but it is times like this I'm glad for the leniency in where they can spawn. This would make a very fun village to convert and make more naturally usable for the villagers.
Doubly so since they seem to need help building!
Just West was a shipwreck, but it had no cabin.
I returned to my dogs and continued on.
On the next pass by the mountain, I found a wolf!
It was only one (I think they only ever spawn in packs of one?), but it's the rarest type and I'm only after two of each type, so that's a good start.
To the South was another village.
On the final map was some welcome variety. There was frozen ocean, frozen lakes, snowy taiga, groves, mountains, and ice spikes, but there was nothing substantial to show after what I've seen so far. Enough to make it a relaxing finish instead of being monotonous frozen ocean though.
There was a ruined portal, and it had both a golden apple and golden carrots.
And to conclude with, one final village. There was a lot of those on this outing!
After such a long trip, seeing home was relieving. I added some sugar cane along the river so that it would grow as I came and went to bolster my paper supply. I would later add a couple more spots nearby.
And now, it's time for largest map update of this region...
"Ummm... okay then!"
For my next addition, I'd head straight North and do a column of four maps. I can't even say the cold regions are done, because remember there's another at the very Northern edge of where I'm about to head. *sigh*
It's over halfway completed at least!?
I also returned to Rubyville to store some items and returns my new dogs. I have quite the collection going?
This made me realize I might need a better home for them, as the villagers may push them into corners or even out the door. But I'll refrain from speaking further on that as I'll have some plans to share, which this can fall under, after this region is finished. They are big plans. Oh, and don't worry, I know the past episodes (and these new ones) need a table of contents added. I'm going to completely redo the first post and move the very first update into the second post, and that way the first one can serve as the introduction and table of contents. But I'm going to wait until after this region to do that due to the upcoming plans...
The snowy (grove) wolf is the only variant that spawns alone; when I explored a large mountain range a while ago I also only ended up getting one. Congrats on your wolf collection so far!
Yeah, if I haven't made a mistake in what varieties exist, I have all wolf types except two, and I need six more wolves total since I'm trying to get two of each (I imagine I can probably breed for them if I have one, but I'm looking to find two naturally).
The one found in groves and the Black one found in one of the old growth spruce biomes are both types that I have, but only one.
The two varieties found in savanna (only certain savannas?) and badlands biomes I need entirely. So my original desire to find a hot/dry climate area is boosted by this, as that is where I'll find at least one of the new wolves.
Season 3: Episode 9





Fast turnaround since I want to get caught up!
The beginning of the next area had a pretty large cave in a forest.
Take note of the pillager outpost in one of the pictures. I don't show this individually, but will be coming back to it soon.
A river to the east had a ruined portal. There was nothing valuable within its chest, but it did have two gold blocks. I'd sometimes rather have it that way.
The pillager outpost had a new horn for me...
...Which meant it was time to gloat with it by establishing dominance with their item in their terrain. They also built this in a spot with beautiful views.
Sometimes I wonder if that upsets them, but of course it would. Moments after that picture, I received a few arrows as a pair of later spawns followed me up the tower.
Near the beginning of the next map was another ruined portal, and this one had better chest contents, as well as a gold block.
I saw a possible interesting cave coming up on the map as I neared it, but it was "just a hole". It was still interesting.
Another ruined portal was found in the East. This one also had an unrewarding chest, but a gold block.
A pretty small village was found in the North, and the terrain started revealing cherry groves. With this, the forests started becoming more plains.
North was another village in the plains.
Ocean was appearing to the North, and bordering it was a shattered savanna biome. Something I've learned is that this biome somewhat goes against normal temperature/climate cues. While it typically only generates in temperate or warm climates, it does not indicate a hot climate, and instead usually generates by its lonesome. That single small savanna tree/biome I found before? I bet that was actually a shattered savanna instead of an actual savanna now.
Near that was windswept hills, which meant llamas!
The ocean to the North had a turned shipwreck.
Under the shattered savanna was a very large ruined portal. The chest contents weren't great, but good enough to take some. There was also a gold block, but the portal height meant a time investment (and risk since there were mobs) that I felt it was worth skipping.
The final Northernmost map meant a return to the icy/snow region, and much of it was also ocean. There was another ruined portal here. Again, chest contents were "good enough to show as I took something" but not great.
Forests in the East had a pretty large cave which I first spotted through a very small opening in the ground.
Where the cold region meets the temperate region was a village.
West of that was an igloo which came with a basement. I'm lucking out on that with the last few I've found.
With the final map completed, I returned and updated the map.
The next outing, which will be unusually short compared to all these rest, will be a row of four maps in the Southern unexplored area. After that, I'll have two more outings split across three updates (the final one is the largest/split one).
The pillagers at an outpost are usually more actively hostile than those in a patrol and will pursue the player from a greater distance, 64 blocks I believe? To avoid inconveniences I usually cover up the top of the staircase when checking the chest — though I suppose they shouldn't be a big problem in netherite armor.
I find that cherry groves typically spawn in or adjacently to plains and rarely directly around forests.
Cherry groves seem to me like meadows in that they only spawn on higher altitudes. You'll sometimes find them neighboring forests, but yes, they seem largely isolated to whatever terrain "conditions" that cause those vast expanses of (usually) flatter land and plateaus, which are usually dominated by plains (but sometimes have forests), and sometimes there will be actual mountains in them (in which case it will be less flat). So those "vast plains and plateaus with meadows or cherry groves" areas seem to be a common arrangement. I've often found the cherry groves bordering with forests though (my second home was built right on such an area), probably because whatever "conditions" are causing that type of area is ending and a different is beginning. At least, that's all my observation based on seeing trends in-game. Someone like Zeno could probably better explain what's going on with the actual terrain generation itself.

Season 3: Episode 10
I don't think I've ever done three updates in three days? Anyway...
The next outing begins in the Southeast of the remaining area, and then I'll do a row of four maps heading East.
The first map starts with windswept hills, and within them I find a village with a witch hut nearby.
If this seems familiar, it should be. This is the spot I passed through heading East when first entering this region blind, to find a place to settle.
I won't be heading there this update since that's to the North, but that will be where the following outing starts.
I don't dislike windswept hills at all (it has llamas, and they're usually not too extreme like the 1.7 era extreme hills counterparts)... but when I find an area that is a lot of them, with (non-mangrove) swamp and taiga... it half reminds of of 1.7 era terrain generation for some reason, and I don't know why. So this felt like leaving less interesting terrain and moving to more modern terrain in a way. It could also because the area "feels" cooler and I'm searching for hotter climate right now, even though I don't anticipate finding any on this outing since I'm crossing the edge of a cold climate.
The windswept hills area did have a couple of surprises near the center of the map though.
I'm not sure if this counts as a "cave" or not since the bottom is still fully grass, but stuff like this you would never see prior to 1.18, and I love it. When these actually end up forming on a more flat surface and lead into deeper swiss cheese caves, they tend to be my favorite types of entrances.
The second thing was a shattered savanna biome.
This sort of confirms in my mind that the lone tree I saw long ago (which is very nearby, diagonally opposite the shattered savanna biomes of this one) was just an incomplete attempt at one of these, and not a very small hot zone.
To the East, the terrain shifts to normal forest so the windswept hills area ends.
On the very Western edge of second map, the forest ends and ocean begins. And... that largely continues for the next two and a half maps. That's why this update is able to be so short. I cross frozen ocean in the middle and spot land at points to the North, but there's nothing worth showing until the final map.
First is this sideturned shipwreck on a small island (very fitting, haha). It's North of that taiga village spotted along the cliff side two updates ago, and you can just spot it in the distance.
Before making landfall to the terrain in the Northeast, I finish the ocean. While doing so, I spot a ruined portal on a hill along the shore. It has golden carrots (and a good view of the surrounding area).
Two very large cavern entrances are found a little Northwest from there.
In the Northeast itself was a mountain. It may look small (and it sort of is), but I'm already on very high altitude terrain here in a meadow. Most of this land mass was a gradual hill from the shore up to this point.
I looked for wolves in the small grove, but didn't find any, as expected.
From the top of the mountain, I looked East and saw a lovely view! I won't be heading there for a long time, however.
Looking North also showed some nice terrain.
I will be heading there, but not yet. That will end up being the final map I do, actually.
A close eye may spot two large cave openings.
The first, smaller and closer one, wasn't as impressive from a closer angle so I let this be the sole picture of it.
The second I didn't check since it was off the map and would check it when doing the final map. Unfortunately... I end up forgetting about it because when doing the final map, I am able to fill it in from the edge of the cherry grove and forget about it since I don't see it over the hill. Perhaps I should have crossed those hills, after all... (I'm not sorry!)
As it's still in the corner near unexplored terrain, there's a chance to remember it eventually though.
With the final map done, I head home and update the map.
It's almost done!
Here's how I plan to finish the remaining area.
The next update will be the Yellow area, and the Orange area will come after split cross two updates.
Shattered savannas don't have the same temperature requirements that other savanna variants do. They can generate both in temperate and hot regions (and often in isolation, i.e. not around other savannas) and so don't always indicate hot zones. From what I've seen, windswept hills seem to be the opposite, being able to generate in temperate, cold and snowy regions. When these two biomes are found next to each other it's usually in a temperate region with very high erosion values.
Yeah, I knew shattered savannas were their own thing that didn't quite follow climate norms, but I didn't know windswept hills were like that too.
I'm not sure what it is about the latter that makes them feel like 1.7 era terrain, but maybe it's the erosion. They feel similar to the ruggedness of that era, and the taiga and swamps often being nearby seem to match.
Windswept hills seems to be one of the few biomes whose terrain hasn't been visually affected much by 1.18. That 1.7 feel is probably with the high erosion as you said, namely the steep cliffs, overhangs and floating islands that were reminiscent of terrain in that era. Perhaps the mostly barren stone-and-grass landscape somewhat contributes too.
Um - this is not mysterious? It's extreme terrain becoming boring by repetition, a hallmark of 1.7 era Extreme Hills, and some other things as well, like the cliff-y hills.
What was the biome in the 5th from last pic, with the orange flowers and the low snowy hills in the distance? That grass color looks unfamiliar.
The contrast between the often impressive vistas of 1.18 era generation on the ground and the meh maps is very striking here.
Have you thought about updating the title under your avatar? It resets to "newly spawned" after an image change and it's just so strange to see you tagged as "newly spawned".
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.