Impatient to utilize the newly acquired Elytra, I decided to postpone my village expansion plans and set out on another expedition, this time in search of a lush cave system. One of my favorite biomes in the game, lush caves contain a wealth of blocks I enjoy using in nature-themed builds, namely glow berries, spore blossoms, and dripleaves ... although it's somehow the axolotls that truly entice me.
Before setting out, I dyed two of my three shulker boxes for organization purposes, sold several batches of carrots for extra emeralds, and ... collected honey from the bee nest for some reason ...?
I seriously hope they won't despawn or lose their nest pathfinding abilities.
I then hopped onto the roof of the barn before making my first flight in the Overworld. The satisfaction!
I soared east over the vast cherry groves and ice mountain ranges, and later a small area of sparse jungle, before the land itself gave way to ocean. My intended final destination would be the large expanse of old growth taiga near the nether fortress return portal from Episode 13. See, I knew we would eventually head back there one day for exploration purposes!
As I travelled, I came across many of the landmarks from the return journey, including the large bamboo jungle "survival island" with ... not one, but two shipwrecks? I hadn't noticed the second one before and decided it was worth stopping for.
The shipwreck was partially buried in sand, but my Efficiency V shovel made excavating it a speedy task.
I was only able to find one chest, the map chest, which contained a buried treasure map.
I somehow hadn't looked for (much less found) any buried treasure on this world thus far, and the map actually functioned properly, so I decided to give it a go. Thankfully, the chest appeared to be on the same beach, although on the opposite side of the island.
I located the chest with no problem, although more digging around was required.
The loot was magnificent! Not only could I finally craft a conduit, the surplus diamonds would come in handy in the future for netherite upgrade and armor trim template duplicating.
With the buried treasure now found, I continued flying east from the jungle island and came across a large stretch of dark forest and old growth birch forest, the former of which a lush cave is almost guaranteed to generate under.
Well, that wasn't so "lush"!
My luck wasn't as good here. Not only were there no azalea trees in sight, I also encountered a rare-while-exploring pillager patrol. I debated as to whether or not I should kill the captain to try and obtain the new 1.21 "Ominous Bottle" but decided that I didn't want to get too sidetracked.
Continuing east, I was met by another stretch of ocean. Since I was burning through my firework supplies rather quickly and didn't plan to build a gunpowder farm anytime soon, Elytra would soon become an impractical mode of transportation for me. But that's OK, especially if exploring on the ground appeals to readers more. I'm curious to hear your opinions regarding this.
As I sailed, I noticed a shallow ocean ruin with an easily accessible sea lantern! If you don't know yet, I love sea lanterns and would seize any opportunity to collect some. So that's exactly what I did.
Behind the ruin was another shipwreck, but I had already explored it on the fortress return journey.
It was only a matter of seconds before I found another shallow ocean and sailed over to look for more sea lanterns.
Unfortunately, it was tiny and didn't contain any.
By dusk, I had reached the large seaside village (also discovered during the return journey), where I bedploped inside a house and slept through the night. I suppose a fitting nickname for the village could be "The Gateway to the Nether Fortress."
Come morning, as low as I was on fireworks, I put on my Elytra yet again when I found another vast expanse of dark forest to cross.
I really shouldn't be doing this, though: the chunks weren't showing up quickly enough, which meant I could easily crash into some invisible mountain ahead and lose the world.
By midday, I had reached my destination: the portal to the nether fortress.
I decided to venture uphill, where the standard taiga would transition to the old growth spruce variant and have a higher chance of generating a lush cave underneath. I was also on the lookout for the new 1.20.5 wolf variants but didn't put too much hope in that as I had already been here before the update, meaning the nearby chunks had probably already generated with the normal wolves.
I did, however, spot some fluffy friends frolicing about.
Climbing to the top of a small plateau overlooking a river, I was disappointed to find that to the east, the taiga transitioned back to oak forest. This didn't seem like a particularly large cold zone.
Although I didn't get a proper picture, I was ambushed by a spider that had escaped from one of the small cave openings nearby.
To the northeast, I found a ruined portal on the other side of the river.
This one contained two gold blocks, one of which (namely the one on top of the portal) dropped into lava when I tried to mine it. That slightly frustrated me as I had removed all the lava on my side of the portal and thought the gold block would land there. Welp, it went on the other side.
The loot was terrible, but I took the obsidian anyway despite the large deposit at the lava cave at Sunflower Valley. Perhaps I was annoyed there was nothing actually worth taking?
As I rowed back to my side of the river, something caught my eye:
Exposed blue and red terracotta on a small taiga island ...
It took me quite a long time to realize that I had just discovered a trail ruin, a structure added in 1.20. I hadn't found any in the game so far, not even on Creative mode! Those must be rare.
I assumed this structure was added as an "archaeology site" filled with suspicious gravel, and this was one of the rare times I didn't have a brush in my ender chest (really?!), so I headed back to the old growth taiga hill, found some exposed copper at a cave entrance and smelted it. Thankfully, I had taken the two feathers from the shipwreck chest near the beginning of the update. After doing some research on how to explore trail ruins, I crafted the brush and started my archaeology adventure.
My first treasure was orange dye.
The whole thing took nearly four in-game days to explore, much longer than I had anticipated. On the first day, I mined out a small space near the top where I would store my three shulker boxes before proceeding to fill them up with various blocks like terracotta, mud bricks, glass ...
Although I did accidentally break a few blocks, the suspicious gravel was generally rewarding, offering me four of the seven trail ruin pottery sherds, all four of the armor trim templates, and three "Relic" music discs. A new soundtrack for my parrots to enjoy!
I even discovered some "rooms" (flooded because of the river above) containing utility blocks like looms and crafting tables.
By the time I had finished, my three shulker boxes were all nearly full. Looks like inventory limitations would still be an issue on this expedition! At least I could finally breathe fresh air again ...
Although I still hadn't found an azalea tree, I decided to take a risk and staircase down underground in the hopes of bumping into a lush cave system. But first, I needed to head back to the old growth taiga / dark forest intersection, where lush caves would be most common.
Along the way, I passed the cluster of small cave openings, one of which a creeper now guarded.
I decided that the bottom of the hill I was standing on would be a great place to start stripmining from.
As I mined, I passed several large clay deposits, but simply failed to locate the lush cave system. Eventually, after using the squeaking bats to my advantage, I found what I was looking for.
To reiterate, my primary tasks here were to collect glow berries, spore blossoms, and dripleaves, and to capture at least several axolotls.
The cavern was large ...
... not in width, but height. It was the sort of cave where a creeper could easily fall from a dark spot above and instantly explode without warning. Unfortunately, the light from the glow berries were too high up to be effective, meaning artificial lighting was needed.
After sniping several skeletons and zombies and rushing to light up the place, I spotted a gold axolotl bobbing up and down in a 1x1 pool of water. I decided to end its suffering and rushed to capture it in my bucket. Don't worry, you'll have a beautiful new home soon!
And now, we continue on. This would be a great place to stockpile on my iron and gold supplies.
I then looked up again and ... funnily enough, this cavern was actually exposed to the sky. I could see the leaves of the spruce trees. It's clear I had taken the longer, but far safer, way in.
The sky was so distracting that I nearly forgot I was still in an underground cavern and must remain on high alert for mobs.
I spotted an enderman as well and didn't want to risk accidentally looking it in the eye later on, so I captured the creature in a boat and took it out, obtaining three ender pearls.
But nothing beat the spore blossoms! Spoiler alert: they'll look amazing on my newly renovated oak tree at Sunflower Valley.
With the main cavern now mostly explored, I continued staircasing down, bumping into a smaller cavity within seconds. Thanks to the more effective glow berries, this one would be far less dangerous to explore.
Well, maybe not.
I was still searching for axolotls, which were far rarer than I had thought. Perhaps they only spawned in full darkness? In that case, smaller caves wouldn't be particularly useful because of the light emitted from the glow berries. Ah, so everything's a trade off.
On the plus side, the end of the passage was marked by what seemed like an amethyst geode.
Unfortunately, my shulker boxes were all very full, so I simply couldn't spare any more inventory slots for extra amethyst crystals. I did, however, record the coordinates of the geode should I decide to return in the future.
The passage was nevertheless sprinkled with ore deposits, even deepslate coal, which I gratefully mined to make up for all the coal I had used up to craft torches.
At this point, I had acquired over a stack of iron ores and half a stack of gold ores, all of which I'll mine with my Fortune III pickaxe upon my return to Sunflower Valley.
With that passage now fully explored, I continued mining around, hoping to come across another one. And I did! This one was also small and brightly lit but I decided to check it out anyway.
That turned out to be the right decision, because I found a "wild" (brown) axolotl here, although the rush to capture it in my bucket made me completely forget to take a screenshot. So I guess axolotls aren't exclusive to dark areas?
It also seemed like I had come to the end of the lush cave system, indicated by the darkness beyond the glow berries. That, coupled with my three full shulker boxes, made me decide to end the expedition here.
The safest way to return to the surface was probably to mine a staircase up, so I did exactly that, although I had to set up a supply depot halfway through to store excess stacks of stone type blocks. Eventually, I broke through the wall of the "main" cavern, indicated by the torches below. Now all I had to do was continue staircasing up adjacent to it.
And here we were! The sunlight was awaiting yet again.
Well, I would call that a successful expedition. In summary, we'd found our first buried treasure, excavated our first trail ruin, and, most importantly, explored our first lush cave system on this world. I didn't find all the axolotl variants, but that task would be saved for the future.
Now, it was time to leave this forested paradise.
No need for coordinates or a compass, I'd now been here enough times to figure out the way home.
The 3000-block journey to Sunflower Valley took less than a day with Elytra, whereas it would take nearly five on foot. Unfortunately, this would probably be the last time I'll be using it in a long while due to diminishing gunpowder supplies; I can't be bothered to spend nights outside killing creepers.
The next update will primarily focus on building as I work on expanding and renovating the village, a task I really should stop postponing. Perhaps I'll even put the glow berries and spore blossoms from the lush cave to use ...
(Edit: I like how this post triggered a popup at the top of the thread explaining how to find a lush cave.)
That was a cool expedition. Azalea bushes indicate lush cave systems? I totally missed my opportunity as a child; there were azalea *everywhere* where I grew up.
5 days for 3000 blocks? That seems slow. I routinely knock off trips that long in one of my double-length days. Granted I use a lot of boating - but I recall several oceans you crossed you could use for boating.
I normally build multiple bases but I have to say you continually working on one has given it a nice personality. Feels nicely organic.
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.
If you are walking in a straight line you can travel 2580 blocks in 10 minutes (just the day itself; 600 seconds * 4.3 m/s), with sprinting (5.6 m/s) increasing that to 3360 blocks; terrain will slow that down but 4-5 times slower seems excessive unless you are making a lot of stops to investigate things; I also carry ender pearls to deal with more difficult terrain (also useful when caving, e.g. jumping across large gaps without risking mobs knocking you off a bridge, or when I'm exploring a large ravine and spot some ore on the other side that wasn't visible from there, this is probably useful in 1.18's caves as well).
That was a cool expedition. Azalea bushes indicate lush cave systems? I totally missed my opportunity as a child; there were azalea *everywhere* where I grew up.
5 days for 3000 blocks? That seems slow. I routinely knock off trips that long in one of my double-length days. Granted I use a lot of boating - but I recall several oceans you crossed you could use for boating.
I normally build multiple bases but I have to say you continually working on one has given it a nice personality. Feels nicely organic.
Yes, naturally generating azalea trees do indicate a lush cave directly beneath. I often like spiralling down from the bottommost log to reach it; in the process, you'll acquire lots of rooted dirt as well.
I probably wasn't being particularly efficient while making the first return journey. My bearings were often slightly off and I made a quick stop at the village.
I do like the idea of having multiple bases; they offer great convenience for explorers and it's often fun to link them up using custom roads, nether highways, etc. As a builder however I like to continuously work on one base and see how nice I can make it.
With the recent excitement of raiding end cities and exploring lush caves, expanding the village was a task I had been postponing for a while. In this episode, we take care of Sunflower Valley's housing problems ... and more!
Not a good start, though, right?
It had removed a dirt block, which was unacceptable.
My first mini-task was to re-renovate the clearing at the entrance of the barn. The growth of nearby giant spruce trees had replaced the lush green grass with a horrendous patch of podzol, but the solution was simple: moss carpets and flowers!
I had only just finished when a wandering trader party showed up. They sure loved the renovations.
Unfortunately, nothing of particular interest was offered ...
... or was there? I had recently been scrolling through the Minecraft Wiki and learned that trader llamas don't despawn if they are tamed before the two-day deadline. So, just to diversify my base, that's exactly what I did.
With that done, it's time to move on to the highlight of the update: expanding the village by constructing a series of log cabins to house the extra villagers and two crop farms for easier trading.
As I terraformed the land for the first log cabin, which would be located adjacent to the bamboo farm, I had to cover up this small cave opening which contained a spider.
And now for the finished house:
Ah, there's nothing better than a nice, simple home. I had experimented with using the new 1.21 tuff bricks for the entrance and roof trim and found it a slightly less dull alternative to stone bricks. It's certainly great seeing otherwise next-to-unused blocks like tuff being updated and have more purpose in building.
I had also tried out a popular window design technique, which involves placing stairs above and below glass panes. It may be simple but is very effective at adding depth, which I sometimes struggle with in building.
Of course, the flowerbeds were the cherry on top!
The interior consisted of three beds, although I later added in a workstation from a different house.
The beds themselves had actually been moved from the library to make space for more lecterns, which several of the librarians shared or simply did not have access to before this "upgrade."
With the first log cabin finished, I decided to work on the two crop farms, namely a melon and pumpkin farm, which would enable me to earn up to half a stack (a full stack if I had been luckier, as you would see later) of emeralds each day. First, however, I replaced all the melons and pumpkins in the old farm with all the beetroots from my carrot farm.
Time to embrace the excitements of terraforming!
Ugh, those endermen ... moving dirt around in the dark like that. I really should consider using an anti-endermen-griefing datapack.
My lingering around at the cave opening had attracted a zombie wearing full gold armor.
Upon killing it, I was "rewarded" with its leggings.
The design of the farm is relatively simple: a circular outline similar in size and shape to the village's own wheat farm, but with tuff brick walls (I simply couldn't get over it now ...) and potted lanterns (obviously). I also dug out a new path leading from the wheat farm to the melon farm despite the fact that villagers are prohibited from entering. And oh, there's also a stray cat which I gladly tamed despite already having one of this variant at my house.
Another one! This was a new variant.
Speaking of taming cats, my fish supplies were nearing zero and my fishing rod was nearly broken, so the obvious next step was to enchant my fishing rod and spend the whole of the next day fishing.
The first attempt provided Unbreaking III and Luck of the Sea II, which was insufficient as I would like Lure as well, so I grabbed my wheat seeds, headed over to the barn and bred chickens until I once again had 30 XP levels.
Time for Round 2!
Yay, the best it could be! Now I just needed to top everything off with Mending, which would not only allow the fishing rod to last forever but also remove the need to repair it manually since experience from fishing would do so instantly.
Distractions aside, I eventually finished the pumpkin farm and the mossy path leading to it.
Since finishing the first log cabin, villagers had been breeding enthusiastically despite the fact that the number of beds remained the same as I had simply moved them from the library to the new house. But I couldn't complain, because this would provide an opportunity for new jobs!
I placed down a second composter at the wheat farm and a villager accepted it. Now I just needed to level them up and pray I would unlock the pumpkin trade ...
No! Not apples and pumpkin pies, which the first farmer was already offering. Despite the disappointment, I still levelled them up to Master and see what they would offer, which turned out to be suspicious stews, cakes, and golden carrots. Fair enough, although my pantry became infested with junk food.
Before building the second log cabin, I decided to work on another mini-project, a small armadillo hut, which would provide me with easy access to armadillo scutes, and in turn wolf armor. While wolf armor is not something I need right now, I might use it in the future, so it would obviously be a good idea to secure several armadillos before they despawn.
I did remember spotting some dozing around the northern stony mountain range during the mapping expeditions, so that was where I was headed, at the cost of one firework.
After enjoying the sunset from the peaceful savanna plateau ...
... a pillager patrol spawned behind me the next morning.
I could not be bothered to take them on. There were mountain peaks to climb!
After lots of mining and pillaring up, I made it to the highest summit, which reached high above the clouds to an incredible altitude of y:241, only 15 blocks below the world generation limit.
Brilliant view from up here, but I could not find any armadillos.
I then glided back down and circled the mountain range, coming across the village which had served as my temporary base during the mapping expedition. This was taking far longer than I thought.
After half a day of searching, I finally found I was looking for.
Time to make you some friends!
No, not you wolves, sorry.
Uh ... I should probably get away from this place before the spitting llamas murder the wolves.
The relatively short journey back to Sunflower Valley took two whole days. The armadillos were constantly disattached from the leads, either because of my impatience or the mountainous terrain. I led them down the savanna plateau, through a forest, and into the pass separating the stony mountain range from the snowy one.
Now to cross the snowy ridge, which thankfully contained little powder snow ...
... through the cherry grove ...
... and back home, where I temporarily leashed the grunting animals to the rabbit hut, beside the iron golem.
After that, I grew and chopped down several acacia trees and terraformed and "mossified" some land before extending the rabbit hut, where the armadillos would be kept, but in a separate pen.
To be honest, the roof of the hut no longer looked as good, so I might consider making several minor modifications to it in the next update.
Back to the log cabin project, I finished the second house after several more in-game days. This one is similar to the first but with a different block palette: oak log, oak planks, stripped birch log, stripped spruce log, and polished andesite. I still like the tuff bricks a lot better though but had ran out of it and wanted to try polished andesite, which I rarely use compared to diorite (strangely enough to some).
Because this house would serve as the cartographer's, I even included a tiny sugarcane garden at the back. The water that enables the sugarcane to grow is hidden by spruce trapdoors, which in turn are concealed by the bright pink cherry leaves.
Speaking of cherry leaves, I decided to use cherry wood, a risky but unique choice, for the third and final log cabin. I had never attempted to build a cherry house on this world thus far as I had always been concerned the bright pink color would not fit in well with my other builds. However, I realized that I might just get away with it if I used darker materials as "trims" and the house was built behind the pond. In short, this was going to turn out either magnificently or horrifically.
I only had around half a stack of cherry logs, however, so I planted down several saplings at the oak farm. Big mistake!
Poor azalea tree! I had not known that when a tree grew, its leaves could replace that of another. Welp, I had no choice but to chop down the monstrosity and bonemeal a nearby azalea bush for another tree. And, lesson learned: grow cherry trees in the spruce farm, not the oak farm.
To make matters worse, an enderman had stolen another dirt block.
Before I could begin building, I needed to take care of something else: my sand / glass supplies were running so low that I probably wouldn't have enough materials to make the windows of the house. You know what that meant: it was time for another expedition, this time to the area around the world spawn point, where I recalled seeing multiple large beaches.
The local frozen mountain massif was brimming with wildlife. How peculiar.
As I sailed along the coast looking for a decently large beach, I came across a warm ocean ruin, somehow the first I'd seen on this world thus far.
By sunset, I had reached my destination. Betime, and then shovelling time.
Five minutes and four stacks of sand later, I turned to leave. As I looked back one last time, surveying the terraformed beach, a pillager patrol spawned right before my eyes, which amused me.
They even waded into the water afterwards for whatever reason. Regardless, my job here was done and I could finally return, finish off that last house, and call it a day. I decided to take the mountainous route home this time.
Back at Sunflower Valley, I realized there was another problem: to craft more beds, I would need wool, but my unenchanted shears were nearly broken. The solution? Enchant the shears! Since you cannot enchant shears via an enchanting table, I purchased Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, and Mending books from my librarians and applied them to my shears with the anvil, which unfortunately lost durability during the process.
As if the distractions weren't enough, I was greeted by a second wandering trader who had spawned on the roof of one of the village houses.
After helping them and the llamas down, I found there was again nothing of particular interest being offered.
As for the log cabin? I finally finished it and everything turned out a lot better than I thought. The interior consisted of three beds, a grindstone (the profession block for a weaponsmith), and a smithing table (the profession block for a toolsmith).
Before I could present the exterior of the house, I went on yet another mini-expedition, this time to the northern village I had discovered during the mapping expeditions. I had decided that I would like a second meeting point (i.e. a bell) at Sunflower Valley, specifically at the pond, since our village was expanding in that direction. After removing one of the two bells at the other village, I returned, place down the bell at the pond, and sprinkled some more azalea bushes and flowers around the place.
Honestly, I think the cherry house fits in fairly well.
Here's a view of Sunflower Valley from the west:
The village is obviously far from completed as there's still a lot I would love to add in. Houses. Gardens. Maybe even a custom river someday, although it would be a project requiring considerable time and materials. I'm also looking forward to large-scale builds like the lighthouse on my survival island world, but since we now live in the mountains, it'll be something far different.
Outside building, I do plan on summoning and defeating the wither sometime soon, setting up a fully powered beacon, and quite possibly even raiding a bastion remnant and acquiring full netherite gear. If I manage to survive trying to do all of these things, I might consider defeating a combat-based structure such as an ocean monument, woodland mansion, ancient city, or even the new trial chamber. After all of these objectives are completed, I would consider this world "successful."
In the meantime, however, I won't be updating for a while as I have more important real-life things to take care of.
I love villages with personalities and I think your approach of similar structures in somewhat different materials works. Except maybe not the pink walls - I think that works better as an accent color.
Why wasn't the Enderman teleporting? I thought they teleported when they took damage but sometimes they don't, but I've never understood why.
All the best with your real world endeavors.
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.
Yeah, I probably should have made the walls spruce / oak wood with cherry trapdoors like for my own house. It looks odder the more I look at it.
I had trapped the endermen in boats specifically to prevent them from teleporting while I fought them. Although I probably could take one on normally, I'd prefer not taking any damage if possible.
I was only able to find one chest, the map chest, which contained a buried treasure map.
I'd suggest to maybe go back and look again, because looking at that ship, it looks like a full one, and the chest should always spawn (I think) if the part of the ship it spawns in is there. At least, I've yet to see a chest fail to spawn if the part of the ship the chest is supposed to be in is present. So you can look at what part of the chip exists and know what chest(s) will be there.
There's up to three chests that can spawn.
One is within the "cabin", which is the room on the deck level (right in your picture, and you have to crouch to get into it because there's a half slab at one point so it may be easy to miss). That has the best chest, as it contains the resources.
A other two chests are below the deck. One is in a small "room" (more of a nook) below the cabin, and that's where the paper/maps are found. This one has a door hiding it, and while I've never seen it personally, apparently the air gap the door spawns can allow mobs to spawn. I've heard of people opening the door and witnessing a creeper waiting. Should be a minimum problem if you have a shield and/or stay in the water and are watching for it.
The third is at the front in another small "room" and has food stuffs. I don't think there's a door hiding this one but I can't remember.
I usually only bother checking the cabin chest most of the time, but the other two can be useful at times.
Since I was burning through my firework supplies rather quickly and didn't plan to build a gunpowder farm anytime soon, Elytra would soon become an impractical mode of transportation for me. But that's OK, especially if exploring on the ground appeals to readers more. I'm curious to hear your opinions regarding this.
I would do it however you prefer.
The world I was playing was specifically focused on exploring, and it's done under a "no elytra allowed" rule, so the whole purpose is exploring on foot.
Zeno is using an airship at times, but likewise, I think he's mostly testing world generation stuff and how it plays out at a medium/large scale.
That doesn't mean exploration is only interesting on foot.
In my first hardcore world, I did most of the exploration (and almost all of the mapping) with elytra.
Edit: I haven't read the latest update yet so I'm a bit behind.
Edit 2: Oh, yeah, I meant to comment on it anyway because it jumped out as me as odd, but I forgot until I was reminded when I read other replies.
Five days for 3,000 blocks is indeed slow. I know nothing of the calculating it based on rate of travel, but it's simply something I know from experience. In my very first world, the place I settled at was near spawn, and the first place I decided to move to was incidentally around 3,000 blocks East. I remember having to make a lot of back and forth trips to move all my stuff. This was largely done on foot, with a relatively small portion in a boat across a swamp (back when boats broke when they hit something). And I remember each trip was about a day, give or take, one way. Caver's calculation sounds right because I would recall leaving in the morning, and arrive shortly after it was getting dark enough for stuff to spawn. So accounting for obstacles (terrain) or other distractions, I could see it being slower, but not so much slower it would be five days.
I forgot to respond to the flying business, but I've found ground exploration makes for much more interesting stories than air exploration. I am only using my airship for terrain that's very hard to explore on the ground (Extreme Hills, which can be very rough in RTG, and Dark Forests; modern minecraft mountains are not as problematic and I'd probably use it only for Dark Forests and Mangrove Swamp), or when I need to move a lot of stuff (because the airship can have a chest in it, and carry animals). In a world like yours where filling in maps isn't paramount I'd probably skip it for mapping and just leave the problematic biomes unmapped.
The Elytra would also be useful for fast travel when you're just trying to get somewhere in a hurry and don't want a travel story; my airship is not tremendously faster than ordinary travel (and sometimes actually slower) so I don't use it much for 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.
I like to play as vanilla as possible most of the time, but something to deal with the enderman griefing is something I won't go without.
The animals at the tops of the mountains isn't surprising, at least if you've had them loaded enough. I think they tend to prefer going to higher altitudes and, given enough time, ones in an area will group near peaks. I've observed this too.
And ancient city wouldn't be hard, but it depends on how you approach it. If you don't want to know some of the details which may spoil it, skip the rest.
If you use night vision potions as I did my first one in hardcore, it reduces the experience to nothing. I don't recommend this if you're wanting it to feel like an accomplishment.
The first deep dark and ancient city I attempted (non-hardcore world) was done blind. I had a vague understanding on the warden and that "make noise and it comes" and that certain types of blocks were used to detect this, but I didn't yet know the details. In the first deep dark I encountered, I was moving along and then *sudden cute noise* and I freeze and go... "what is that!?". I panic and flee, and after some time, I eventually slowly going back and find nothing. I had a lot of thoughts.
Maybe it despawned?
Maybe it never even spawned?
That noise meant something sensed me but to what extent?
I go back to where I was again and... the same noise. But this time, I just froze in place and listened. And there was nothing that happened. I moved again and the same noise occurred, but still, nothing else happened. At this point, I ruined it for myself and looked things up (my firm belief is that Minecraft was better in the past because we didn't know anything, and looking up all the mechanics before updates even leave snapshots ruins the magic) and discovered there were two blocks in the sense and summon process, that the summon one needed activated three times, and all within 10 minutes, so... no wonder didn't summon.
But I didn't look any deeper into it than that. I simply figured I hadn't done enough activation within ten minutes or that i was only encountering the sensor block and not the shrieker. Spoiler alert, it was the second.
I wanted to find an ancient city, and I was still in my 1.18 cave honey moon phase (1.19 just launched) so between wanting to cave anyway, and knowing ancient cities were beneath mountains, I went caving under one and did caving. It was so eerie, surreal, and majestic when I looked further down into a large and deep cavern I was in, and just passed a very narrow but tall opening in the wall of what would have been a dead end, I saw the unmistakable signs of an ancient city; there was a dark Blue soul lantern, dark oak planks, and stone. I was both terrified and excited.
"Okay, this is it!?"
I made that my first ancient city attempt and I went in after making a nearby respawn place, and changing to replaceable iron armor, in case I died. Playing with the shaders sure helped (I had them set to make it pitch Black where there was no light), because the experience was unreal. I also avoided cheesing it. I approached it in a slow and methodical way, like a horror game (which I have a thing for I guess).
What caught me off guard was the fact that the "cute noise" I heard before in the deep dark biome was merely a sculk sensor only, not a shrieker, so I was never in any danger in my first encounter. It was shortly into my first ancient city attempt that I encountered my first sculk shrieker. That noise was not cute, but what terrified me about it wasn't the different sound, but rather the darkness effect. Again, while I looked up certain basics, I was avoiding looking up everything. So I did not know the darkness effect happened with a sculk shrieker. So when it happened, I thought the warden was being summoned, despite it only being the first activation I made of one? That... didn't stop me from leaving the ancient city, the entire cave, and running back up to the surface in a panic. And... I loved it.
I eventually figured that the darkness effect happens on activation, and that four are needed to summon it. Unfortunately, knowing these mechanics was enough to know how to avoid it, so to this day, I've yet to naturally spawn a warden.
So basically, my point is, I wanted to say something since this is a hardcore world, but if you want it to be an accomplishment, I'd at least avoid using night vision potions., I also personally disallowed myself from using wool (odd rule, maybe?), but that's because I like approaching it as a horror thing instead of shortcutting it.
Now if you don't want to do it for the accomplishment, and only want it for the rewards... go ahead and shortcut it. I "cheesed" the bastion remnant in my current hardcore world just for the netherite upgrade template, and I never approached one at all in my first hardcore world. Piglin brutes are no kidding matter. They will end your hardcore world. Don't take them lightly.
The wither is very easy too if you cheese it. I defeated it that way, but only because I wanted the beacon rewards and not because I wanted to defeat it for accomplishment sake.
The world I was playing was specifically focused on exploring, and it's done under a "no elytra allowed" rule, so the whole purpose is exploring on foot.
Although the focus of this world is not on exploring, I do enjoy conducting occasional mapping expeditions which serve as breaks between building and resource collecting sessions. Mapping with elytra on my survival island world wasn't particularly appealing, at least to me: there wasn't time to fully enjoy the scenery and exploring on foot just provides a greater sense of accomplishment. Outside mapping, however, I very often use elytra for convenience while gathering materials in the areas I've already explored, so I think the best solution is to simply implement a "no elytra mapping" rule.
I forgot to respond to the flying business, but I've found ground exploration makes for much more interesting stories than air exploration. I am only using my airship for terrain that's very hard to explore on the ground (Extreme Hills, which can be very rough in RTG, and Dark Forests; modern minecraft mountains are not as problematic and I'd probably use it only for Dark Forests and Mangrove Swamp), or when I need to move a lot of stuff (because the airship can have a chest in it, and carry animals). In a world like yours where filling in maps isn't paramount I'd probably skip it for mapping and just leave the problematic biomes unmapped.
Luckily, few of the vanilla biomes are particularly challenging to traverse. Even if I did come across something like a big clump of windswept savanna, however, I still like to accept the challenge and finish the map I'm working on. This is obviously a lot more difficult on your world but, from looking at the pictures in your updates, I actually like how RTG has made forested and mountainous biomes more "intense."
And ancient city wouldn't be hard, but it depends on how you approach it. If you don't want to know some of the details which may spoil it, skip the rest.
If you use night vision potions as I did my first one in hardcore, it reduces the experience to nothing. I don't recommend this if you're wanting it to feel like an accomplishment.
The first deep dark and ancient city I attempted (non-hardcore world) was done blind. I had a vague understanding on the warden and that "make noise and it comes" and that certain types of blocks were used to detect this, but I didn't yet know the details. In the first deep dark I encountered, I was moving along and then *sudden cute noise* and I freeze and go... "what is that!?". I panic and flee, and after some time, I eventually slowly going back and find nothing. I had a lot of thoughts.
Maybe it despawned?
Maybe it never even spawned?
That noise meant something sensed me but to what extent?
I go back to where I was again and... the same noise. But this time, I just froze in place and listened. And there was nothing that happened. I moved again and the same noise occurred, but still, nothing else happened. At this point, I ruined it for myself and looked things up (my firm belief is that Minecraft was better in the past because we didn't know anything, and looking up all the mechanics before updates even leave snapshots ruins the magic) and discovered there were two blocks in the sense and summon process, that the summon one needed activated three times, and all within 10 minutes, so... no wonder didn't summon.
But I didn't look any deeper into it than that. I simply figured I hadn't done enough activation within ten minutes or that i was only encountering the sensor block and not the shrieker. Spoiler alert, it was the second.
I wanted to find an ancient city, and I was still in my 1.18 cave honey moon phase (1.19 just launched) so between wanting to cave anyway, and knowing ancient cities were beneath mountains, I went caving under one and did caving. It was so eerie, surreal, and majestic when I looked further down into a large and deep cavern I was in, and just passed a very narrow but tall opening in the wall of what would have been a dead end, I saw the unmistakable signs of an ancient city; there was a dark Blue soul lantern, dark oak planks, and stone. I was both terrified and excited.
"Okay, this is it!?"
I made that my first ancient city attempt and I went in after making a nearby respawn place, and changing to replaceable iron armor, in case I died. Playing with the shaders sure helped (I had them set to make it pitch Black where there was no light), because the experience was unreal. I also avoided cheesing it. I approached it in a slow and methodical way, like a horror game (which I have a thing for I guess).
What caught me off guard was the fact that the "cute noise" I heard before in the deep dark biome was merely a sculk sensor only, not a shrieker, so I was never in any danger in my first encounter. It was shortly into my first ancient city attempt that I encountered my first sculk shrieker. That noise was not cute, but what terrified me about it wasn't the different sound, but rather the darkness effect. Again, while I looked up certain basics, I was avoiding looking up everything. So I did not know the darkness effect happened with a sculk shrieker. So when it happened, I thought the warden was being summoned, despite it only being the first activation I made of one? That... didn't stop me from leaving the ancient city, the entire cave, and running back up to the surface in a panic. And... I loved it.
I eventually figured that the darkness effect happens on activation, and that four are needed to summon it. Unfortunately, knowing these mechanics was enough to know how to avoid it, so to this day, I've yet to naturally spawn a warden.
So basically, my point is, I wanted to say something since this is a hardcore world, but if you want it to be an accomplishment, I'd at least avoid using night vision potions., I also personally disallowed myself from using wool (odd rule, maybe?), but that's because I like approaching it as a horror thing instead of shortcutting it.
Now if you don't want to do it for the accomplishment, and only want it for the rewards... go ahead and shortcut it. I "cheesed" the bastion remnant in my current hardcore world just for the netherite upgrade template, and I never approached one at all in my first hardcore world. Piglin brutes are no kidding matter. They will end your hardcore world. Don't take them lightly.
The wither is very easy too if you cheese it. I defeated it that way, but only because I wanted the beacon rewards and not because I wanted to defeat it for accomplishment sake.
That ancient city raid must have been quite an adventure! I have a similar story, albeit an unusual one, when I found a deep dark biome while strip mining on a survival world. I had accidentally set off a sculk shrieker in a nearby cave and panicked when I noticed the subtitle "warden approaches." I knew you should be given four warnings before a warden is summoned, and that there is a darkness effect following the setting off of a shrieker, but the subtitle led me to believe there was a glitch and I had not been given any warnings.
At least I had already known about the concept of sculk shriekers and wardens. For someone who is knew to the game, subtitles can spoil everything for them, almost similar to looking stuff up online like you mentioned.
As for the no wool rule ... for a first ancient city raid, and in hardcore, I am probably not skilled enough; even without rules I might consider practicing on a survival world first. But night vision is definitely out the window.
The subtitles are different for each warning level, but at the same time, they all sort of convey the same thing just worded differently, so it's a bit odd in that regard.
I don't normally play with subtitles because my preferred way to play is "if I can't naturally hear it, I shouldn't be aware of it". Certain stuff has ranges it can be heard from but it's supposed to be nearly inaudible at the edge of that range, whereas subtitles are an all or nothing thing. It's great that disability features exist for people who need them, mind you, but I don't, so I prefer to play with them off instead of turning them on just for extra information.
As for the ancient city in hardcore, you don't have to follow my rules, so I wasn't suggesting you do, just listing how I prefer to approach them. Even without allowing yourself to use wool, it's pretty difficult to summon a warden if you know what you're doing, although you're basically forcing yourself to wait on cooldowns of warnings at that point, and some people may find that to be pointless tedium. For me though, I prefer to force myself to have to balance waiting versus being extra risky to progress because, well... as I said, I tend to like the appeal of horror games, and approaching the deep dark and ancient cities in that way tends to offer the same sort of payout for me.
But yes, it's risky to add handicaps in hardcore, and for that reason, I used night vision potions for my first one in hardcore. It completely rendered the whole experience down to feeling like it wasn't an accomplishment, however, because you can easily see the sculk shriekers everywhere (though, you can see them pretty readily in vanilla even without those potions, which is why I truly only find the experience fulfilling while playing with shaders that make light level 0 completely Black). I meant to go back and do it again without the night vision potions, but I ended up failing in that world before I got around to it.
Episode 26: Spelunking Spectacles
Impatient to utilize the newly acquired Elytra, I decided to postpone my village expansion plans and set out on another expedition, this time in search of a lush cave system. One of my favorite biomes in the game, lush caves contain a wealth of blocks I enjoy using in nature-themed builds, namely glow berries, spore blossoms, and dripleaves ... although it's somehow the axolotls that truly entice me.
Before setting out, I dyed two of my three shulker boxes for organization purposes, sold several batches of carrots for extra emeralds, and ... collected honey from the bee nest for some reason ...?
I seriously hope they won't despawn or lose their nest pathfinding abilities.
I then hopped onto the roof of the barn before making my first flight in the Overworld. The satisfaction!
I soared east over the vast cherry groves and ice mountain ranges, and later a small area of sparse jungle, before the land itself gave way to ocean. My intended final destination would be the large expanse of old growth taiga near the nether fortress return portal from Episode 13. See, I knew we would eventually head back there one day for exploration purposes!
As I travelled, I came across many of the landmarks from the return journey, including the large bamboo jungle "survival island" with ... not one, but two shipwrecks? I hadn't noticed the second one before and decided it was worth stopping for.
The shipwreck was partially buried in sand, but my Efficiency V shovel made excavating it a speedy task.
I was only able to find one chest, the map chest, which contained a buried treasure map.
I somehow hadn't looked for (much less found) any buried treasure on this world thus far, and the map actually functioned properly, so I decided to give it a go. Thankfully, the chest appeared to be on the same beach, although on the opposite side of the island.
I located the chest with no problem, although more digging around was required.
The loot was magnificent! Not only could I finally craft a conduit, the surplus diamonds would come in handy in the future for netherite upgrade and armor trim template duplicating.
With the buried treasure now found, I continued flying east from the jungle island and came across a large stretch of dark forest and old growth birch forest, the former of which a lush cave is almost guaranteed to generate under.
Well, that wasn't so "lush"!
My luck wasn't as good here. Not only were there no azalea trees in sight, I also encountered a rare-while-exploring pillager patrol. I debated as to whether or not I should kill the captain to try and obtain the new 1.21 "Ominous Bottle" but decided that I didn't want to get too sidetracked.
Continuing east, I was met by another stretch of ocean. Since I was burning through my firework supplies rather quickly and didn't plan to build a gunpowder farm anytime soon, Elytra would soon become an impractical mode of transportation for me. But that's OK, especially if exploring on the ground appeals to readers more. I'm curious to hear your opinions regarding this.
As I sailed, I noticed a shallow ocean ruin with an easily accessible sea lantern! If you don't know yet, I love sea lanterns and would seize any opportunity to collect some. So that's exactly what I did.
Behind the ruin was another shipwreck, but I had already explored it on the fortress return journey.
It was only a matter of seconds before I found another shallow ocean and sailed over to look for more sea lanterns.
Unfortunately, it was tiny and didn't contain any.
By dusk, I had reached the large seaside village (also discovered during the return journey), where I bedploped inside a house and slept through the night. I suppose a fitting nickname for the village could be "The Gateway to the Nether Fortress."
Come morning, as low as I was on fireworks, I put on my Elytra yet again when I found another vast expanse of dark forest to cross.
I really shouldn't be doing this, though: the chunks weren't showing up quickly enough, which meant I could easily crash into some invisible mountain ahead and lose the world.
By midday, I had reached my destination: the portal to the nether fortress.
I decided to venture uphill, where the standard taiga would transition to the old growth spruce variant and have a higher chance of generating a lush cave underneath. I was also on the lookout for the new 1.20.5 wolf variants but didn't put too much hope in that as I had already been here before the update, meaning the nearby chunks had probably already generated with the normal wolves.
I did, however, spot some fluffy friends frolicing about.
Climbing to the top of a small plateau overlooking a river, I was disappointed to find that to the east, the taiga transitioned back to oak forest. This didn't seem like a particularly large cold zone.
Although I didn't get a proper picture, I was ambushed by a spider that had escaped from one of the small cave openings nearby.
To the northeast, I found a ruined portal on the other side of the river.
This one contained two gold blocks, one of which (namely the one on top of the portal) dropped into lava when I tried to mine it. That slightly frustrated me as I had removed all the lava on my side of the portal and thought the gold block would land there. Welp, it went on the other side.
The loot was terrible, but I took the obsidian anyway despite the large deposit at the lava cave at Sunflower Valley. Perhaps I was annoyed there was nothing actually worth taking?
As I rowed back to my side of the river, something caught my eye:
Exposed blue and red terracotta on a small taiga island ...
It took me quite a long time to realize that I had just discovered a trail ruin, a structure added in 1.20. I hadn't found any in the game so far, not even on Creative mode! Those must be rare.
I assumed this structure was added as an "archaeology site" filled with suspicious gravel, and this was one of the rare times I didn't have a brush in my ender chest (really?!), so I headed back to the old growth taiga hill, found some exposed copper at a cave entrance and smelted it. Thankfully, I had taken the two feathers from the shipwreck chest near the beginning of the update. After doing some research on how to explore trail ruins, I crafted the brush and started my archaeology adventure.
My first treasure was orange dye.
The whole thing took nearly four in-game days to explore, much longer than I had anticipated. On the first day, I mined out a small space near the top where I would store my three shulker boxes before proceeding to fill them up with various blocks like terracotta, mud bricks, glass ...
Although I did accidentally break a few blocks, the suspicious gravel was generally rewarding, offering me four of the seven trail ruin pottery sherds, all four of the armor trim templates, and three "Relic" music discs. A new soundtrack for my parrots to enjoy!
I even discovered some "rooms" (flooded because of the river above) containing utility blocks like looms and crafting tables.
By the time I had finished, my three shulker boxes were all nearly full. Looks like inventory limitations would still be an issue on this expedition! At least I could finally breathe fresh air again ...
Although I still hadn't found an azalea tree, I decided to take a risk and staircase down underground in the hopes of bumping into a lush cave system. But first, I needed to head back to the old growth taiga / dark forest intersection, where lush caves would be most common.
Along the way, I passed the cluster of small cave openings, one of which a creeper now guarded.
I decided that the bottom of the hill I was standing on would be a great place to start stripmining from.
As I mined, I passed several large clay deposits, but simply failed to locate the lush cave system. Eventually, after using the squeaking bats to my advantage, I found what I was looking for.
To reiterate, my primary tasks here were to collect glow berries, spore blossoms, and dripleaves, and to capture at least several axolotls.
The cavern was large ...
... not in width, but height. It was the sort of cave where a creeper could easily fall from a dark spot above and instantly explode without warning. Unfortunately, the light from the glow berries were too high up to be effective, meaning artificial lighting was needed.
After sniping several skeletons and zombies and rushing to light up the place, I spotted a gold axolotl bobbing up and down in a 1x1 pool of water. I decided to end its suffering and rushed to capture it in my bucket. Don't worry, you'll have a beautiful new home soon!
And now, we continue on. This would be a great place to stockpile on my iron and gold supplies.
I then looked up again and ... funnily enough, this cavern was actually exposed to the sky. I could see the leaves of the spruce trees. It's clear I had taken the longer, but far safer, way in.
The sky was so distracting that I nearly forgot I was still in an underground cavern and must remain on high alert for mobs.
I spotted an enderman as well and didn't want to risk accidentally looking it in the eye later on, so I captured the creature in a boat and took it out, obtaining three ender pearls.
But nothing beat the spore blossoms! Spoiler alert: they'll look amazing on my newly renovated oak tree at Sunflower Valley.
With the main cavern now mostly explored, I continued staircasing down, bumping into a smaller cavity within seconds. Thanks to the more effective glow berries, this one would be far less dangerous to explore.
Well, maybe not.
I was still searching for axolotls, which were far rarer than I had thought. Perhaps they only spawned in full darkness? In that case, smaller caves wouldn't be particularly useful because of the light emitted from the glow berries. Ah, so everything's a trade off.
On the plus side, the end of the passage was marked by what seemed like an amethyst geode.
Unfortunately, my shulker boxes were all very full, so I simply couldn't spare any more inventory slots for extra amethyst crystals. I did, however, record the coordinates of the geode should I decide to return in the future.
The passage was nevertheless sprinkled with ore deposits, even deepslate coal, which I gratefully mined to make up for all the coal I had used up to craft torches.
At this point, I had acquired over a stack of iron ores and half a stack of gold ores, all of which I'll mine with my Fortune III pickaxe upon my return to Sunflower Valley.
With that passage now fully explored, I continued mining around, hoping to come across another one. And I did! This one was also small and brightly lit but I decided to check it out anyway.
That turned out to be the right decision, because I found a "wild" (brown) axolotl here, although the rush to capture it in my bucket made me completely forget to take a screenshot. So I guess axolotls aren't exclusive to dark areas?
It also seemed like I had come to the end of the lush cave system, indicated by the darkness beyond the glow berries. That, coupled with my three full shulker boxes, made me decide to end the expedition here.
The safest way to return to the surface was probably to mine a staircase up, so I did exactly that, although I had to set up a supply depot halfway through to store excess stacks of stone type blocks. Eventually, I broke through the wall of the "main" cavern, indicated by the torches below. Now all I had to do was continue staircasing up adjacent to it.
And here we were! The sunlight was awaiting yet again.
Well, I would call that a successful expedition. In summary, we'd found our first buried treasure, excavated our first trail ruin, and, most importantly, explored our first lush cave system on this world. I didn't find all the axolotl variants, but that task would be saved for the future.
Now, it was time to leave this forested paradise.
No need for coordinates or a compass, I'd now been here enough times to figure out the way home.
The 3000-block journey to Sunflower Valley took less than a day with Elytra, whereas it would take nearly five on foot. Unfortunately, this would probably be the last time I'll be using it in a long while due to diminishing gunpowder supplies; I can't be bothered to spend nights outside killing creepers.
The next update will primarily focus on building as I work on expanding and renovating the village, a task I really should stop postponing. Perhaps I'll even put the glow berries and spore blossoms from the lush cave to use ...
(Edit: I like how this post triggered a popup at the top of the thread explaining how to find a lush cave.)
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Curse PremiumThat was a cool expedition. Azalea bushes indicate lush cave systems? I totally missed my opportunity as a child; there were azalea *everywhere* where I grew up.
5 days for 3000 blocks? That seems slow. I routinely knock off trips that long in one of my double-length days. Granted I use a lot of boating - but I recall several oceans you crossed you could use for boating.
I normally build multiple bases but I have to say you continually working on one has given it a nice personality. Feels nicely organic.
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.
If you are walking in a straight line you can travel 2580 blocks in 10 minutes (just the day itself; 600 seconds * 4.3 m/s), with sprinting (5.6 m/s) increasing that to 3360 blocks; terrain will slow that down but 4-5 times slower seems excessive unless you are making a lot of stops to investigate things; I also carry ender pearls to deal with more difficult terrain (also useful when caving, e.g. jumping across large gaps without risking mobs knocking you off a bridge, or when I'm exploring a large ravine and spot some ore on the other side that wasn't visible from there, this is probably useful in 1.18's caves as well).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Yes, naturally generating azalea trees do indicate a lush cave directly beneath. I often like spiralling down from the bottommost log to reach it; in the process, you'll acquire lots of rooted dirt as well.
I probably wasn't being particularly efficient while making the first return journey. My bearings were often slightly off and I made a quick stop at the village.
I do like the idea of having multiple bases; they offer great convenience for explorers and it's often fun to link them up using custom roads, nether highways, etc. As a builder however I like to continuously work on one base and see how nice I can make it.
Episode 27: A Community Grows
With the recent excitement of raiding end cities and exploring lush caves, expanding the village was a task I had been postponing for a while. In this episode, we take care of Sunflower Valley's housing problems ... and more!
Not a good start, though, right?
It had removed a dirt block, which was unacceptable.
My first mini-task was to re-renovate the clearing at the entrance of the barn. The growth of nearby giant spruce trees had replaced the lush green grass with a horrendous patch of podzol, but the solution was simple: moss carpets and flowers!
I had only just finished when a wandering trader party showed up. They sure loved the renovations.
Unfortunately, nothing of particular interest was offered ...
... or was there? I had recently been scrolling through the Minecraft Wiki and learned that trader llamas don't despawn if they are tamed before the two-day deadline. So, just to diversify my base, that's exactly what I did.
With that done, it's time to move on to the highlight of the update: expanding the village by constructing a series of log cabins to house the extra villagers and two crop farms for easier trading.
As I terraformed the land for the first log cabin, which would be located adjacent to the bamboo farm, I had to cover up this small cave opening which contained a spider.
And now for the finished house:
Ah, there's nothing better than a nice, simple home. I had experimented with using the new 1.21 tuff bricks for the entrance and roof trim and found it a slightly less dull alternative to stone bricks. It's certainly great seeing otherwise next-to-unused blocks like tuff being updated and have more purpose in building.
I had also tried out a popular window design technique, which involves placing stairs above and below glass panes. It may be simple but is very effective at adding depth, which I sometimes struggle with in building.
Of course, the flowerbeds were the cherry on top!
The interior consisted of three beds, although I later added in a workstation from a different house.
The beds themselves had actually been moved from the library to make space for more lecterns, which several of the librarians shared or simply did not have access to before this "upgrade."
With the first log cabin finished, I decided to work on the two crop farms, namely a melon and pumpkin farm, which would enable me to earn up to half a stack (a full stack if I had been luckier, as you would see later) of emeralds each day. First, however, I replaced all the melons and pumpkins in the old farm with all the beetroots from my carrot farm.
Time to embrace the excitements of terraforming!
Ugh, those endermen ... moving dirt around in the dark like that. I really should consider using an anti-endermen-griefing datapack.
My lingering around at the cave opening had attracted a zombie wearing full gold armor.
Upon killing it, I was "rewarded" with its leggings.
The design of the farm is relatively simple: a circular outline similar in size and shape to the village's own wheat farm, but with tuff brick walls (I simply couldn't get over it now ...) and potted lanterns (obviously). I also dug out a new path leading from the wheat farm to the melon farm despite the fact that villagers are prohibited from entering. And oh, there's also a stray cat which I gladly tamed despite already having one of this variant at my house.
Another one! This was a new variant.
Speaking of taming cats, my fish supplies were nearing zero and my fishing rod was nearly broken, so the obvious next step was to enchant my fishing rod and spend the whole of the next day fishing.
The first attempt provided Unbreaking III and Luck of the Sea II, which was insufficient as I would like Lure as well, so I grabbed my wheat seeds, headed over to the barn and bred chickens until I once again had 30 XP levels.
Time for Round 2!
Yay, the best it could be! Now I just needed to top everything off with Mending, which would not only allow the fishing rod to last forever but also remove the need to repair it manually since experience from fishing would do so instantly.
Distractions aside, I eventually finished the pumpkin farm and the mossy path leading to it.
Since finishing the first log cabin, villagers had been breeding enthusiastically despite the fact that the number of beds remained the same as I had simply moved them from the library to the new house. But I couldn't complain, because this would provide an opportunity for new jobs!
I placed down a second composter at the wheat farm and a villager accepted it. Now I just needed to level them up and pray I would unlock the pumpkin trade ...
No! Not apples and pumpkin pies, which the first farmer was already offering. Despite the disappointment, I still levelled them up to Master and see what they would offer, which turned out to be suspicious stews, cakes, and golden carrots. Fair enough, although my pantry became infested with junk food.
Before building the second log cabin, I decided to work on another mini-project, a small armadillo hut, which would provide me with easy access to armadillo scutes, and in turn wolf armor. While wolf armor is not something I need right now, I might use it in the future, so it would obviously be a good idea to secure several armadillos before they despawn.
I did remember spotting some dozing around the northern stony mountain range during the mapping expeditions, so that was where I was headed, at the cost of one firework.
After enjoying the sunset from the peaceful savanna plateau ...
... a pillager patrol spawned behind me the next morning.
I could not be bothered to take them on. There were mountain peaks to climb!
After lots of mining and pillaring up, I made it to the highest summit, which reached high above the clouds to an incredible altitude of y:241, only 15 blocks below the world generation limit.
Brilliant view from up here, but I could not find any armadillos.
I then glided back down and circled the mountain range, coming across the village which had served as my temporary base during the mapping expedition. This was taking far longer than I thought.
After half a day of searching, I finally found I was looking for.
Time to make you some friends!
No, not you wolves, sorry.
Uh ... I should probably get away from this place before the spitting llamas murder the wolves.
The relatively short journey back to Sunflower Valley took two whole days. The armadillos were constantly disattached from the leads, either because of my impatience or the mountainous terrain. I led them down the savanna plateau, through a forest, and into the pass separating the stony mountain range from the snowy one.
Now to cross the snowy ridge, which thankfully contained little powder snow ...
... through the cherry grove ...
... and back home, where I temporarily leashed the grunting animals to the rabbit hut, beside the iron golem.
After that, I grew and chopped down several acacia trees and terraformed and "mossified" some land before extending the rabbit hut, where the armadillos would be kept, but in a separate pen.
To be honest, the roof of the hut no longer looked as good, so I might consider making several minor modifications to it in the next update.
Back to the log cabin project, I finished the second house after several more in-game days. This one is similar to the first but with a different block palette: oak log, oak planks, stripped birch log, stripped spruce log, and polished andesite. I still like the tuff bricks a lot better though but had ran out of it and wanted to try polished andesite, which I rarely use compared to diorite (strangely enough to some).
Because this house would serve as the cartographer's, I even included a tiny sugarcane garden at the back. The water that enables the sugarcane to grow is hidden by spruce trapdoors, which in turn are concealed by the bright pink cherry leaves.
Speaking of cherry leaves, I decided to use cherry wood, a risky but unique choice, for the third and final log cabin. I had never attempted to build a cherry house on this world thus far as I had always been concerned the bright pink color would not fit in well with my other builds. However, I realized that I might just get away with it if I used darker materials as "trims" and the house was built behind the pond. In short, this was going to turn out either magnificently or horrifically.
I only had around half a stack of cherry logs, however, so I planted down several saplings at the oak farm. Big mistake!
Poor azalea tree! I had not known that when a tree grew, its leaves could replace that of another. Welp, I had no choice but to chop down the monstrosity and bonemeal a nearby azalea bush for another tree. And, lesson learned: grow cherry trees in the spruce farm, not the oak farm.
To make matters worse, an enderman had stolen another dirt block.
Before I could begin building, I needed to take care of something else: my sand / glass supplies were running so low that I probably wouldn't have enough materials to make the windows of the house. You know what that meant: it was time for another expedition, this time to the area around the world spawn point, where I recalled seeing multiple large beaches.
The local frozen mountain massif was brimming with wildlife. How peculiar.
As I sailed along the coast looking for a decently large beach, I came across a warm ocean ruin, somehow the first I'd seen on this world thus far.
By sunset, I had reached my destination. Betime, and then shovelling time.
Five minutes and four stacks of sand later, I turned to leave. As I looked back one last time, surveying the terraformed beach, a pillager patrol spawned right before my eyes, which amused me.
They even waded into the water afterwards for whatever reason. Regardless, my job here was done and I could finally return, finish off that last house, and call it a day. I decided to take the mountainous route home this time.
Back at Sunflower Valley, I realized there was another problem: to craft more beds, I would need wool, but my unenchanted shears were nearly broken. The solution? Enchant the shears! Since you cannot enchant shears via an enchanting table, I purchased Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, and Mending books from my librarians and applied them to my shears with the anvil, which unfortunately lost durability during the process.
As if the distractions weren't enough, I was greeted by a second wandering trader who had spawned on the roof of one of the village houses.
After helping them and the llamas down, I found there was again nothing of particular interest being offered.
As for the log cabin? I finally finished it and everything turned out a lot better than I thought. The interior consisted of three beds, a grindstone (the profession block for a weaponsmith), and a smithing table (the profession block for a toolsmith).
Before I could present the exterior of the house, I went on yet another mini-expedition, this time to the northern village I had discovered during the mapping expeditions. I had decided that I would like a second meeting point (i.e. a bell) at Sunflower Valley, specifically at the pond, since our village was expanding in that direction. After removing one of the two bells at the other village, I returned, place down the bell at the pond, and sprinkled some more azalea bushes and flowers around the place.
Honestly, I think the cherry house fits in fairly well.
Here's a view of Sunflower Valley from the west:
The village is obviously far from completed as there's still a lot I would love to add in. Houses. Gardens. Maybe even a custom river someday, although it would be a project requiring considerable time and materials. I'm also looking forward to large-scale builds like the lighthouse on my survival island world, but since we now live in the mountains, it'll be something far different.
Outside building, I do plan on summoning and defeating the wither sometime soon, setting up a fully powered beacon, and quite possibly even raiding a bastion remnant and acquiring full netherite gear. If I manage to survive trying to do all of these things, I might consider defeating a combat-based structure such as an ocean monument, woodland mansion, ancient city, or even the new trial chamber. After all of these objectives are completed, I would consider this world "successful."
In the meantime, however, I won't be updating for a while as I have more important real-life things to take care of.
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Curse PremiumI love villages with personalities and I think your approach of similar structures in somewhat different materials works. Except maybe not the pink walls - I think that works better as an accent color.
Why wasn't the Enderman teleporting? I thought they teleported when they took damage but sometimes they don't, but I've never understood why.
All the best with your real world endeavors.
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.
Yeah, I probably should have made the walls spruce / oak wood with cherry trapdoors like for my own house. It looks odder the more I look at it.
I had trapped the endermen in boats specifically to prevent them from teleporting while I fought them. Although I probably could take one on normally, I'd prefer not taking any damage if possible.
I'd suggest to maybe go back and look again, because looking at that ship, it looks like a full one, and the chest should always spawn (I think) if the part of the ship it spawns in is there. At least, I've yet to see a chest fail to spawn if the part of the ship the chest is supposed to be in is present. So you can look at what part of the chip exists and know what chest(s) will be there.
There's up to three chests that can spawn.
One is within the "cabin", which is the room on the deck level (right in your picture, and you have to crouch to get into it because there's a half slab at one point so it may be easy to miss). That has the best chest, as it contains the resources.
A other two chests are below the deck. One is in a small "room" (more of a nook) below the cabin, and that's where the paper/maps are found. This one has a door hiding it, and while I've never seen it personally, apparently the air gap the door spawns can allow mobs to spawn. I've heard of people opening the door and witnessing a creeper waiting. Should be a minimum problem if you have a shield and/or stay in the water and are watching for it.
The third is at the front in another small "room" and has food stuffs. I don't think there's a door hiding this one but I can't remember.
I usually only bother checking the cabin chest most of the time, but the other two can be useful at times.
I would do it however you prefer.
The world I was playing was specifically focused on exploring, and it's done under a "no elytra allowed" rule, so the whole purpose is exploring on foot.
Zeno is using an airship at times, but likewise, I think he's mostly testing world generation stuff and how it plays out at a medium/large scale.
That doesn't mean exploration is only interesting on foot.
In my first hardcore world, I did most of the exploration (and almost all of the mapping) with elytra.
Edit: I haven't read the latest update yet so I'm a bit behind.
Edit 2: Oh, yeah, I meant to comment on it anyway because it jumped out as me as odd, but I forgot until I was reminded when I read other replies.
Five days for 3,000 blocks is indeed slow. I know nothing of the calculating it based on rate of travel, but it's simply something I know from experience. In my very first world, the place I settled at was near spawn, and the first place I decided to move to was incidentally around 3,000 blocks East. I remember having to make a lot of back and forth trips to move all my stuff. This was largely done on foot, with a relatively small portion in a boat across a swamp (back when boats broke when they hit something). And I remember each trip was about a day, give or take, one way. Caver's calculation sounds right because I would recall leaving in the morning, and arrive shortly after it was getting dark enough for stuff to spawn. So accounting for obstacles (terrain) or other distractions, I could see it being slower, but not so much slower it would be five days.
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Curse PremiumI forgot to respond to the flying business, but I've found ground exploration makes for much more interesting stories than air exploration. I am only using my airship for terrain that's very hard to explore on the ground (Extreme Hills, which can be very rough in RTG, and Dark Forests; modern minecraft mountains are not as problematic and I'd probably use it only for Dark Forests and Mangrove Swamp), or when I need to move a lot of stuff (because the airship can have a chest in it, and carry animals). In a world like yours where filling in maps isn't paramount I'd probably skip it for mapping and just leave the problematic biomes unmapped.
The Elytra would also be useful for fast travel when you're just trying to get somewhere in a hurry and don't want a travel story; my airship is not tremendously faster than ordinary travel (and sometimes actually slower) so I don't use it much for 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.
I got caught up on the last update.
I like to play as vanilla as possible most of the time, but something to deal with the enderman griefing is something I won't go without.
The animals at the tops of the mountains isn't surprising, at least if you've had them loaded enough. I think they tend to prefer going to higher altitudes and, given enough time, ones in an area will group near peaks. I've observed this too.
And ancient city wouldn't be hard, but it depends on how you approach it. If you don't want to know some of the details which may spoil it, skip the rest.
The first deep dark and ancient city I attempted (non-hardcore world) was done blind. I had a vague understanding on the warden and that "make noise and it comes" and that certain types of blocks were used to detect this, but I didn't yet know the details. In the first deep dark I encountered, I was moving along and then *sudden cute noise* and I freeze and go... "what is that!?". I panic and flee, and after some time, I eventually slowly going back and find nothing. I had a lot of thoughts.
Maybe it despawned?
Maybe it never even spawned?
That noise meant something sensed me but to what extent?
I go back to where I was again and... the same noise. But this time, I just froze in place and listened. And there was nothing that happened. I moved again and the same noise occurred, but still, nothing else happened. At this point, I ruined it for myself and looked things up (my firm belief is that Minecraft was better in the past because we didn't know anything, and looking up all the mechanics before updates even leave snapshots ruins the magic) and discovered there were two blocks in the sense and summon process, that the summon one needed activated three times, and all within 10 minutes, so... no wonder didn't summon.
But I didn't look any deeper into it than that. I simply figured I hadn't done enough activation within ten minutes or that i was only encountering the sensor block and not the shrieker. Spoiler alert, it was the second.
I wanted to find an ancient city, and I was still in my 1.18 cave honey moon phase (1.19 just launched) so between wanting to cave anyway, and knowing ancient cities were beneath mountains, I went caving under one and did caving. It was so eerie, surreal, and majestic when I looked further down into a large and deep cavern I was in, and just passed a very narrow but tall opening in the wall of what would have been a dead end, I saw the unmistakable signs of an ancient city; there was a dark Blue soul lantern, dark oak planks, and stone. I was both terrified and excited.
"Okay, this is it!?"
I made that my first ancient city attempt and I went in after making a nearby respawn place, and changing to replaceable iron armor, in case I died. Playing with the shaders sure helped (I had them set to make it pitch Black where there was no light), because the experience was unreal. I also avoided cheesing it. I approached it in a slow and methodical way, like a horror game (which I have a thing for I guess).
What caught me off guard was the fact that the "cute noise" I heard before in the deep dark biome was merely a sculk sensor only, not a shrieker, so I was never in any danger in my first encounter. It was shortly into my first ancient city attempt that I encountered my first sculk shrieker. That noise was not cute, but what terrified me about it wasn't the different sound, but rather the darkness effect. Again, while I looked up certain basics, I was avoiding looking up everything. So I did not know the darkness effect happened with a sculk shrieker. So when it happened, I thought the warden was being summoned, despite it only being the first activation I made of one? That... didn't stop me from leaving the ancient city, the entire cave, and running back up to the surface in a panic. And... I loved it.
I eventually figured that the darkness effect happens on activation, and that four are needed to summon it. Unfortunately, knowing these mechanics was enough to know how to avoid it, so to this day, I've yet to naturally spawn a warden.
So basically, my point is, I wanted to say something since this is a hardcore world, but if you want it to be an accomplishment, I'd at least avoid using night vision potions., I also personally disallowed myself from using wool (odd rule, maybe?), but that's because I like approaching it as a horror thing instead of shortcutting it.
Now if you don't want to do it for the accomplishment, and only want it for the rewards... go ahead and shortcut it. I "cheesed" the bastion remnant in my current hardcore world just for the netherite upgrade template, and I never approached one at all in my first hardcore world. Piglin brutes are no kidding matter. They will end your hardcore world. Don't take them lightly.
The wither is very easy too if you cheese it. I defeated it that way, but only because I wanted the beacon rewards and not because I wanted to defeat it for accomplishment sake.
Right, time to catch up on everything I have missed.
Although the focus of this world is not on exploring, I do enjoy conducting occasional mapping expeditions which serve as breaks between building and resource collecting sessions. Mapping with elytra on my survival island world wasn't particularly appealing, at least to me: there wasn't time to fully enjoy the scenery and exploring on foot just provides a greater sense of accomplishment. Outside mapping, however, I very often use elytra for convenience while gathering materials in the areas I've already explored, so I think the best solution is to simply implement a "no elytra mapping" rule.
Luckily, few of the vanilla biomes are particularly challenging to traverse. Even if I did come across something like a big clump of windswept savanna, however, I still like to accept the challenge and finish the map I'm working on. This is obviously a lot more difficult on your world but, from looking at the pictures in your updates, I actually like how RTG has made forested and mountainous biomes more "intense."
That's what I thought as well.
That ancient city raid must have been quite an adventure! I have a similar story, albeit an unusual one, when I found a deep dark biome while strip mining on a survival world. I had accidentally set off a sculk shrieker in a nearby cave and panicked when I noticed the subtitle "warden approaches." I knew you should be given four warnings before a warden is summoned, and that there is a darkness effect following the setting off of a shrieker, but the subtitle led me to believe there was a glitch and I had not been given any warnings.
At least I had already known about the concept of sculk shriekers and wardens. For someone who is knew to the game, subtitles can spoil everything for them, almost similar to looking stuff up online like you mentioned.
As for the no wool rule ... for a first ancient city raid, and in hardcore, I am probably not skilled enough; even without rules I might consider practicing on a survival world first. But night vision is definitely out the window.
The subtitles are different for each warning level, but at the same time, they all sort of convey the same thing just worded differently, so it's a bit odd in that regard.
I don't normally play with subtitles because my preferred way to play is "if I can't naturally hear it, I shouldn't be aware of it". Certain stuff has ranges it can be heard from but it's supposed to be nearly inaudible at the edge of that range, whereas subtitles are an all or nothing thing. It's great that disability features exist for people who need them, mind you, but I don't, so I prefer to play with them off instead of turning them on just for extra information.
As for the ancient city in hardcore, you don't have to follow my rules, so I wasn't suggesting you do, just listing how I prefer to approach them. Even without allowing yourself to use wool, it's pretty difficult to summon a warden if you know what you're doing, although you're basically forcing yourself to wait on cooldowns of warnings at that point, and some people may find that to be pointless tedium. For me though, I prefer to force myself to have to balance waiting versus being extra risky to progress because, well... as I said, I tend to like the appeal of horror games, and approaching the deep dark and ancient cities in that way tends to offer the same sort of payout for me.
But yes, it's risky to add handicaps in hardcore, and for that reason, I used night vision potions for my first one in hardcore. It completely rendered the whole experience down to feeling like it wasn't an accomplishment, however, because you can easily see the sculk shriekers everywhere (though, you can see them pretty readily in vanilla even without those potions, which is why I truly only find the experience fulfilling while playing with shaders that make light level 0 completely Black). I meant to go back and do it again without the night vision potions, but I ended up failing in that world before I got around to it.