Yeah, I know the average damage of a Power V bow is higher than a Power III bow, but the damage alone doesn't matter in a vacuum. It depends on how how many hits it takes to kill what you're hitting.
With a Power V bow, I think it was possible to one hit a creeper, but it was uncommon in my experience. It was usually two hits.
With a Power III bow, I imagine it may be impossible to kill it in one hit (?), and it may now sometimes take three hits (?), but if the most common is still two hits (?) like a Power V bow, then it's not a different most of the time. Thus far, which isn't much since I avoid combat as a rule in that world, I've killed all creepers in two hits still so I was wondering if it's not going to be a big difference in practice, despite the lower average damage.
And it's obviously going to vary from mob to mob. Creepers are just perhaps the biggest example I would worry about myself.
It's time to continue on my desperate search for two zombie villagers. I realized that simply strolling around the balcony and waiting for one to suddenly appear in front of me wasn't going to help much. I needed to reduce the number of monsters spawning underground, and the only quick way to do that was by pillaring up as high as I could from the roof of my house, something I'm comfortable with now that I've acquired the Feather Falling IV enchantment.
Dozens of zombies, skeletons, creepers, and even a couple of endermen and witches spawned over the course of that first night, and for that I was hopeful that I would eventually find what I was looking for.
Come dawn, I captured this nice orange glow of the coming sunrise behind the enormous mountain massif before quickly descending and sleeping through the final seconds of nighttime to reset the phantom timer. I've already obtained enough phantom membranes, so further encounters with this mob will only be a hindrance.
I was low on food, with only about a stack and a half of steak left, so I committed the morning to some wheat harvesting and cow and chicken breeding. This also produced enough levels for me to enchant my shovel. What I was primarily looking for here were Silk Touch and Unbreaking III, although Efficiency III or IV would also be desirable.
And there we go, a decent shovel. Fortune III was unnecessary but could easily be replaced by a Silk Touch book anyway via an anvil, so I kept it.
After another day of farming, I had enough levels for another enchantment. I decided to grindstone and re-enchant my Power III bow in the hopes of obtaining Infinity. I was running low on gravel (and in turn, flint for arrows) and the strip mine would be one of the last places I'd want to be in now.
Again, it's decent but not quite everything I had been looking for. Punch II was undesirable as it would make sniping more difficult, but the fact that I still got Unbreaking III only just saved it from the grindstone.
Next, I grindstoned and re-enchanted my helmet in the hopes of obtaining Protection IV, Unbreaking III and Respiration II or III.
I was punished for my high expectations.
So I tried again the next day:
Aqua Affinity is nice but what I'm actually looking for here is Protection, the most basic armor enchantment that I've been struggling to obtain for a long time.
And during all this, I've also been continuing on my search for the zombie villagers, but to no avail.
On one night, I accidentally glanced into one of the large dripstone cave openings near my base and provoked an invisible enderman. Well, invisible until it teleported and frantically scrambled around on the roof of my house:
It couldn't reach me though. I think I was beyond its teleporting range. Either that, or endermen can't teleport to the block a player is standing on.
The next morning, I carefully descended, still keeping an eye out for the enderman that I believe should had given up. After confirming its despawn, I went out to the animal barn for some more farming and found it in a complete mess.
Why were there so many unbelonging animals in each pen? I hadn't even killed any recently (apart from chickens), so they couldn't have just been knocked upwards and crossed over the fence. Well, that's peculiar, but not an urgent issue.
Back to enchanting! I decided to grindstone my old Power IV and Flame enchanted bow, the one I used during the nether fortress raid. I still didn't want to give up on obtaining Infinity just yet, although I should have considering I could just buy enchanted books from villagers.
Well, the attempt failed. Power III only.
And so unfolded the next night. I'd been spending so much time searching for the zombie villagers that I had a feeling I was doing it wrong.
But no. The night of Day 290 would be the one that would change this world forever. Because in the distance, right in front of the cherry grove, I spotted a farmer's hat.
The next few minutes passed by in a blur. Without any hesitation or desire of sniping the nearby mobs, I mined down my pillar, slammed open the balcony doors and then the front door before grabbing my boat and sprinting out into the dark night. This was my only chance! I couldn't let it despawn after all this waiting!
As I ran uphill towards the cherry grove, I wasn't looking where I was going and fell into the large dripstone cave opening, where four zombies were immediately after me. I quickly pillared up five blocks, although without taking several hits first, and went over to the zombie villager. As it strode over to me, I hurriedly placed a boat between us and ... secured it!
I pillared up just in time to escape the zombies that were still after me.
After picking off the normal zombies (including one that had trapped itself with the zombie villager) and ensuring that the zombie villager had enough shade to survive the following day, I sprinted back over to my house and watched the remaining minutes of the night tick away. But there was something else in the distance that immediately had my attention:
That couldn't be another zombie villager, could it? It's probably just an illusion, right?
Well, nope.
After weeks without success, I was able to capture and cure two zombie villagers in one night. My luck just has me laughing sometimes.
After ensuring the coast was clear and blocking off any potential small caves or holes where zombies could spawn, I splashed the zombie villagers with potions of weakness and fed them both a golden apple each. I did get splashed by the weakness effect myself but it only lasted for a couple of seconds.
Funnily enough, I've never had a golden apple before myself.
I spent my time waiting for the zombie villagers to finish the curing process. I felt that they needed my presence. Eventually, they finished, and I made the advancement. I was beyond happy at that moment.
It was already past midday, and I couldn't just leave the villagers in the open like that, so I rushed home and crafted two barrels which would serve as emergency job sites I would use to lure them to different locations. Unfortunately, I couldn't just row my boat downhill to my base as the dripstone cave opening got in the way and there was some funny terrain around it.
I first found a high point from where I could row a boat down to my base and proceeded to place the two barrels there. I transferred the villagers to a spot as close as possible to the high point and broke their boats. After some hesitation, they took the jobs, and I quickly trapped them, broke the barrels and rowed down to my house.
After that, I summoned my first iron golem on this world. I didn't want any of the villagers doing so as naturally spawning iron golems are one of the most dangerous things in hardcore. One misclick on a villager while trying to trade with them will lead to ... almost certain death. And I'm pretty bad at clicking on things properly. So, I suppose making a huge investment in iron myself is still a good choice. (And yes, two advancement screenshots in a row.)
As evening approached, I moved the villagers inside my house to be extra safe. Don't worry, you'll have a proper home soon! (And it's not going to be a trading hall or breeding hut, unlike the majority of players out there.)
And believe it or not, the next day, it was time to get started on building their home! But first, I needed to gather materials, particularly wood.
Ah, I hadn't chopped down a tree in a long while.
Sorry spruce tree, I'll have to get rid of you as well. But it's a nice view from up here.
Wait, what's the iron golem doing there?
I didn't want it to encounter any pillager patrols and take damage as I was fairly low on iron supplies now, so I led it back to the house and tied it to the crop farm fence to prevent future incidents like this.
A couple of days later, I finished the first build: the village wheat farm, located in the flat area right up from the giant tree farm. I don't particularly like having the village on the outskirts of my base, but that's the only feasible building spot.
Next, it was time for some minor terraforming for the common house, where the villagers would work and sleep until there's more houses available. I had to cover up this cave which the villagers might fall into with their rage inducing AI:
Here's the path leading up to the village itself. I used bamboo mosaic blocks and stone bricks, as the tradition goes.
For the house, I would need a large number of stone bricks, and I didn't have many, so I spent a day strip mining at y:15, hoping that I could also restock on my iron supplies. I didn't find any iron but managed to mine two large coal deposits, which was also great as I was running slightly low on coal as well.
I also found a rather large cavern:
Funnily enough, I hadn't noticed the sculk until I took the screenshot and zoomed in while writing this update. I believe the small white block on the left is a sculk catalyst? There were even sculk veins (?) right across from me, which was surprising as I thought the deep dark can only be found at deepslate level. I also found some random thin lines (to the right of the sculk catalyst) for some reason.
After sleeping through the night underground (it was somehow Day 300 already), I returned to the surface the next morning to finish up the village's small "green space," similar to the one adjacent to the barn on my survival world. I love working with moss and azaleas.
I couldn't delay the construction of the house any longer, however, so I spent the next few days working on it. Like for my own house, I used a stripped spruce frame with oak planks for the walls and floor, but it was single-story.
I used the same exterior window design as well. However, since the house was 7x7 (hence a square), I allowed the roof to be a different shape. Here's some nice shots of the exterior of the house as I was leading the iron golem to the new village:
(Yes, I do hear the lava pool beneath us. It's kind of unsettling, but we'll have to cope with it for now.)
It was now time for what you may think would be the most exciting bit: transporting the villagers from my house up to the new village! Well, it was the opposite. It was an extremely tedious process that required the use of minecarts and rails (the terrain and buildings interfered with the use of boats), shrinking my iron supply to three ingots. I'm not sure what the villagers thought of it, but anyways, here we go:
The construction of the railway line required removal of some of the flowers outside my house.
It turned out to be exactly 192 blocks long from the starting point to the entrance to the village house, although I used less at the beginning to save up on iron. Big mistake! I wasted quite a few days trying to transport the villagers.
It was my first time using a minecart, so I decided to test it out myself first.
I have to admit that is the least exciting method of transport I have ever tried in the game. I was literally moving at a player's sneaking speed! Perhaps I need some other type of rail, maybe a powered rail, at the beginning of the line to make the minecart go faster.
After the test, I let a villager out and placed the minecart back between them and a barrel (the job site block). I was hoping that the villager would head towards the barrel and accidentally trap themselves in the minecart instead.
Instead, the villager headed to the barn and got attracted to the barrel decorations at its base, so I had to remove those and try the minecart barrel setup again. This time, it worked!
The minecart physics were working against me, however. I had to constantly nudge it up the small slope or it would speed back down and we'd literally be back to square one.
After the minecart had reached the end of the line, I captured the villager in a boat and rowed to a spot close to the village, where they would hopefully get attracted to the composter at the new wheat farm. And they did!
The second villager, however, proved to be much more of a challenge to transport. I set up the barrel minecart trap outside my house:
Well, it went well until we reached the end of the railway line. Instead of taking the lectern which I had recently placed down in the village house, they headed onto the roof of the animal barn via the azalea treetops and found a way into my wheat farm!
I broke the composter and had them leave the farm before placing it back down again. Time for Villager Transportation, Round 2:
Unfortunately, I failed to nudge the minecart properly as it went up the slope, so it rolled back down at an alarming speed (for a minecart) and, like I said previously, we would be back to square one.
At least the farmer was doing fine, sleeping through the rainy night. I prefered working on clear, sunny days as well.
Come morning, it was time for Round 3:
And ... it failed.
Please leave my potatoes alone! Why are you planting wheat? You've got your own farm.
Again, I broke the composter, forced the villager out and placed the composter back in. The villager obviously found a way back to the roof of the barn (and in turn the crop farm), but I was quicker. I trapped them in a boat and rowed it off the roof towards the village house.
Well, upon releasing them, they're back to farming potatoes again, I guess. No, not farming potatoes. Replacing potatoes with their wheat! They even trampled some of my crops, which annoyed me.
Things couldn't go on like this. As much as I hated to, I extended the railway line all the way to the entrance of the village house and blocked off any escape routes. This meant that the farmer lost their profession as they no longer had access to the composter (they happened to be in the house during the blockage), but they could reclaim it soon.
You can do this! Nearly at your favorite azalea tree.
We're now past the azalea tree!
The villager did take some damage as they were riding through the two-block-high blockage, but they eventually made it into the house. And look, we have a baby villager! The community was growing right before my eyes.
Not only that, but the troublesome villager had finally taken the right profession.
They offered a Quick Charge III book, which I won't need.
I then removed the blockage, and the farmer eagerly went outside and reclaimed their profession, which was also wonderful. On Day 312, we've finally finished setting up the villager community!
In the afternoon, as the baby villager bounced on their bed, the two adults met together at the pond, the defined center of my base, before returning home and sleeping through the night.
For the community to keep growing, I needed more housing, and that'll be one of my targets in the next update. I would like to gain access to Mending books as well; the durabilities of my gear, particularly my pickaxes, were dropping rapidly. Another trade I would like to secure are brick trades as I needed them for my potted lantern decorations. And of course, speaking of lanterns, I definitely needed to restock on my iron supplies, which means there'll probably be some mining in the mountains in the next update as well.
Beyond that, I'm looking forward to continuing with some small mapping trips, which I haven't done in a while. I'll work on the northeastern map first, followed by the northwestern one, which will allow us to explore the rest of the jagged mountain massif from Episode 9. We might even discover more mountain ranges along the way, who knows.
Curious why you grind and re-enchant your equipment. Why not mine a bit to get some more diamonds and make multiple items? They're not that hard to get (certainly not compared to getting zombie villagers to cure.) Only grind away something once you've got something better.
I resolutely maintain villagers need to be contained, both for their own safety and to keep them away from things they don't know how to handle (like player farms). Think of them as young children.
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Villages (whether its built as a village, or as a "base" with villagers living among it, either will be a village to them) need built with villagers in mind. I typically build a village and make my own house among them as opposed to making bases, and I also tend to learn the villagers behaviors over time, so I build with those things in mind.
You're finding out all of that now. The only major one I struggle with still is the limited range of their AI/pathfinding at times.
Funnily enough, I hadn't noticed the sculk until I took the screenshot and zoomed in while writing this update. I believe the small white block on the left is a sculk catalyst? There were even sculk veins (?) right across from me, which was surprising as I thought the deep dark can only be found at deepslate level. I also found some random thin lines (to the right of the sculk catalyst) for some reason.
It's hard to see since it's mostly behind the terrain, but yes, that's what it appears to be since that's neither a sculk sensor nor a sculk shrieker.
Those lines are likely caused by switching issues. The game has a few cases of those, and you can resolve some of them with a vanilla tweaks resource pack.
Look under "Fixes and Consistency" for "Item Stitching Fix". That one, and the Cloud Fog Fix, are the ones I like to use when not playing shaders.
However, I don't think that will fix the ones in your screenshot which seems to be terrain related. That will only fix the ones with some tools and other items held in your hand. I also see one near the torch which is curious, as I only saw that occur near torches and grass when using OptiFine's antialiasing (and it started only after one of the 1.19 or 1.20 updates). You don't appear to be using this though so I don't know what's causing it for the torch, but in general, the game has stitching issues.
And there we go, a decent shovel. Fortune III was unnecessary but could easily be replaced by a Silk Touch book anyway via an anvil, so I kept it.
The only way to replace mutually exclusive enchantments is by placing the item with the enchantment you desire in the first (left) slot but unless you are combining two books they can only be placed in the second (right) slot, so you will need to make a new shovel and put the Silk Touch book on it, then combine the shovels with Silk Touch in the first slot, paying the cost to add Efficiency and Unbreaking (along with the first item being repaired by the second if it is damaged, with its own charge, this explains why the order you place items in the anvil matters so much, one combination may even be too expensive but the other way is perfectly affordable).
Why were there so many unbelonging animals in each pen? I hadn't even killed any recently (apart from chickens), so they couldn't have just been knocked upwards and crossed over the fence. Well, that's peculiar, but not an urgent issue.
A very, very old bug that has existed for as long as the game has (at least since "infinite" worlds were implemented), and one which Mojang just can't seem bothered to fix despite many confirmed, and very simple fixes (I implemented one myself and haven't had any issues with mobs escaping or suffocating in years, while it used to be a common occurrence, e.g. I'd come back to a pen of chickens and there would be drops near the walls, or they would glitch through fences):
This can also happen when animals grow up as their hitbox also grows, causing it to clip into nearby walls and once an entity has clipped into a block it no longer collides with it:
Incredibly, Mojang recently fixed this, in 24w19a, released two days ago - after a decade! Yet, the fix, as given in an attachment, is much more complex than the one for MC-2025, so why not both? Maybe this gives hope that the most infamous bug in the game's history will finally be addressed. Still, that doesn't excuse them not fixing them for over a decade, with so many game versions ruined by it (mods aside), and so many other bugs which are also relatively small fixes, e.g. if they had followed proper OpenGL standards versions from Beta 1.9-1.7.10 wouldn't be suffering from graphical glitches on newer drivers (the fix for this is literally a single line. I'm not even sure if they intentionally fixed it in 1.8, or just accidentally as a result of refactoring code since many older drivers worked fine).
Back to enchanting! I decided to grindstone my old Power IV and Flame enchanted bow, the one I used during the nether fortress raid. I still didn't want to give up on obtaining Infinity just yet, although I should have considering I could just buy enchanted books from villagers.
I also agree that disenchanting bows is overkill since they are so cheap to make, or even obtain from skeleton drops (I got Infinity by enchanting such drops without ever actually making one, as a bonus I also ended up with more durability than otherwise since without grindstones (1.6.4) I'd craft them together to disenchant and try again, same for the diamond pickaxes I saved from branch-mining to get Fortune and Silk Touch, otherwise, due to the use of extremely rare (I only found 10 ores, vs 70 diamond ore) modded items and not being able to simply disenchant them I have the same view with regards to just making multiple items).
Also, in terms of XP cost level 21-22 is the best level to get Infinity (select bow, then choose Infinity); the probability increases quickly up to that point then much more slowly, while the cost per level increases exponentially (this matters more for the pre-1.8 enchanting system as you spend all the levels with level 30 being about twice as expensive but only increasing the chance by about a third. For the current system a 3 level/lapis enchantment costs about 2/3 more between levels 22-30). I also do not want Flame or Punch (multiple enchantments are more likely at higher levels) since they are less useful on bows and greatly increase the repair cost (the pre-1.8 repair system charges you for the costs of all the enchantments as well as the amount of durability restored so highly enchanted items cost a lot more, at the same time, simply renaming an item lets you indefinitely repair them with the anvil if they are cheap enough, so no "god" gear / maxed-out swords, bows, or armor with Thorns).
I have to admit that is the least exciting method of transport I have ever tried in the game. I was literally moving at a player's sneaking speed! Perhaps I need some other type of rail, maybe a powered rail, at the beginning of the line to make the minecart go faster.
Definitely; you'll then move faster than sprinting (8 vs 5.6 m/s), you'll also need one every 38 blocks to maintain speed (if a player is riding them and on a level surface; upward slopes need more and storage minecarts need even more either way, which seems to suggest Mojang intended them as player transportation, they also don't work outside of entity processing chunks / simulation distance. I do find them much more preferable though over other forms of player transportation).
I've only used them for villagers once or twice since I only use rails/minecarts found in mineshafts and I wouldn't have any until much later in the game (one of my odd personal restrictions/quirks, along with e.g. never uncrafting mineral blocks or going outside the spawn biome until I locate a stronghold or start caving, itself limited to the "end-game". I'll also note that using minecart chests as a source of minecarts is no longer possible in modern versions since Mojang decided that they should never come apart); I've moved along villagers by building a 2 high channel leading to where I want them and placing water at their end to push them along.
I've been spending some more time around my base trading with the newly cured villagers, expanding their tiny settlement and later enchanting my gear through the power of books.
My helmet was the only piece of gear that was still unenchanted, so I headed over to the animal barn for some XP. As I headed in, I noticed rain falling through into the sheep pen. Looking up, I noticed a hole in the ceiling.
My best guess is that during one of the previous thunderstorms, the lightning rod had been struck (as intended), causing a fire to spread around it on the wooden roof (not intended). The rain hadn't put out the fire in time. It was only a minor inconvenience, however, so I simply patched the damage with another birch plank.
Time for the enchantment! I'd be happy with only Protection III.
I gridstoned the helmet and checked out the next enchantment.
Yes! I've never been so relieved!
I went over to the animal barn once more. I have to say that chickens are simply so convenient to farm. Their small size makes them incredibly quick and easy to breed while standing in one spot. Once they start taking entity cramming damage, a few swipes of your sword will gain you one whole level of XP! If only they didn't lay so many eggs.
Before heading back home, I checked on the baby villager. Never mind...
At least we now have an infinite supply of bricks! I'll be needing a good few stacks of these for base expansion and developments. We don't live on an island nor have access to a lush cave yet, so clay will be slightly difficult to acquire, especially since I've already shovelled out most from the nearby river.
And as for the helmet? It ended up being exactly the same as it had been before I grindstoned it in last episode. "Work harder, not smarter!"
I'm satisfied with pretty much all of our gear enchantments now, so the next step would be to secure a Mending trade with the librarian. After selling several batches of carrots to the farmer, it was time for the tedious rerolling process. They did offer some excellent trades that I had to pass, however, including an Infinity book for one emerald.
Once we have more librarians, I'll need to establish an Infinity trade as well since I'll always be in need for Infinity bows (you can't enchant those with Mending).
Denying Feather Falling IV just seemed so wrong.
Eventually, I got what I was looking for, and at a reasonable price as well!
Before I applied the books to my gear, however, I decided to enchant a book just to see what I would get, and was awarded with Unbreaking III. Enchanting books makes everything so much more convenient.
But now, time for the long-awaited moments:
There we go. Enchantments done. Apologies if this part of the update felt boring to read, but that's pretty much it for the time being.
My next task was to restock on iron. I only had about half a stack of ingots left and I was going to need much more for lantern decorations. Instead of mining underground, we're putting on our snow boots and heading up our lovely mountains!
I headed along the frozen mountain massif to the stony peaks area and mined away. This would be a good opportunity to restock on coal as well.
For some reason, I always like taking emerald ores away as souvenirs.
Nothing is more satisfying than mining the iron, however.
I was even slightly terraforming the mountains as I did so. Not enough for any change to be seen from a distance, but it will look bad in the longer term, so perhaps I should just stick to mining underground. Or I can fill in the holes with stone, since I've got a Silk Touch pickaxe.
At one point, I was mining right beside a deep lavafall ravine, which was somewhat unnerving.
And wow, there's so many more ores in the distance to be mined, but with my inventory already being heavy with multiple stacks of both coal and iron, I didn't need them anymore. (Why do bees get lost so easily?)
Towards the evening, it started raining, which I find undesirable when away from home. A wandering trader party also spawned on one of the thin ledges, so I carefully went over and rescued them.
The trades weren't bad, but I didn't feel the need to purchase anything.
The next morning, I was ready to head back to my side of the mountain range!
I took a slightly different path this time, revealing a small ravine with numerous small cave openings.
As I headed down into Sunflower Valley, I spotted this nightmare:
They were uncomfortably close to the village, but I couldn't kill them because I was concerned that I would be granted the Bad Omen effect and a raid would instantly begin like on my survival world. Luckily, they eventually wandered back into the cherry grove.
Apparently, this will no longer be a worry once the 1.21 update is released. Killing an illager captain will no longer give you Bad Omen. Instead, this effect can only be gained by drinking an ominous bottle found in the upcoming trial chambers. It's quite a relief in my opinion.
Anyways, here's all the goodies from that mining trip, thanks to Fortune III:
I shoved a stack of raw iron into the blast furnace and started on my next project: building the village library. First, I terraformed the area, including covering up this small cave in which an enderman inhabited:
Next, I built the frame using stripped spruce logs, like for the village common house and my own. The first floor, the "working" area, is seven blocks high, while the second floor, the "bedroom," is five, which meant it required the use of scaffolding.
In the meantime, as I waited for the oak trees to grow (why am I always out of wood?!), I continued selling all sorts of crops to the farmer, even melons. Shame my melon farm is so small, producing only four for harvest.
As I headed back to my house, I was shocked to discover this obstructive Christmas tree:
I had never seen the leaves of a spruce tree, normal or giant, grow all the way to the ground. I couldn't complain though, since the sapling yield will be higher than usual. And if there's one sapling type I'm running short of, it's spruce saplings.
Back home, I made two quick enchantments: a book with Power IV and my axe with Mending.
In the afternoon, the villagers attempted to reproduce, but they couldn't because there weren't enough beds.
That evening, I finished the walls of the library, so I placed in two beds as well as a fletching table in the common house for the next villager to occupy. The stick trade would definitely come in handy with the giant spruce farm.
But what is a library without bookshelves? It's time for some investments in knowledge! It's definitely nice that I'm making both of the librarian's trades.
With the walls completed, I could now install the windows. I was out of glass, so I spent the next day down at the river, shovelling away stacks of sand. It wasn't really a beach (I would have felt bad if it was), only a landlocked clearing of sand in the forest.
Still, a tree had managed to generate on the sand. Wow.
As I was making my way back home, I took this nice picture of the small nether hut nestled amongst the cherry trees on the side of our mountain. I haven't been in there for quite a while now!
The rest of the library took several days to complete. I spent a while tinkering with window designs, aiming for something a bit more unique than my previous builds. I think it worked out fairly well, and it's all thanks to those quartz slabs and stairs.
Here's the completed first floor:
And now the bedroom upstairs, with its nice big windows:
And finally, the roof, which didn't turn out as well as I thought:
With that done, we're one step closer to having a flourishing community. I still needed to work on the housing aspect, but I do realize that I've spent nearly all of the past hundred days around my base, so I could do with a small break from building and villager trading and instead continue with mapping. In the next few updates, I'll aim to complete the two northern maps.
Beyond that, I'll continue expanding and developing the village, perhaps securing several more enchanted book trades, particularly Infinity for my bow and Unbreaking III for all my gear, as well as make some more small renovations around our base.
Raise the lightning rod up a couple of blocks, and have it be on something non-flammable, and it should prevent that fire spread. I like to put it on a on some type of stone wall.
Quartz looks good, and I should try and use it a little more. I think I would shy away from it because I remember when it was added, and it would be more common to see it used overwhelmingly in a build, which I think tends to look bad. It also requires spending a lot of time in the nether which I didn't do as much of back then, but both villager trades complimenting more of it, and being in the nether more for one reason or another, makes it easier in recent versions.
I also realized instead of avoiding it entirely, I should try and use it sparingly, so I've tried doing that more recently and I found it worked well. I really liked how it looked mixed with mud stone bricks and dark oak fencing for my shrine. I also think it worked well with the Maroon color of the mangrove swamp planks in the library I did.
I made several small changes to the base before I set out, specifically raising the lightning rods on my house and the animal barn with stone walls as well as transferring the bell from the pond to the village park as it seemed to prevent the villagers from reproducing. I then enchanted my shovel with Mending as it had lost over a quarter of its durability.
With that done, I collected my cartography table, crafted a fresh new map and headed north.
The plan is identical to the previous map: I filled it in using the grid or "zigzag" method: head east until reaching the southeastern corner, go north for a bit, then head west, and so on. It was one of the most exciting maps I have completed, so with the sheer number of pictures, I'll split it into several updates, with this one being the first.
To begin, I headed up Sunflower Valley, strolled through the cherry grove and crossed the flower forest pass shown in the first picture. I then climbed up a small snowy ridge, which marks the northwestern corner of the local map and connects the lone snowy mountain from Episode 4 to the jagged massif which I had partially explored while filling in the western map. Unfortunately, it'll still be off-limits, although the northwestern map, which I'm planning to complete next, should have it covered.
On the ridge, looking northeast towards the snowy mountain which I'm about to climb:
Looking west to the jagged massif:
And finally, looking back south towards Sunflower Valley, hidden by the cherry grove hill:
There was a lone birch tree here as well, one of many around the area.
Having left Sunflower Valley in the early afternoon, the day was about to end, so I watched the sun slowly sink behind the towering peaks before placing down my bed on the snow and sleeping through the night.
Come morning, I started the northern map, zoomed it out by three levels using my cartography table and headed up the lone mountain, which, despite its relatively small size, reached all the way to the clouds.
Here's a better view of the snowy ridge:
The mountain didn't turn out to contain a jagged peaks biome; instead, it was snowy slopes bordering stony peaks. There were quite a lot of goats here though, joyfully prancing around and ready to knock any unsuspecting player (not that there was more than one) off a cliff.
The area of stony peaks was tiny, at least compared to the massif we already know so well from our endless iron mining trips there:
The transition from the snowy and frozen peaks to stony peaks also indicated a warmer climate zone to the north, which was expected. But first, I had to swim down this large waterfall off a steep savanna plateau:
I know I've shown it before, but the waterfall was pretty impressive up close.
Continuing east, I soon approached the northern edge of our local stony mountain massif, which, coupled with the dense forest, meant it was time to traverse some tricky terrain.
There were several ravines and cave openings here as well.
It wasn't all bad news though. This time, I had remembered to bring half a stack of bones, which I had obtained from skeleton sniping while hunting for zombie villagers, should there be any wolves to tame, and there were. One of my main goals on this expedition, besides filling in the map, was to tame as many of the new wolf variants as possible.
Since I had loaded this chunk before, although not intentionally, the pack of wolves that did spawn was of the pale variant, now exclusive to standard taiga forests. That was great news, because I'm nowhere near a taiga.
There were three wolves in the pack, all of which I successfully tamed. The first one was rather greedy, requiring four bones, but the others only took one and were satisfied. Perhaps it was a test of trustworthiness.
By evening, I had reached the northern edge of the stony peaks with my new found companions.
This was a relatively safe location to sleep through the night, and as I waited for dusk, I mined some nearby iron to continue restocking on my lantern supplies. Mapping and mining, it's a win-win!
And so unfolded the third day of the journey. I carefully looked around, ensuring there were no monsters around, and continued on east. A final view of the stony peaks to the south which can be found on the local map:
To the east was jungle, which wasn't unexpected as it had been part of the local map as well. That also included the ruined portal, which had somehow managed to start another fire.
This time, however, we'll actually be exploring the depths of the jungle rather than weaving around it.
Not far in, I encountered my first parrot: a cyan-yellow one, my favorite variant.
I desperately punched the grass with my Fortune pickaxe for some seeds, and was able to tame it before it could fly away. There we go, another travel companion!
The jungle went on for some time. It was considerably easier to traverse than I thought. The terrain was generally flat, making the low bushes much less of an annoyance. Take this as a spoiler alert for the next two updates or so.
Eventually, I reached a nice little bay at the eastern edge of the map. A beach was bordering the stony shore, a phenomenon that I've rarely noticed.
As I was walking around filling in the rest of the southeastern corner, I decided that with an empty bucket at hand, this was the perfect opportunity to make another advancement:
I mean, at least our pond will no longer be so lifeless.
And now, time for the first northern turn! I had to boat across this lake first, which contained a gravel "dam" that controlled the flow of water into a nearby cave.
From this point onwards, we'll be exploring completely unfamiliar territory.
Making my first sweep west, I trekked through a sparse jungle, still keeping watch for the new "rusty" wolves.
It soon transitioned to forest, however, as you may have seen from the previous picture. So we're now looking for the woods wolf, I suppose?
Another large dripstone cave opening, which I hadn't seen much of upon leaving Sunflower Valley:
To the south was a small, high-altitude forest hill, which indicated the stony peaks to south. Notice the sudden drop in elevation to the left.
Well it seemed like I had somehow managed to load this chunk as well before 1.20.5 released as I encountered another pack of pale taiga wolves! I decided to save up on bones and didn't tame any of them.
And yes, as you may have seen, we'd got more sparse jungle. That was welcome as it was easy to traverse yet appear as a "forest" on the map rather than a large, open area like the plains. I'm also surprised that I didn't collect any melons during the whole of the trip as those would have been incredibly easy to sell to the villagers, but oh well. I like leaving nature as it is.
To the west was more plains, which was expected. It sure does offer a nice break while exploring around difficult terrain.
Looking back east towards the sparse jungle and forest:
To the north and east was savanna, which was also desirable, as I should hopefully encounter another new 1.20.5 mob there: the armadillo. There was a small village here as well.
I like seeing villagers in exploration as they can serve as excellent temporary bases, especially when you're about to do something risky like climbing these stony peaks:
Well, we'd just discovered a new mountain massif! While this one appeared smaller, it also seemed more impressive, reaching way above the clouds. Definitely not even close to the height limit, but still a nice treat for exploration.
And of course, every mountain goes with its own cave(s).
With the stony peaks being that steep and seemingly difficult to traverse, I decided to leave my new friends in the safety of a villager house. They were initially reluctant, but a few right-clicks from me did it. I would come back for them on my next sweep east.
And now for the climb. The first stage was heading up a savanna plateau, which was fairly straightforward.
Yet another large dripstone cave opening:
Here, it started raining. The sky was obviously only overcast while on the savanna plateau, but head into the stony peaks and it rains, with it being a temperate biome.
I eventually made it up to one of the smaller peaks, where I looked around. It was here that I discovered that I was on a ring of peaks surrounding a beautiful, quiet savanna valley. I loved this place. Each mountain peak was distinct from one another, one of the characteristics that the mountains around Sunflower Valley lacked.
And I'll end the update here. Only about a third of the map was filled in, but again, it's a picture-heavy one and I think this is a nice "milstone," if you can call it that. In the next update, I'll explore the stony peaks and make my second turns north and east.
There's something I like about the stony mountains. Maybe it's because they are less common than the snow covered ones.
And I'm not sure if this applies to spawning during world generation, but I noticed when testing the eggs that the old wolves can still spawn in all locations. It seems to work like flowers in flower forests where there's an underlying system that determines which type spawns based on its location. I would go into a sparse jungle and use the eggs and consistently get either the old wolf or the new one depending on where I tried spawning it. I presume it might be the same for spawning during world generation? If so, seeing old wolves doesn't mean they are old chunks.
I particularly enjoyed seeing the stony mountain range at the end of the update as the peaks seemed to take on a more distinct and unique shape, which, combined with their rarity, makes me like them. I also somehow find that the lack of snow and the absence of goats and rabbits makes the stony mountains more peaceful and desolate simultaneously.
That wolf phenomenon is interesting. I only found pale wolves in the oak forest, which is normal before 1.20.5. I did find some wolves in the new wolf-spawning biomes, but those all happened to be the new variants rather than the old one. Perhaps my sample size is just smaller.
Some really nice pics there! And the vanilla maps of shorelines and mountains look so much better than of climate-driven biomes, because there's driven by the fractalesque height map rather than the smooth curves of the climate separations. Your home map is particularly good.
Terrain variation on maps definitely looks neat, and I find it makes mountain ranges, especially the one on my home map (it's a pretty big one!) easier to distinguish from formal cold zones. What I rather dislike about the climate transitions is the sudden change from a temperate biome to a formal cold one, like plains to snowy plains. It would be great if the snow (or ice in the case of frozen rivers) started coming in more gradually until the whole land is covered in snow or ice, and it would also look better on the maps.
In this update, I make my second turn north at the stony mountain range and continue to fill in the map.
The mountain peaks were absolutely brimming with ores. Massive veins of coal and iron and even clusters of two or three emeralds were seen. One particular area was also dotted with exposed dripstone, although it did not lead to a cave.
To the south, there were several large waterfalls, some leading into small ravines and a few off the mountain range itself.
It may not seem like it, but we were actually fairly close to our base. To the southeast was the snowy mountain, "connected" to our stony peaks by a savanna plateau.
To the west, I found spruce groves, which slightly surprised me as those don't tend to generate adjacent to stony peaks. Perhaps they were parts of the jagged massif which sort of wrapped around itself and enclosed a fairly large area of plains and meadows.
Now that I've explored much of the mountain range and had been given a rough indication of where I was, it was time to head back into the valley, where I would make my second northern turn. There were a couple of wild grazing horses and pigs, but the valley was peaceful.
Or was it? I heard barking (although the subtitle called it "panting"), and a spotted wolf suddenly came out of hiding behind an acacia tree.
It was part of a trio of wolves. I only tamed two of them, as the third quickly ran off and started murdering animals, and I only needed two anyway so I could breed them later.
With that done, it was time to resume mapping.
Dark little overhang here:
I didn't get far though. Bedtime!
I was quite glad that I could finally end this undesirable weather.
A fresh new day of exploring! I continued making my way north around the outside of the mountain range. Turning around, I found that one mountain had been pierced by a cave at its base:
I found some cream-colored wild llamas here. I think it's only the second time I've seen any wild llamas on this world. Those spawn in some of the less common mountain biomes. I've yet to find a windswept hill biome on this world.
There was another pack of plateau wolves here. I really hope they'll get along with the llamas, since they're usually hostile to each other.
Looking east from the northern edge of the mountain range, I found a ruined portal as well as another expanse of forest to traverse in the distance, the latter of which I was expecting.
This ruined portal actually generated without any crying obsidian! I've never seen one like this before.
The chest loot wasn't much, but I did take the golden apple. The pickaxe was enchanted with Silk Touch and the leggings with Protection II.
Was there a gold block on the portal? No! So really, only one of the four ruined portals around Sunflower Valley was a proper one, although that didn't matter to me too much now that I'm past the stage of piglin bartering for ender pearls and fire resistance potions.
A narrow ravine near the ruined portal:
To the northeast was sparse jungle which I'll map on my next sweep west. And of course there just had to be a wildfire in this otherwise nice picture. Thank you, lava pool.
Here's a final view of the stony mountain range from the northeast:
It's definitely not the last time we'll be seeing it, though, with it being so near my base.
And now, we continue into the depths of the woods!
Or do we? Because I think there's something we're missing...
Of course I wouldn't forget about you guys! Sorry to say, but you've all missed out on quite a lot. It was for their own safety though, so I'm sure they could understand.
While I was at the village, which didn't contain anything interesting itself, I found some neat ravines and cave openings, including one with waterfalls.
Now, let's actually continue on. I was wasting a lot of time here, sprinting about.
There was another stretch of jungle in the distance which would require traversing. This would be a great opportunity to tame some more parrots. The more travel companions, the better!
I crossed over a ridge and was blessed with this nice, lush scenery:
The rest of the sweep was a relaxed stroll through the woods and the jungle which seemed to be intertwined with each other, creating a diverse green environment filled with all sorts of trees.
I made my third northern turn here, revealing a roughly circular cave opening. They're common but still nice to see, especially when the inside is lit so well with glow lichen.
And with that, dusk arrived. It felt like I had barely done anything today, but at least we could enjoy this brilliant sunset behind the giant jungle trees, a spectacle I rarely see since I don't tend to spend much time in this biome.
Early the next morning, I was greeted by two parrots, one white and the other red. Again, I desperately punched some grass with my Fortune pickaxe and managed to tame both of them.
The white parrot was quick to perch on my shoulder, leaving no room for the red one. And yes, that's the state of our mapping party, although one of the white wolves decided to sprint off-camera as this picture was taken.
When you tame too many animals:
The forest was fairly dense, so I decided to traverse it by treetopping, and was then greeted by a somehow stationary bee:
Ahead, the forest transitioned back into jungle. That's what I meant about the biomes being intertwined with each other.
Another jungle fire to maneuver around. The last thing I needed was to have the wolves taking a bath in lava.
After crossing another stretch of sparse jungle, which offered a relieving break from its denser counterpart, I made a detour into the forest as I had spotted some more friends:
It was another pack of three, two of which I tamed. Well, unfortunately, I didn't tame them in time to save the poor sheep.
I headed back north to resume my sweep west. And what did I find?
Another stony mountain massif to the north, which we'll cross on the next sweep east. Although it didn't seem like it will be as unique as the one before, I was still pretty shocked to find that there were literally mountain ranges everywhere around our base. Keep in mind that all of this is part of the map directly north of our local one.
Looking west was the ruined portal at the base of the other stony mountain range.
I decided to bedplop on this sparse jungle hill. The rusty (sparse jungle) wolf was the only variant that I hadn't found yet, so I wanted to spend as much time in this biome as possible.
And of course, every mountain comes with its own cave openings.
Remember the small hole I accidentally fell into way back in Episode 3? Well, this one was just as large in width, but a bit deeper:
The mountain range seemed to be a big one...
...extending all the way to the western edge of the map!
Upon making my northern turn towards the mountains, I found another large cave opening.
And now for the climb. It wasn't long before I made it.
It was a ring of peaks surrounding a dense jungle-forest valley.
To the west was an unexpected discovery: plains and ocean! It sure seemed like the northwestern map (the one west of this) would be much less of a struggle to fill in. And seeing the rising moon, I hastily plopped down my bed once more and slept through the night.
The next morning, I gathered all of my newly tamed animals around. We were ready for the final stage of the journey.
And this is a good place to finish. In the next update, I'll make one final sweep east, one that will be wider than usual. A whole new experience was about to unfold.
Quite a lot of mountain climbing there. Vanilla needs a little more interest in those big stone expanses - multiple types of stone, cobble, shadowing effects, areas of dirt or ice - *something* to break up the vast expanses of sameness.
I've seen some complaints about the "ring of peaks" formations. I think they're interesting, but perhaps they're too common?
You've collected quite the menagerie, there!
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 agree that stony mountains could do with some minor enhancements. Mossy cobblestone boulders littered around the lower elevations and more frequent strips of calcite and gravel between the peaks would be lovely, although ice might not match so well with the "warm" mountain theme. And yes, I think seeing shadows being cast on the mountains would be great to see during twilight.
I don't think mountain rings are too common, at least for me. They make up approximately a third of the mountain ranges I find. However, I would definitely like to see more longer, chain-like mountain ranges as well.
In this third and final update on the northern map, I'll make my last trip east to the northeastern corner before heading back to Sunflower Valley.
While I was descending the stony peaks into the jungle valley, I peered into a split in the hillside and discovered my first lush cave on this world!
I was tempted to enter and bucket a few axolotls, maybe some dripleaves and glow berries, for another paludarium like the one on my survival world. However, with my party of seven wolves and three parrots, coupled with a rather heavy inventory, I decided not to risk it.
Seeing this cemented my decision:
The creeper actually wandered out from a smaller, shallower cave nearby (which were annoyingly all over the place). I did hear my parrots hissing but thought that was coming from deeper underground, since the parrot mocking range was usually quite high. Luckily, I had managed to get myself onto a ledge and cancel the explosion that would have wiped out most of my animals.
I'm never comfortable with leaving a hostile mob alive after such a close encounter, however, so I pillared up a few more blocks for safety, pulled out my bow, and carefully aimed at it.
Success! I was able to one-shot the monster.
After this incident, I continued up the other side of the jungle valley, where it started raining. I realized that the poor visibility coupled with the difficult terrain would make this final stage of the mapping trip the most tedious one.
Eventually, I made it onto the other side of the ring of stony peaks. Looking east was a magnificent bamboo jungle valley, while the mountains continued along both sides of it, suggesting there was a smaller mountain ring inside a larger one.
I also spotted an ocelot here, my first one in the game.
And now, we descend into this swath of paradise.
The climb down suggested the opposite though. The wolves were constantly taking fall damage, and one even started whimpering not after long, so I regularly fed them steak. The parrots, on the other hand, were very much enjoying the journey.
Evening fell, which meant I could finally reset the weather. I pillared up a few blocks to sleep as it was particularly easy to get ambushed by a creeper in such a densely forested area. The next morning, I found that one of the wolves had somehow teleported onto a stalk of bamboo.
It took nearly fatal fall damage.
But speaking of animals, I found another parrot to tame, this time a green one, which I don't remember ever seeing.
I'm surprised that I hadn't found a blue one yet. But anyways, we now have eleven members in our party!
And it's a beautiful place. This whole area of jungle was surrounded by stony peaks. You might also be able to see the jungle temple to the left, mostly hidden by stalks of bamboo:
With a nearly full inventory, this was probably the worst time for raiding one, so I left it.
Here's the area of stony peaks we had descended. The small bushes looked rather out of place on the steep mountainside.
Having made it to the southern edge of the massif, I realized that the mountains had not quite formed a ring here as I had expected, but was close to, as shown on the map. Looking back west:
To the east, the dense jungle gave way to forest and sparse jungle, but I knew it was only a narrow strip and the easy terrain wouldn't last for long.
I had not even finished my descent before I spotted another possible jungle mountain in the distance. There's clearly a pattern going on here.
This place was also brimming with wildlife. I spotted another ocelot:
I decided to spend some more time treetopping, but the height variation of the trees made that impractical, although I did find another green parrot which I did not tame; it was only after the expedition had ended that I remembered you couldn't breed parrots for whatever reason.
So, with that in mind, why in the world did I get so close to that lava pool? I've heard that parrots have one of the most notorious AI of all mobs.
It wasn't long before I was ambushed for the second time in this update.
The skeleton wasn't completely hostile to me. It did have its bow fully charged, ready to shoot, but my growling wolves somehow managed to prevent it from doing so. I simply walked off and let them take care of the situation.
I found another parrot here, but as with the previous one, I didn't tame it. If only I had known earlier...
And as for what's ahead? More stony peaks! This would be the last mountain range before I finish the map.
I came across a pillager patrol, my first one on this expedition. Luckily, it was far away enough to not be threatening. It was only a matter of time before I would find one anyway in all this dense foliage.
Ah yes, another ocelot, which was unaware of my presence from behind the trees.
Time for our final mountain climb for this map:
I watched a brilliant jungle sunset with my parrots before sleeping through the night on the steep mountainside.
The next morning, having reached the summit, I found that I was standing on another mountain ring formation with a small forest-savanna valley in the middle.
Looking towards the northeastern corner of the map, marked by the eastern edge of the massif:
I descended into the savanna and found my first group (or rather, roll) of armadillos, so I took out my brush from my ender chest and brushed them for scutes, which I would use to craft wolf armor.
Four clicks later ... CLANK! The brush! Gone! Well, I wasn't expecting that. I guess this makes copper more useful?!
Oh, and here's what I found before the brush broke:
Ah yes, a bad omen that something like that would happen.
And with that, after over an in-game week, the map was now complete!
The next morning, it was finally time to head back to Sunflower Valley. I descended the mountain slope, and turning back, found this narrow stone bridge which connected two of the peaks together.
The plan of the return trip was simple: I would stick to sparse jungle as much as possible and only cross into the normal variant when needed. This would hopefully allow me to find one or two packs of rusty wolves, maybe even blue parrots if we're lucky.
I was able to find a lone rusty wolf within minutes.
Only one, but that should be enough for breeding purposes.
The only wolf variants I hadn't found yet were the ones that spawn in taiga variants, groves and eroded badlands. I'm feeling hopeful about finding the grove variant though.
During the return trip, I also found another pack of woods wolves which I did not tame. Good luck to all those nearby pigs and sheep.
I enjoyed the evening at the village, which was located in a pretty nice spot, a narrow strip of plains nestled amongst three types of forest.
"Sorry, but there's not enough room for everybody. And no, this is not my house."
Seeing the snow on the mountains early the next day, I put my map away, realizing just how close the village was to my base.
Here's a peculiar split in the lone snowy mountain that I had never noticed until now:
It was like a cave that went up rather than down.
I crossed the cherry grove ridge:
And here we were. I rarely approach my base from the north and figured this would be a good place for a picture.
I settled all the animals in my house, which was now filled with life!
If you look carefully, you may notice that someone was missing...
It was the wolf from the jungle! I must have accidentally sat it down during the return journey. The thing about having a large group of animals following you during an expedition is that it's sometimes difficult to tell when you've lost someone because of all the commotion and noise. Nevertheless, here's a positive spoiler warning: the wolf was later recovered.
The tropical fish I had captured two updates ago went in the pond, which will be its new home. Well, home until the axolotls arrive. I'll have to move it into some sort of aquarium then.
And as for all the iron I mined during the trip?
It's all thanks to the stony peaks. That's half the iron needed for a fully powered beacon!
And now, we add the newly completed map to the wall. I guess I'll need a dedicated map room soon?
Well, I only stayed for a short while at my base, because by evening, I was ready for my next mapping trip, which will cover the northwestern quadrant of the grid. Although of course, I needed to go on a dog rescue mission first.
Randomly stumbled on this thread, read the whole thing, and signed up to say I'm excited to read further updates on this adventure, keep it up! All those mountain ranges around your base are super cool, and your base design looks much better than mine haha
With the northern map now completed, it was time to fill in the one west of that. This will allows us to finish the grid of maps at our house, making this the last mapping update for now.
Before that, however, I needed to go on a wolf rescue mission. I headed back along the route I took for my return journey, along the pass separating Sunflower Valley from the jagged mountain massif, towards the village, where I thought I may have left the poor animal.
Well, that didn't turn out to be the case. It was sitting in one of the small oak forests near Sunflower Valley.
This provided an opportunity to get a closer picture of the "cave" on the side of the snowy mountain.
Upon returning, I was greeted by a wandering trader party.
Mangrove propagules, nice! I always keep some spare emeralds in my ender chest, so I was able to buy one.
Early the next morning, I harvested some sugar cane, crafted a new empty map and headed northwest for my final mapping expedition.
While I was crossing the narrow valley below the jagged mountains, I encountered a stationary pillager patrol which I would have to carefully weave around.
Heading back up, I spotted a small cave entrance containing a vein of three emerald ores?!
I then made it up into the peaks, where I placed down my cartography table and zoomed out the new map.
The perfect start to a new adventure!
The first sweep west had me traversing the heart of the mountain range, which turned out to be much smaller than I thought. The lone spruce tree was part of the tiny grove biome from Episode 9.
To the south was the cliffside village, which was also part of the western map. And I don't know why, but I always find bees in the most peculiar places, from the middle of the ocean to the highest mountain peaks. I thought they could pathfind to their bee nests.
Evening fell, so I bedploped on one of the smaller peaks.
Come morning, I continued west, descending into a vast expanse of oak and old growth birch forest.
I came across a pack of pale wolves here.
After crossing a small river, the forest gave way to plains ... and ocean!
There was some interesting beach generation here. The water from the ocean flowed through the broken sand "barrier" and even formed a small waterfall at a small cave entrance.
I also found a sand bridge over a small ravine.
Towards the southwestern corner of the map, the normal plains transitioned to sunflower plains backed up by flower forest. That was part of the western map as well.
This was also where I would make my first northern turn, which meant it was time for some sailing across the ocean! I found a large cluster of ocean ruins here, which meant a large patch of floating kelp as well.
I accidentally picked up some of the kelp and realized it was the first time on this world that I had any in my inventory! This somehow reminded me of the earliest days on my survival island, when I had dried kelp for food as my first batch of wheat hadn't grown yet.
Off the east coast of the sandy island from the last picture was a tiny shipwreck.
To the north was a village, situated on a larger island separated from the sandy one by a river. Three structure pictures in a row!
I decided to check out the shipwreck first. Although it only contained one chest, the food and supply chest, unsurprisingly, the loot was adequate. I took the suspicious stew, coal, gunpowder, and paper, the last of which I was running very low on with the slow sugar cane growth at my pond.
And as for the village? There really wasn't much. I harvested some salmon at the nearby river and tried taming a stray cat, but the flat terrain actually made that more difficult and I gave up eventually.
Every village has its peculiarities.
I continued sailed east until the ocean gave way to mainland, where I found more areas of old growth birch forest, dark forest and ... another mountain?
To be honest, you couldn't really call it a formal mountain, more like a snowy hill with a wide strip of ice. On the plus side, it would be easier to traverse, and there was a large spruce grove here, which might allow me to find and tame the arguably rarest wolf variant, the snowy wolf. I would be crossing over the hill mountain on my next sweep west.
I safely made it through the dark forest, where I found another potential mountain range in the distance...
Nope, never mind. I came to a mountain pass and discovered that the spruce grove was actually part of the stony mountain range on the northern map. Ah yes, all the snow had been moved to a lower altitude.
To the south was the jagged mountain range near my base. The large peak on the left was pretty impressive, reaching way above the clouds, and I somehow had never noticed it before, despite its size. Perhaps I had been viewing it from a different angle. There was another spruce grove here which I regretfully did not explore.
The next morning, I made my second northern turn, where I found more temperate forest and savanna, indicating the border of the warm climate zone.
Heading west, I got my first good look of the mountain range.
The northern end of the range was actually snowless, which was unsurprising given the warm climate zone nearby.
I crossed over the relatively flat summit...
...and descended into the large spruce grove on the other side, waiting for the wolf to come out.
I searched all over and found a lone snow fox, my first fox on this world. I was still pretty disappointed that it had to be the wrong animal, but oh well.
On the plus side, I did find a decently large cherry grove. It obviously wasn't as massive as the one around my base, but it sure looked nice on the map.
To the north was a lone cherry tree. Its seed must have been blown away from the rest by the wind!
I eventually reached the village, but there was nothing left for me here, so I continued on.
The north revealed more temperate forests and plains.
As I was making my way east towards the mountains, I discovered another cherry grove, slightly larger in area than the first. Now this was what made the mountain look truly wonderful!
Continuing east, I found a savanna village. My first non-plains village on this world, funnily enough.
As I was crossing a small area of stony peaks, it started raining and the horizon glowed orange from the setting sun, which meant I had to sleep before reaching the village.
Now that I was nearing the northeastern corner of the map, I was approaching the western extension of the large stony mountain range, the one with an unusually spherical summit, from last episode.
There were some substantial cave openings nearby.
To the north was sparse jungle, indicating the border between the arid and humid zones.
View of the village from the stony peaks:
Upon descending, I checked the cartography house chests for extra maps and compasses, as savanna villages seemed to have lots of those. This village in particular was very rewarding, offering nine empty maps in one of the chests!
Well, maybe not that last chest, but my desire for extra mapping equipment had already been satisfied.
But now, time for the criticism: am I the only one who dislikes savanna village farms? They're just a complete mess and the village will almost always be flooded by the waterfalls they create.
And as for this catastrophe:
And ... what was the villager doing there in that opening?
Continuing west from the village, there was more ocean to map.
Or was it? No, it was practically a large lake resembling an ocean.
Towards the northwestern corner, there was more oak and old growth birch forest to map, but I was a bit surprised to see this:
A woodland mansion. It's the first time I've ever found one on a non-creative world, not that I've ever tried finding one. Despite its rarity, however, that was the one structure I had been hoping to not come across. It's extremely impressive to see, but there just isn't much point in raiding one, since totems of undying can easily be obtained in village raids, which are much easier to tackle. Maybe not on hard difficulty. I've neither took on a raid on hard difficulty nor raided a woodland mansion in any difficulty before, so perhaps the latter is more desirable.
But here we are. I guess we just have to block the entrance up on our next mapping expedition, which will be in a long, long time (why is the entrance to the mansion open in the first place though?). Well, that's enough about the mansion, which I'm unlikely to raid anyway.
As you may have seen, there's more jungle to the north, but I won't be mapping that.
After a while, I reached the stony mountains from the northern map, marking the completion of this one.
The base of the mountains hid a massive ravine with numerous large cave openings:
I'm surprised it still wasn't deep enough to reach deepslate level.
Now, time for the return journey. By evening, I had made it back to the stony mountain ring near our base.
I found more plateau wolves and an armadillo here.
As I approached my base, I found that the wandering trader party from the beginning of the update was still there, so I suppose they can only despawn in loaded chunks.
And now, for the long-awaited part: the complete map grid!
I'm surprised that after this much exploring, the largest mountain massifs were still the ones closest to our base.
With the mapping done, it's pretty obvious what's up next: the ender dragon fight. Slowly but surely in the past ten or so updates (not counting the mapping ones), I had pretty much acquired everything I would need: diamond gear, eyes of ender and phantom membranes for slow falling potions. The only enchantments I lacked now were a few levels of Protection on my armor and Infinity on my bow, the latter of which I prefer to obtain through villager trading since Infinity bows would be a recurring necessity for me due to them being incompatible with Mending.
So in the next update, which may not come for a while, I might start preparing for the big battle. Perhaps even make that long journey to the stronghold. Whatever happens, the end is coming up. Because we are actually going to the End.
I hate it when animals get lost. Once I had to go on a long trip to get dogs, because for some reason there weren't any within about 2000 blocks of my base. I tamed about 6, but by the time I got home I only had one. Grrr.
Map walls are great! You certainly have a lot of mountains near your base.
Looking forward to you writing about the Ender Dragon fight. I've still never done it. I thought I was going to do it in my last journal world, but I got derailed by my forest mods.
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.
It’s unfortunately just too easy to accidentally leave behind animals when you’ve got a lot of them with you. Accidental right-clicks (like in my case), boating across the ocean and forgetting that they can’t teleport to you from unloaded chunks.
The ender dragon fight is coming up soon, probably within the next three or four updates. I still have a lot of preparation to do, and the prospect of fighting it in hardcore for the first time makes me both excited and anxious.
Yeah, I know the average damage of a Power V bow is higher than a Power III bow, but the damage alone doesn't matter in a vacuum. It depends on how how many hits it takes to kill what you're hitting.
With a Power V bow, I think it was possible to one hit a creeper, but it was uncommon in my experience. It was usually two hits.
With a Power III bow, I imagine it may be impossible to kill it in one hit (?), and it may now sometimes take three hits (?), but if the most common is still two hits (?) like a Power V bow, then it's not a different most of the time. Thus far, which isn't much since I avoid combat as a rule in that world, I've killed all creepers in two hits still so I was wondering if it's not going to be a big difference in practice, despite the lower average damage.
And it's obviously going to vary from mob to mob. Creepers are just perhaps the biggest example I would worry about myself.
Episode 15: A Community Begins
It's time to continue on my desperate search for two zombie villagers. I realized that simply strolling around the balcony and waiting for one to suddenly appear in front of me wasn't going to help much. I needed to reduce the number of monsters spawning underground, and the only quick way to do that was by pillaring up as high as I could from the roof of my house, something I'm comfortable with now that I've acquired the Feather Falling IV enchantment.
Dozens of zombies, skeletons, creepers, and even a couple of endermen and witches spawned over the course of that first night, and for that I was hopeful that I would eventually find what I was looking for.
Come dawn, I captured this nice orange glow of the coming sunrise behind the enormous mountain massif before quickly descending and sleeping through the final seconds of nighttime to reset the phantom timer. I've already obtained enough phantom membranes, so further encounters with this mob will only be a hindrance.
I was low on food, with only about a stack and a half of steak left, so I committed the morning to some wheat harvesting and cow and chicken breeding. This also produced enough levels for me to enchant my shovel. What I was primarily looking for here were Silk Touch and Unbreaking III, although Efficiency III or IV would also be desirable.
And there we go, a decent shovel. Fortune III was unnecessary but could easily be replaced by a Silk Touch book anyway via an anvil, so I kept it.
After another day of farming, I had enough levels for another enchantment. I decided to grindstone and re-enchant my Power III bow in the hopes of obtaining Infinity. I was running low on gravel (and in turn, flint for arrows) and the strip mine would be one of the last places I'd want to be in now.
Again, it's decent but not quite everything I had been looking for. Punch II was undesirable as it would make sniping more difficult, but the fact that I still got Unbreaking III only just saved it from the grindstone.
Next, I grindstoned and re-enchanted my helmet in the hopes of obtaining Protection IV, Unbreaking III and Respiration II or III.
I was punished for my high expectations.
So I tried again the next day:
Aqua Affinity is nice but what I'm actually looking for here is Protection, the most basic armor enchantment that I've been struggling to obtain for a long time.
And during all this, I've also been continuing on my search for the zombie villagers, but to no avail.
On one night, I accidentally glanced into one of the large dripstone cave openings near my base and provoked an invisible enderman. Well, invisible until it teleported and frantically scrambled around on the roof of my house:
It couldn't reach me though. I think I was beyond its teleporting range. Either that, or endermen can't teleport to the block a player is standing on.
The next morning, I carefully descended, still keeping an eye out for the enderman that I believe should had given up. After confirming its despawn, I went out to the animal barn for some more farming and found it in a complete mess.
Why were there so many unbelonging animals in each pen? I hadn't even killed any recently (apart from chickens), so they couldn't have just been knocked upwards and crossed over the fence. Well, that's peculiar, but not an urgent issue.
Back to enchanting! I decided to grindstone my old Power IV and Flame enchanted bow, the one I used during the nether fortress raid. I still didn't want to give up on obtaining Infinity just yet, although I should have considering I could just buy enchanted books from villagers.
Well, the attempt failed. Power III only.
And so unfolded the next night. I'd been spending so much time searching for the zombie villagers that I had a feeling I was doing it wrong.
But no. The night of Day 290 would be the one that would change this world forever. Because in the distance, right in front of the cherry grove, I spotted a farmer's hat.
The next few minutes passed by in a blur. Without any hesitation or desire of sniping the nearby mobs, I mined down my pillar, slammed open the balcony doors and then the front door before grabbing my boat and sprinting out into the dark night. This was my only chance! I couldn't let it despawn after all this waiting!
As I ran uphill towards the cherry grove, I wasn't looking where I was going and fell into the large dripstone cave opening, where four zombies were immediately after me. I quickly pillared up five blocks, although without taking several hits first, and went over to the zombie villager. As it strode over to me, I hurriedly placed a boat between us and ... secured it!
I pillared up just in time to escape the zombies that were still after me.
After picking off the normal zombies (including one that had trapped itself with the zombie villager) and ensuring that the zombie villager had enough shade to survive the following day, I sprinted back over to my house and watched the remaining minutes of the night tick away. But there was something else in the distance that immediately had my attention:
That couldn't be another zombie villager, could it? It's probably just an illusion, right?
Well, nope.
After weeks without success, I was able to capture and cure two zombie villagers in one night. My luck just has me laughing sometimes.
After ensuring the coast was clear and blocking off any potential small caves or holes where zombies could spawn, I splashed the zombie villagers with potions of weakness and fed them both a golden apple each. I did get splashed by the weakness effect myself but it only lasted for a couple of seconds.
Funnily enough, I've never had a golden apple before myself.
I spent my time waiting for the zombie villagers to finish the curing process. I felt that they needed my presence. Eventually, they finished, and I made the advancement. I was beyond happy at that moment.
It was already past midday, and I couldn't just leave the villagers in the open like that, so I rushed home and crafted two barrels which would serve as emergency job sites I would use to lure them to different locations. Unfortunately, I couldn't just row my boat downhill to my base as the dripstone cave opening got in the way and there was some funny terrain around it.
I first found a high point from where I could row a boat down to my base and proceeded to place the two barrels there. I transferred the villagers to a spot as close as possible to the high point and broke their boats. After some hesitation, they took the jobs, and I quickly trapped them, broke the barrels and rowed down to my house.
After that, I summoned my first iron golem on this world. I didn't want any of the villagers doing so as naturally spawning iron golems are one of the most dangerous things in hardcore. One misclick on a villager while trying to trade with them will lead to ... almost certain death. And I'm pretty bad at clicking on things properly. So, I suppose making a huge investment in iron myself is still a good choice. (And yes, two advancement screenshots in a row.)
As evening approached, I moved the villagers inside my house to be extra safe. Don't worry, you'll have a proper home soon! (And it's not going to be a trading hall or breeding hut, unlike the majority of players out there.)
And believe it or not, the next day, it was time to get started on building their home! But first, I needed to gather materials, particularly wood.
Ah, I hadn't chopped down a tree in a long while.
Sorry spruce tree, I'll have to get rid of you as well. But it's a nice view from up here.
Wait, what's the iron golem doing there?
I didn't want it to encounter any pillager patrols and take damage as I was fairly low on iron supplies now, so I led it back to the house and tied it to the crop farm fence to prevent future incidents like this.
A couple of days later, I finished the first build: the village wheat farm, located in the flat area right up from the giant tree farm. I don't particularly like having the village on the outskirts of my base, but that's the only feasible building spot.
Next, it was time for some minor terraforming for the common house, where the villagers would work and sleep until there's more houses available. I had to cover up this cave which the villagers might fall into with their rage inducing AI:
Here's the path leading up to the village itself. I used bamboo mosaic blocks and stone bricks, as the tradition goes.
For the house, I would need a large number of stone bricks, and I didn't have many, so I spent a day strip mining at y:15, hoping that I could also restock on my iron supplies. I didn't find any iron but managed to mine two large coal deposits, which was also great as I was running slightly low on coal as well.
I also found a rather large cavern:
Funnily enough, I hadn't noticed the sculk until I took the screenshot and zoomed in while writing this update. I believe the small white block on the left is a sculk catalyst? There were even sculk veins (?) right across from me, which was surprising as I thought the deep dark can only be found at deepslate level. I also found some random thin lines (to the right of the sculk catalyst) for some reason.
After sleeping through the night underground (it was somehow Day 300 already), I returned to the surface the next morning to finish up the village's small "green space," similar to the one adjacent to the barn on my survival world. I love working with moss and azaleas.
I couldn't delay the construction of the house any longer, however, so I spent the next few days working on it. Like for my own house, I used a stripped spruce frame with oak planks for the walls and floor, but it was single-story.
I used the same exterior window design as well. However, since the house was 7x7 (hence a square), I allowed the roof to be a different shape. Here's some nice shots of the exterior of the house as I was leading the iron golem to the new village:
(Yes, I do hear the lava pool beneath us. It's kind of unsettling, but we'll have to cope with it for now.)
It was now time for what you may think would be the most exciting bit: transporting the villagers from my house up to the new village! Well, it was the opposite. It was an extremely tedious process that required the use of minecarts and rails (the terrain and buildings interfered with the use of boats), shrinking my iron supply to three ingots. I'm not sure what the villagers thought of it, but anyways, here we go:
The construction of the railway line required removal of some of the flowers outside my house.
It turned out to be exactly 192 blocks long from the starting point to the entrance to the village house, although I used less at the beginning to save up on iron. Big mistake! I wasted quite a few days trying to transport the villagers.
It was my first time using a minecart, so I decided to test it out myself first.
I have to admit that is the least exciting method of transport I have ever tried in the game. I was literally moving at a player's sneaking speed! Perhaps I need some other type of rail, maybe a powered rail, at the beginning of the line to make the minecart go faster.
After the test, I let a villager out and placed the minecart back between them and a barrel (the job site block). I was hoping that the villager would head towards the barrel and accidentally trap themselves in the minecart instead.
Instead, the villager headed to the barn and got attracted to the barrel decorations at its base, so I had to remove those and try the minecart barrel setup again. This time, it worked!
The minecart physics were working against me, however. I had to constantly nudge it up the small slope or it would speed back down and we'd literally be back to square one.
After the minecart had reached the end of the line, I captured the villager in a boat and rowed to a spot close to the village, where they would hopefully get attracted to the composter at the new wheat farm. And they did!
The second villager, however, proved to be much more of a challenge to transport. I set up the barrel minecart trap outside my house:
Well, it went well until we reached the end of the railway line. Instead of taking the lectern which I had recently placed down in the village house, they headed onto the roof of the animal barn via the azalea treetops and found a way into my wheat farm!
I broke the composter and had them leave the farm before placing it back down again. Time for Villager Transportation, Round 2:
Unfortunately, I failed to nudge the minecart properly as it went up the slope, so it rolled back down at an alarming speed (for a minecart) and, like I said previously, we would be back to square one.
At least the farmer was doing fine, sleeping through the rainy night. I prefered working on clear, sunny days as well.
Come morning, it was time for Round 3:
And ... it failed.
Please leave my potatoes alone! Why are you planting wheat? You've got your own farm.
Again, I broke the composter, forced the villager out and placed the composter back in. The villager obviously found a way back to the roof of the barn (and in turn the crop farm), but I was quicker. I trapped them in a boat and rowed it off the roof towards the village house.
Well, upon releasing them, they're back to farming potatoes again, I guess. No, not farming potatoes. Replacing potatoes with their wheat! They even trampled some of my crops, which annoyed me.
Things couldn't go on like this. As much as I hated to, I extended the railway line all the way to the entrance of the village house and blocked off any escape routes. This meant that the farmer lost their profession as they no longer had access to the composter (they happened to be in the house during the blockage), but they could reclaim it soon.
You can do this! Nearly at your favorite azalea tree.
We're now past the azalea tree!
The villager did take some damage as they were riding through the two-block-high blockage, but they eventually made it into the house. And look, we have a baby villager! The community was growing right before my eyes.
Not only that, but the troublesome villager had finally taken the right profession.
They offered a Quick Charge III book, which I won't need.
I then removed the blockage, and the farmer eagerly went outside and reclaimed their profession, which was also wonderful. On Day 312, we've finally finished setting up the villager community!
In the afternoon, as the baby villager bounced on their bed, the two adults met together at the pond, the defined center of my base, before returning home and sleeping through the night.
For the community to keep growing, I needed more housing, and that'll be one of my targets in the next update. I would like to gain access to Mending books as well; the durabilities of my gear, particularly my pickaxes, were dropping rapidly. Another trade I would like to secure are brick trades as I needed them for my potted lantern decorations. And of course, speaking of lanterns, I definitely needed to restock on my iron supplies, which means there'll probably be some mining in the mountains in the next update as well.
Beyond that, I'm looking forward to continuing with some small mapping trips, which I haven't done in a while. I'll work on the northeastern map first, followed by the northwestern one, which will allow us to explore the rest of the jagged mountain massif from Episode 9. We might even discover more mountain ranges along the way, who knows.
Curious why you grind and re-enchant your equipment. Why not mine a bit to get some more diamonds and make multiple items? They're not that hard to get (certainly not compared to getting zombie villagers to cure.) Only grind away something once you've got something better.
I resolutely maintain villagers need to be contained, both for their own safety and to keep them away from things they don't know how to handle (like player farms). Think of them as young children.
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.
Villages (whether its built as a village, or as a "base" with villagers living among it, either will be a village to them) need built with villagers in mind. I typically build a village and make my own house among them as opposed to making bases, and I also tend to learn the villagers behaviors over time, so I build with those things in mind.
You're finding out all of that now. The only major one I struggle with still is the limited range of their AI/pathfinding at times.
It's hard to see since it's mostly behind the terrain, but yes, that's what it appears to be since that's neither a sculk sensor nor a sculk shrieker.
Those lines are likely caused by switching issues. The game has a few cases of those, and you can resolve some of them with a vanilla tweaks resource pack.
https://vanillatweaks.net/picker/resource-packs/
Look under "Fixes and Consistency" for "Item Stitching Fix". That one, and the Cloud Fog Fix, are the ones I like to use when not playing shaders.
However, I don't think that will fix the ones in your screenshot which seems to be terrain related. That will only fix the ones with some tools and other items held in your hand. I also see one near the torch which is curious, as I only saw that occur near torches and grass when using OptiFine's antialiasing (and it started only after one of the 1.19 or 1.20 updates). You don't appear to be using this though so I don't know what's causing it for the torch, but in general, the game has stitching issues.
The only way to replace mutually exclusive enchantments is by placing the item with the enchantment you desire in the first (left) slot but unless you are combining two books they can only be placed in the second (right) slot, so you will need to make a new shovel and put the Silk Touch book on it, then combine the shovels with Silk Touch in the first slot, paying the cost to add Efficiency and Unbreaking (along with the first item being repaired by the second if it is damaged, with its own charge, this explains why the order you place items in the anvil matters so much, one combination may even be too expensive but the other way is perfectly affordable).
A very, very old bug that has existed for as long as the game has (at least since "infinite" worlds were implemented), and one which Mojang just can't seem bothered to fix despite many confirmed, and very simple fixes (I implemented one myself and haven't had any issues with mobs escaping or suffocating in years, while it used to be a common occurrence, e.g. I'd come back to a pen of chickens and there would be drops near the walls, or they would glitch through fences):
MC-2025 Mobs going out of fenced areas/suffocate in blocks when loading chunks
(list of issues by upvotes, MC-2025 takes the cake by a good margin)
My own fix, or rather, a modification of a fix somebody posted in a comment, along with several others
Original source: https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-2025?focusedId=408089&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-408089
This can also happen when animals grow up as their hitbox also grows, causing it to clip into nearby walls and once an entity has clipped into a block it no longer collides with it:
MC-9568 Mobs suffocate / go through blocks when growing up near a solid block
Incredibly, Mojang recently fixed this, in 24w19a, released two days ago - after a decade! Yet, the fix, as given in an attachment, is much more complex than the one for MC-2025, so why not both? Maybe this gives hope that the most infamous bug in the game's history will finally be addressed. Still, that doesn't excuse them not fixing them for over a decade, with so many game versions ruined by it (mods aside), and so many other bugs which are also relatively small fixes, e.g. if they had followed proper OpenGL standards versions from Beta 1.9-1.7.10 wouldn't be suffering from graphical glitches on newer drivers (the fix for this is literally a single line. I'm not even sure if they intentionally fixed it in 1.8, or just accidentally as a result of refactoring code since many older drivers worked fine).
I also agree that disenchanting bows is overkill since they are so cheap to make, or even obtain from skeleton drops (I got Infinity by enchanting such drops without ever actually making one, as a bonus I also ended up with more durability than otherwise since without grindstones (1.6.4) I'd craft them together to disenchant and try again, same for the diamond pickaxes I saved from branch-mining to get Fortune and Silk Touch, otherwise, due to the use of extremely rare (I only found 10 ores, vs 70 diamond ore) modded items and not being able to simply disenchant them I have the same view with regards to just making multiple items).
Also, in terms of XP cost level 21-22 is the best level to get Infinity (select bow, then choose Infinity); the probability increases quickly up to that point then much more slowly, while the cost per level increases exponentially (this matters more for the pre-1.8 enchanting system as you spend all the levels with level 30 being about twice as expensive but only increasing the chance by about a third. For the current system a 3 level/lapis enchantment costs about 2/3 more between levels 22-30). I also do not want Flame or Punch (multiple enchantments are more likely at higher levels) since they are less useful on bows and greatly increase the repair cost (the pre-1.8 repair system charges you for the costs of all the enchantments as well as the amount of durability restored so highly enchanted items cost a lot more, at the same time, simply renaming an item lets you indefinitely repair them with the anvil if they are cheap enough, so no "god" gear / maxed-out swords, bows, or armor with Thorns).
Definitely; you'll then move faster than sprinting (8 vs 5.6 m/s), you'll also need one every 38 blocks to maintain speed (if a player is riding them and on a level surface; upward slopes need more and storage minecarts need even more either way, which seems to suggest Mojang intended them as player transportation, they also don't work outside of entity processing chunks / simulation distance. I do find them much more preferable though over other forms of player transportation).
I've only used them for villagers once or twice since I only use rails/minecarts found in mineshafts and I wouldn't have any until much later in the game (one of my odd personal restrictions/quirks, along with e.g. never uncrafting mineral blocks or going outside the spawn biome until I locate a stronghold or start caving, itself limited to the "end-game". I'll also note that using minecart chests as a source of minecarts is no longer possible in modern versions since Mojang decided that they should never come apart); I've moved along villagers by building a 2 high channel leading to where I want them and placing water at their end to push them along.
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?
Episode 16: Mending Library
I've been spending some more time around my base trading with the newly cured villagers, expanding their tiny settlement and later enchanting my gear through the power of books.
My helmet was the only piece of gear that was still unenchanted, so I headed over to the animal barn for some XP. As I headed in, I noticed rain falling through into the sheep pen. Looking up, I noticed a hole in the ceiling.
My best guess is that during one of the previous thunderstorms, the lightning rod had been struck (as intended), causing a fire to spread around it on the wooden roof (not intended). The rain hadn't put out the fire in time. It was only a minor inconvenience, however, so I simply patched the damage with another birch plank.
Time for the enchantment! I'd be happy with only Protection III.
I gridstoned the helmet and checked out the next enchantment.
Yes! I've never been so relieved!
I went over to the animal barn once more. I have to say that chickens are simply so convenient to farm. Their small size makes them incredibly quick and easy to breed while standing in one spot. Once they start taking entity cramming damage, a few swipes of your sword will gain you one whole level of XP! If only they didn't lay so many eggs.
Before heading back home, I checked on the baby villager. Never mind...
At least we now have an infinite supply of bricks! I'll be needing a good few stacks of these for base expansion and developments. We don't live on an island nor have access to a lush cave yet, so clay will be slightly difficult to acquire, especially since I've already shovelled out most from the nearby river.
And as for the helmet? It ended up being exactly the same as it had been before I grindstoned it in last episode. "Work harder, not smarter!"
I'm satisfied with pretty much all of our gear enchantments now, so the next step would be to secure a Mending trade with the librarian. After selling several batches of carrots to the farmer, it was time for the tedious rerolling process. They did offer some excellent trades that I had to pass, however, including an Infinity book for one emerald.
Once we have more librarians, I'll need to establish an Infinity trade as well since I'll always be in need for Infinity bows (you can't enchant those with Mending).
Denying Feather Falling IV just seemed so wrong.
Eventually, I got what I was looking for, and at a reasonable price as well!
Before I applied the books to my gear, however, I decided to enchant a book just to see what I would get, and was awarded with Unbreaking III. Enchanting books makes everything so much more convenient.
But now, time for the long-awaited moments:
There we go. Enchantments done. Apologies if this part of the update felt boring to read, but that's pretty much it for the time being.
My next task was to restock on iron. I only had about half a stack of ingots left and I was going to need much more for lantern decorations. Instead of mining underground, we're putting on our snow boots and heading up our lovely mountains!
I headed along the frozen mountain massif to the stony peaks area and mined away. This would be a good opportunity to restock on coal as well.
For some reason, I always like taking emerald ores away as souvenirs.
Nothing is more satisfying than mining the iron, however.
I was even slightly terraforming the mountains as I did so. Not enough for any change to be seen from a distance, but it will look bad in the longer term, so perhaps I should just stick to mining underground. Or I can fill in the holes with stone, since I've got a Silk Touch pickaxe.
At one point, I was mining right beside a deep lavafall ravine, which was somewhat unnerving.
And wow, there's so many more ores in the distance to be mined, but with my inventory already being heavy with multiple stacks of both coal and iron, I didn't need them anymore. (Why do bees get lost so easily?)
Towards the evening, it started raining, which I find undesirable when away from home. A wandering trader party also spawned on one of the thin ledges, so I carefully went over and rescued them.
The trades weren't bad, but I didn't feel the need to purchase anything.
The next morning, I was ready to head back to my side of the mountain range!
I took a slightly different path this time, revealing a small ravine with numerous small cave openings.
As I headed down into Sunflower Valley, I spotted this nightmare:
They were uncomfortably close to the village, but I couldn't kill them because I was concerned that I would be granted the Bad Omen effect and a raid would instantly begin like on my survival world. Luckily, they eventually wandered back into the cherry grove.
Apparently, this will no longer be a worry once the 1.21 update is released. Killing an illager captain will no longer give you Bad Omen. Instead, this effect can only be gained by drinking an ominous bottle found in the upcoming trial chambers. It's quite a relief in my opinion.
Anyways, here's all the goodies from that mining trip, thanks to Fortune III:
I shoved a stack of raw iron into the blast furnace and started on my next project: building the village library. First, I terraformed the area, including covering up this small cave in which an enderman inhabited:
Next, I built the frame using stripped spruce logs, like for the village common house and my own. The first floor, the "working" area, is seven blocks high, while the second floor, the "bedroom," is five, which meant it required the use of scaffolding.
In the meantime, as I waited for the oak trees to grow (why am I always out of wood?!), I continued selling all sorts of crops to the farmer, even melons. Shame my melon farm is so small, producing only four for harvest.
As I headed back to my house, I was shocked to discover this obstructive Christmas tree:
I had never seen the leaves of a spruce tree, normal or giant, grow all the way to the ground. I couldn't complain though, since the sapling yield will be higher than usual. And if there's one sapling type I'm running short of, it's spruce saplings.
Back home, I made two quick enchantments: a book with Power IV and my axe with Mending.
In the afternoon, the villagers attempted to reproduce, but they couldn't because there weren't enough beds.
That evening, I finished the walls of the library, so I placed in two beds as well as a fletching table in the common house for the next villager to occupy. The stick trade would definitely come in handy with the giant spruce farm.
But what is a library without bookshelves? It's time for some investments in knowledge! It's definitely nice that I'm making both of the librarian's trades.
With the walls completed, I could now install the windows. I was out of glass, so I spent the next day down at the river, shovelling away stacks of sand. It wasn't really a beach (I would have felt bad if it was), only a landlocked clearing of sand in the forest.
Still, a tree had managed to generate on the sand. Wow.
As I was making my way back home, I took this nice picture of the small nether hut nestled amongst the cherry trees on the side of our mountain. I haven't been in there for quite a while now!
The rest of the library took several days to complete. I spent a while tinkering with window designs, aiming for something a bit more unique than my previous builds. I think it worked out fairly well, and it's all thanks to those quartz slabs and stairs.
Here's the completed first floor:
And now the bedroom upstairs, with its nice big windows:
And finally, the roof, which didn't turn out as well as I thought:
With that done, we're one step closer to having a flourishing community. I still needed to work on the housing aspect, but I do realize that I've spent nearly all of the past hundred days around my base, so I could do with a small break from building and villager trading and instead continue with mapping. In the next few updates, I'll aim to complete the two northern maps.
Beyond that, I'll continue expanding and developing the village, perhaps securing several more enchanted book trades, particularly Infinity for my bow and Unbreaking III for all my gear, as well as make some more small renovations around our base.
Raise the lightning rod up a couple of blocks, and have it be on something non-flammable, and it should prevent that fire spread. I like to put it on a on some type of stone wall.
Quartz looks good, and I should try and use it a little more. I think I would shy away from it because I remember when it was added, and it would be more common to see it used overwhelmingly in a build, which I think tends to look bad. It also requires spending a lot of time in the nether which I didn't do as much of back then, but both villager trades complimenting more of it, and being in the nether more for one reason or another, makes it easier in recent versions.
I also realized instead of avoiding it entirely, I should try and use it sparingly, so I've tried doing that more recently and I found it worked well. I really liked how it looked mixed with mud stone bricks and dark oak fencing for my shrine. I also think it worked well with the Maroon color of the mangrove swamp planks in the library I did.
Episode 17: Northern Discoveries
It's time for our third mapping expedition!
I made several small changes to the base before I set out, specifically raising the lightning rods on my house and the animal barn with stone walls as well as transferring the bell from the pond to the village park as it seemed to prevent the villagers from reproducing. I then enchanted my shovel with Mending as it had lost over a quarter of its durability.
With that done, I collected my cartography table, crafted a fresh new map and headed north.
The plan is identical to the previous map: I filled it in using the grid or "zigzag" method: head east until reaching the southeastern corner, go north for a bit, then head west, and so on. It was one of the most exciting maps I have completed, so with the sheer number of pictures, I'll split it into several updates, with this one being the first.
To begin, I headed up Sunflower Valley, strolled through the cherry grove and crossed the flower forest pass shown in the first picture. I then climbed up a small snowy ridge, which marks the northwestern corner of the local map and connects the lone snowy mountain from Episode 4 to the jagged massif which I had partially explored while filling in the western map. Unfortunately, it'll still be off-limits, although the northwestern map, which I'm planning to complete next, should have it covered.
On the ridge, looking northeast towards the snowy mountain which I'm about to climb:
Looking west to the jagged massif:
And finally, looking back south towards Sunflower Valley, hidden by the cherry grove hill:
There was a lone birch tree here as well, one of many around the area.
Having left Sunflower Valley in the early afternoon, the day was about to end, so I watched the sun slowly sink behind the towering peaks before placing down my bed on the snow and sleeping through the night.
Come morning, I started the northern map, zoomed it out by three levels using my cartography table and headed up the lone mountain, which, despite its relatively small size, reached all the way to the clouds.
Here's a better view of the snowy ridge:
The mountain didn't turn out to contain a jagged peaks biome; instead, it was snowy slopes bordering stony peaks. There were quite a lot of goats here though, joyfully prancing around and ready to knock any unsuspecting player (not that there was more than one) off a cliff.
The area of stony peaks was tiny, at least compared to the massif we already know so well from our endless iron mining trips there:
The transition from the snowy and frozen peaks to stony peaks also indicated a warmer climate zone to the north, which was expected. But first, I had to swim down this large waterfall off a steep savanna plateau:
I know I've shown it before, but the waterfall was pretty impressive up close.
Continuing east, I soon approached the northern edge of our local stony mountain massif, which, coupled with the dense forest, meant it was time to traverse some tricky terrain.
There were several ravines and cave openings here as well.
It wasn't all bad news though. This time, I had remembered to bring half a stack of bones, which I had obtained from skeleton sniping while hunting for zombie villagers, should there be any wolves to tame, and there were. One of my main goals on this expedition, besides filling in the map, was to tame as many of the new wolf variants as possible.
Since I had loaded this chunk before, although not intentionally, the pack of wolves that did spawn was of the pale variant, now exclusive to standard taiga forests. That was great news, because I'm nowhere near a taiga.
There were three wolves in the pack, all of which I successfully tamed. The first one was rather greedy, requiring four bones, but the others only took one and were satisfied. Perhaps it was a test of trustworthiness.
By evening, I had reached the northern edge of the stony peaks with my new found companions.
This was a relatively safe location to sleep through the night, and as I waited for dusk, I mined some nearby iron to continue restocking on my lantern supplies. Mapping and mining, it's a win-win!
And so unfolded the third day of the journey. I carefully looked around, ensuring there were no monsters around, and continued on east. A final view of the stony peaks to the south which can be found on the local map:
To the east was jungle, which wasn't unexpected as it had been part of the local map as well. That also included the ruined portal, which had somehow managed to start another fire.
This time, however, we'll actually be exploring the depths of the jungle rather than weaving around it.
Not far in, I encountered my first parrot: a cyan-yellow one, my favorite variant.
I desperately punched the grass with my Fortune pickaxe for some seeds, and was able to tame it before it could fly away. There we go, another travel companion!
The jungle went on for some time. It was considerably easier to traverse than I thought. The terrain was generally flat, making the low bushes much less of an annoyance. Take this as a spoiler alert for the next two updates or so.
Eventually, I reached a nice little bay at the eastern edge of the map. A beach was bordering the stony shore, a phenomenon that I've rarely noticed.
As I was walking around filling in the rest of the southeastern corner, I decided that with an empty bucket at hand, this was the perfect opportunity to make another advancement:
I mean, at least our pond will no longer be so lifeless.
And now, time for the first northern turn! I had to boat across this lake first, which contained a gravel "dam" that controlled the flow of water into a nearby cave.
From this point onwards, we'll be exploring completely unfamiliar territory.
Making my first sweep west, I trekked through a sparse jungle, still keeping watch for the new "rusty" wolves.
It soon transitioned to forest, however, as you may have seen from the previous picture. So we're now looking for the woods wolf, I suppose?
Another large dripstone cave opening, which I hadn't seen much of upon leaving Sunflower Valley:
To the south was a small, high-altitude forest hill, which indicated the stony peaks to south. Notice the sudden drop in elevation to the left.
Well it seemed like I had somehow managed to load this chunk as well before 1.20.5 released as I encountered another pack of pale taiga wolves! I decided to save up on bones and didn't tame any of them.
And yes, as you may have seen, we'd got more sparse jungle. That was welcome as it was easy to traverse yet appear as a "forest" on the map rather than a large, open area like the plains. I'm also surprised that I didn't collect any melons during the whole of the trip as those would have been incredibly easy to sell to the villagers, but oh well. I like leaving nature as it is.
To the west was more plains, which was expected. It sure does offer a nice break while exploring around difficult terrain.
Looking back east towards the sparse jungle and forest:
To the north and east was savanna, which was also desirable, as I should hopefully encounter another new 1.20.5 mob there: the armadillo. There was a small village here as well.
I like seeing villagers in exploration as they can serve as excellent temporary bases, especially when you're about to do something risky like climbing these stony peaks:
Well, we'd just discovered a new mountain massif! While this one appeared smaller, it also seemed more impressive, reaching way above the clouds. Definitely not even close to the height limit, but still a nice treat for exploration.
And of course, every mountain goes with its own cave(s).
With the stony peaks being that steep and seemingly difficult to traverse, I decided to leave my new friends in the safety of a villager house. They were initially reluctant, but a few right-clicks from me did it. I would come back for them on my next sweep east.
And now for the climb. The first stage was heading up a savanna plateau, which was fairly straightforward.
Yet another large dripstone cave opening:
Here, it started raining. The sky was obviously only overcast while on the savanna plateau, but head into the stony peaks and it rains, with it being a temperate biome.
I eventually made it up to one of the smaller peaks, where I looked around. It was here that I discovered that I was on a ring of peaks surrounding a beautiful, quiet savanna valley. I loved this place. Each mountain peak was distinct from one another, one of the characteristics that the mountains around Sunflower Valley lacked.
And I'll end the update here. Only about a third of the map was filled in, but again, it's a picture-heavy one and I think this is a nice "milstone," if you can call it that. In the next update, I'll explore the stony peaks and make my second turns north and east.
There's something I like about the stony mountains. Maybe it's because they are less common than the snow covered ones.
And I'm not sure if this applies to spawning during world generation, but I noticed when testing the eggs that the old wolves can still spawn in all locations. It seems to work like flowers in flower forests where there's an underlying system that determines which type spawns based on its location. I would go into a sparse jungle and use the eggs and consistently get either the old wolf or the new one depending on where I tried spawning it. I presume it might be the same for spawning during world generation? If so, seeing old wolves doesn't mean they are old chunks.
I particularly enjoyed seeing the stony mountain range at the end of the update as the peaks seemed to take on a more distinct and unique shape, which, combined with their rarity, makes me like them. I also somehow find that the lack of snow and the absence of goats and rabbits makes the stony mountains more peaceful and desolate simultaneously.
That wolf phenomenon is interesting. I only found pale wolves in the oak forest, which is normal before 1.20.5. I did find some wolves in the new wolf-spawning biomes, but those all happened to be the new variants rather than the old one. Perhaps my sample size is just smaller.
Some really nice pics there! And the vanilla maps of shorelines and mountains look so much better than of climate-driven biomes, because there's driven by the fractalesque height map rather than the smooth curves of the climate separations. Your home map is particularly good.
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.
Terrain variation on maps definitely looks neat, and I find it makes mountain ranges, especially the one on my home map (it's a pretty big one!) easier to distinguish from formal cold zones. What I rather dislike about the climate transitions is the sudden change from a temperate biome to a formal cold one, like plains to snowy plains. It would be great if the snow (or ice in the case of frozen rivers) started coming in more gradually until the whole land is covered in snow or ice, and it would also look better on the maps.
Episode 18: Mapping Party
In this update, I make my second turn north at the stony mountain range and continue to fill in the map.
The mountain peaks were absolutely brimming with ores. Massive veins of coal and iron and even clusters of two or three emeralds were seen. One particular area was also dotted with exposed dripstone, although it did not lead to a cave.
To the south, there were several large waterfalls, some leading into small ravines and a few off the mountain range itself.
It may not seem like it, but we were actually fairly close to our base. To the southeast was the snowy mountain, "connected" to our stony peaks by a savanna plateau.
To the west, I found spruce groves, which slightly surprised me as those don't tend to generate adjacent to stony peaks. Perhaps they were parts of the jagged massif which sort of wrapped around itself and enclosed a fairly large area of plains and meadows.
Now that I've explored much of the mountain range and had been given a rough indication of where I was, it was time to head back into the valley, where I would make my second northern turn. There were a couple of wild grazing horses and pigs, but the valley was peaceful.
Or was it? I heard barking (although the subtitle called it "panting"), and a spotted wolf suddenly came out of hiding behind an acacia tree.
It was part of a trio of wolves. I only tamed two of them, as the third quickly ran off and started murdering animals, and I only needed two anyway so I could breed them later.
With that done, it was time to resume mapping.
Dark little overhang here:
I didn't get far though. Bedtime!
I was quite glad that I could finally end this undesirable weather.
A fresh new day of exploring! I continued making my way north around the outside of the mountain range. Turning around, I found that one mountain had been pierced by a cave at its base:
I found some cream-colored wild llamas here. I think it's only the second time I've seen any wild llamas on this world. Those spawn in some of the less common mountain biomes. I've yet to find a windswept hill biome on this world.
There was another pack of plateau wolves here. I really hope they'll get along with the llamas, since they're usually hostile to each other.
Looking east from the northern edge of the mountain range, I found a ruined portal as well as another expanse of forest to traverse in the distance, the latter of which I was expecting.
This ruined portal actually generated without any crying obsidian! I've never seen one like this before.
The chest loot wasn't much, but I did take the golden apple. The pickaxe was enchanted with Silk Touch and the leggings with Protection II.
Was there a gold block on the portal? No! So really, only one of the four ruined portals around Sunflower Valley was a proper one, although that didn't matter to me too much now that I'm past the stage of piglin bartering for ender pearls and fire resistance potions.
A narrow ravine near the ruined portal:
To the northeast was sparse jungle which I'll map on my next sweep west. And of course there just had to be a wildfire in this otherwise nice picture. Thank you, lava pool.
Here's a final view of the stony mountain range from the northeast:
It's definitely not the last time we'll be seeing it, though, with it being so near my base.
And now, we continue into the depths of the woods!
Or do we? Because I think there's something we're missing...
Of course I wouldn't forget about you guys! Sorry to say, but you've all missed out on quite a lot. It was for their own safety though, so I'm sure they could understand.
While I was at the village, which didn't contain anything interesting itself, I found some neat ravines and cave openings, including one with waterfalls.
Now, let's actually continue on. I was wasting a lot of time here, sprinting about.
There was another stretch of jungle in the distance which would require traversing. This would be a great opportunity to tame some more parrots. The more travel companions, the better!
I crossed over a ridge and was blessed with this nice, lush scenery:
The rest of the sweep was a relaxed stroll through the woods and the jungle which seemed to be intertwined with each other, creating a diverse green environment filled with all sorts of trees.
I made my third northern turn here, revealing a roughly circular cave opening. They're common but still nice to see, especially when the inside is lit so well with glow lichen.
And with that, dusk arrived. It felt like I had barely done anything today, but at least we could enjoy this brilliant sunset behind the giant jungle trees, a spectacle I rarely see since I don't tend to spend much time in this biome.
Early the next morning, I was greeted by two parrots, one white and the other red. Again, I desperately punched some grass with my Fortune pickaxe and managed to tame both of them.
The white parrot was quick to perch on my shoulder, leaving no room for the red one. And yes, that's the state of our mapping party, although one of the white wolves decided to sprint off-camera as this picture was taken.
When you tame too many animals:
The forest was fairly dense, so I decided to traverse it by treetopping, and was then greeted by a somehow stationary bee:
Ahead, the forest transitioned back into jungle. That's what I meant about the biomes being intertwined with each other.
Another jungle fire to maneuver around. The last thing I needed was to have the wolves taking a bath in lava.
After crossing another stretch of sparse jungle, which offered a relieving break from its denser counterpart, I made a detour into the forest as I had spotted some more friends:
It was another pack of three, two of which I tamed. Well, unfortunately, I didn't tame them in time to save the poor sheep.
I headed back north to resume my sweep west. And what did I find?
Another stony mountain massif to the north, which we'll cross on the next sweep east. Although it didn't seem like it will be as unique as the one before, I was still pretty shocked to find that there were literally mountain ranges everywhere around our base. Keep in mind that all of this is part of the map directly north of our local one.
Looking west was the ruined portal at the base of the other stony mountain range.
I decided to bedplop on this sparse jungle hill. The rusty (sparse jungle) wolf was the only variant that I hadn't found yet, so I wanted to spend as much time in this biome as possible.
And of course, every mountain comes with its own cave openings.
Remember the small hole I accidentally fell into way back in Episode 3? Well, this one was just as large in width, but a bit deeper:
The mountain range seemed to be a big one...
...extending all the way to the western edge of the map!
Upon making my northern turn towards the mountains, I found another large cave opening.
And now for the climb. It wasn't long before I made it.
It was a ring of peaks surrounding a dense jungle-forest valley.
To the west was an unexpected discovery: plains and ocean! It sure seemed like the northwestern map (the one west of this) would be much less of a struggle to fill in. And seeing the rising moon, I hastily plopped down my bed once more and slept through the night.
The next morning, I gathered all of my newly tamed animals around. We were ready for the final stage of the journey.
And this is a good place to finish. In the next update, I'll make one final sweep east, one that will be wider than usual. A whole new experience was about to unfold.
Quite a lot of mountain climbing there. Vanilla needs a little more interest in those big stone expanses - multiple types of stone, cobble, shadowing effects, areas of dirt or ice - *something* to break up the vast expanses of sameness.
I've seen some complaints about the "ring of peaks" formations. I think they're interesting, but perhaps they're too common?
You've collected quite the menagerie, there!
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 agree that stony mountains could do with some minor enhancements. Mossy cobblestone boulders littered around the lower elevations and more frequent strips of calcite and gravel between the peaks would be lovely, although ice might not match so well with the "warm" mountain theme. And yes, I think seeing shadows being cast on the mountains would be great to see during twilight.
I don't think mountain rings are too common, at least for me. They make up approximately a third of the mountain ranges I find. However, I would definitely like to see more longer, chain-like mountain ranges as well.
Episode 19: Climbing Jungle Mountains
In this third and final update on the northern map, I'll make my last trip east to the northeastern corner before heading back to Sunflower Valley.
While I was descending the stony peaks into the jungle valley, I peered into a split in the hillside and discovered my first lush cave on this world!
I was tempted to enter and bucket a few axolotls, maybe some dripleaves and glow berries, for another paludarium like the one on my survival world. However, with my party of seven wolves and three parrots, coupled with a rather heavy inventory, I decided not to risk it.
Seeing this cemented my decision:
The creeper actually wandered out from a smaller, shallower cave nearby (which were annoyingly all over the place). I did hear my parrots hissing but thought that was coming from deeper underground, since the parrot mocking range was usually quite high. Luckily, I had managed to get myself onto a ledge and cancel the explosion that would have wiped out most of my animals.
I'm never comfortable with leaving a hostile mob alive after such a close encounter, however, so I pillared up a few more blocks for safety, pulled out my bow, and carefully aimed at it.
Success! I was able to one-shot the monster.
After this incident, I continued up the other side of the jungle valley, where it started raining. I realized that the poor visibility coupled with the difficult terrain would make this final stage of the mapping trip the most tedious one.
Eventually, I made it onto the other side of the ring of stony peaks. Looking east was a magnificent bamboo jungle valley, while the mountains continued along both sides of it, suggesting there was a smaller mountain ring inside a larger one.
I also spotted an ocelot here, my first one in the game.
And now, we descend into this swath of paradise.
The climb down suggested the opposite though. The wolves were constantly taking fall damage, and one even started whimpering not after long, so I regularly fed them steak. The parrots, on the other hand, were very much enjoying the journey.
Evening fell, which meant I could finally reset the weather. I pillared up a few blocks to sleep as it was particularly easy to get ambushed by a creeper in such a densely forested area. The next morning, I found that one of the wolves had somehow teleported onto a stalk of bamboo.
It took nearly fatal fall damage.
But speaking of animals, I found another parrot to tame, this time a green one, which I don't remember ever seeing.
I'm surprised that I hadn't found a blue one yet. But anyways, we now have eleven members in our party!
And it's a beautiful place. This whole area of jungle was surrounded by stony peaks. You might also be able to see the jungle temple to the left, mostly hidden by stalks of bamboo:
With a nearly full inventory, this was probably the worst time for raiding one, so I left it.
Here's the area of stony peaks we had descended. The small bushes looked rather out of place on the steep mountainside.
Having made it to the southern edge of the massif, I realized that the mountains had not quite formed a ring here as I had expected, but was close to, as shown on the map. Looking back west:
To the east, the dense jungle gave way to forest and sparse jungle, but I knew it was only a narrow strip and the easy terrain wouldn't last for long.
I had not even finished my descent before I spotted another possible jungle mountain in the distance. There's clearly a pattern going on here.
This place was also brimming with wildlife. I spotted another ocelot:
I decided to spend some more time treetopping, but the height variation of the trees made that impractical, although I did find another green parrot which I did not tame; it was only after the expedition had ended that I remembered you couldn't breed parrots for whatever reason.
So, with that in mind, why in the world did I get so close to that lava pool? I've heard that parrots have one of the most notorious AI of all mobs.
It wasn't long before I was ambushed for the second time in this update.
The skeleton wasn't completely hostile to me. It did have its bow fully charged, ready to shoot, but my growling wolves somehow managed to prevent it from doing so. I simply walked off and let them take care of the situation.
I found another parrot here, but as with the previous one, I didn't tame it. If only I had known earlier...
And as for what's ahead? More stony peaks! This would be the last mountain range before I finish the map.
I came across a pillager patrol, my first one on this expedition. Luckily, it was far away enough to not be threatening. It was only a matter of time before I would find one anyway in all this dense foliage.
Ah yes, another ocelot, which was unaware of my presence from behind the trees.
Time for our final mountain climb for this map:
I watched a brilliant jungle sunset with my parrots before sleeping through the night on the steep mountainside.
The next morning, having reached the summit, I found that I was standing on another mountain ring formation with a small forest-savanna valley in the middle.
Looking towards the northeastern corner of the map, marked by the eastern edge of the massif:
I descended into the savanna and found my first group (or rather, roll) of armadillos, so I took out my brush from my ender chest and brushed them for scutes, which I would use to craft wolf armor.
Four clicks later ... CLANK! The brush! Gone! Well, I wasn't expecting that. I guess this makes copper more useful?!
Oh, and here's what I found before the brush broke:
Ah yes, a bad omen that something like that would happen.
And with that, after over an in-game week, the map was now complete!
The next morning, it was finally time to head back to Sunflower Valley. I descended the mountain slope, and turning back, found this narrow stone bridge which connected two of the peaks together.
The plan of the return trip was simple: I would stick to sparse jungle as much as possible and only cross into the normal variant when needed. This would hopefully allow me to find one or two packs of rusty wolves, maybe even blue parrots if we're lucky.
I was able to find a lone rusty wolf within minutes.
Only one, but that should be enough for breeding purposes.
The only wolf variants I hadn't found yet were the ones that spawn in taiga variants, groves and eroded badlands. I'm feeling hopeful about finding the grove variant though.
During the return trip, I also found another pack of woods wolves which I did not tame. Good luck to all those nearby pigs and sheep.
I enjoyed the evening at the village, which was located in a pretty nice spot, a narrow strip of plains nestled amongst three types of forest.
"Sorry, but there's not enough room for everybody. And no, this is not my house."
Seeing the snow on the mountains early the next day, I put my map away, realizing just how close the village was to my base.
Here's a peculiar split in the lone snowy mountain that I had never noticed until now:
It was like a cave that went up rather than down.
I crossed the cherry grove ridge:
And here we were. I rarely approach my base from the north and figured this would be a good place for a picture.
I settled all the animals in my house, which was now filled with life!
If you look carefully, you may notice that someone was missing...
It was the wolf from the jungle! I must have accidentally sat it down during the return journey. The thing about having a large group of animals following you during an expedition is that it's sometimes difficult to tell when you've lost someone because of all the commotion and noise. Nevertheless, here's a positive spoiler warning: the wolf was later recovered.
The tropical fish I had captured two updates ago went in the pond, which will be its new home. Well, home until the axolotls arrive. I'll have to move it into some sort of aquarium then.
And as for all the iron I mined during the trip?
It's all thanks to the stony peaks. That's half the iron needed for a fully powered beacon!
And now, we add the newly completed map to the wall. I guess I'll need a dedicated map room soon?
Well, I only stayed for a short while at my base, because by evening, I was ready for my next mapping trip, which will cover the northwestern quadrant of the grid. Although of course, I needed to go on a dog rescue mission first.
Randomly stumbled on this thread, read the whole thing, and signed up to say I'm excited to read further updates on this adventure, keep it up! All those mountain ranges around your base are super cool, and your base design looks much better than mine haha
Episode 20: Secrets of the Northwest
With the northern map now completed, it was time to fill in the one west of that. This will allows us to finish the grid of maps at our house, making this the last mapping update for now.
Before that, however, I needed to go on a wolf rescue mission. I headed back along the route I took for my return journey, along the pass separating Sunflower Valley from the jagged mountain massif, towards the village, where I thought I may have left the poor animal.
Well, that didn't turn out to be the case. It was sitting in one of the small oak forests near Sunflower Valley.
This provided an opportunity to get a closer picture of the "cave" on the side of the snowy mountain.
Upon returning, I was greeted by a wandering trader party.
Mangrove propagules, nice! I always keep some spare emeralds in my ender chest, so I was able to buy one.
Early the next morning, I harvested some sugar cane, crafted a new empty map and headed northwest for my final mapping expedition.
While I was crossing the narrow valley below the jagged mountains, I encountered a stationary pillager patrol which I would have to carefully weave around.
Heading back up, I spotted a small cave entrance containing a vein of three emerald ores?!
I then made it up into the peaks, where I placed down my cartography table and zoomed out the new map.
The perfect start to a new adventure!
The first sweep west had me traversing the heart of the mountain range, which turned out to be much smaller than I thought. The lone spruce tree was part of the tiny grove biome from Episode 9.
To the south was the cliffside village, which was also part of the western map. And I don't know why, but I always find bees in the most peculiar places, from the middle of the ocean to the highest mountain peaks. I thought they could pathfind to their bee nests.
Evening fell, so I bedploped on one of the smaller peaks.
Come morning, I continued west, descending into a vast expanse of oak and old growth birch forest.
I came across a pack of pale wolves here.
After crossing a small river, the forest gave way to plains ... and ocean!
There was some interesting beach generation here. The water from the ocean flowed through the broken sand "barrier" and even formed a small waterfall at a small cave entrance.
I also found a sand bridge over a small ravine.
Towards the southwestern corner of the map, the normal plains transitioned to sunflower plains backed up by flower forest. That was part of the western map as well.
This was also where I would make my first northern turn, which meant it was time for some sailing across the ocean! I found a large cluster of ocean ruins here, which meant a large patch of floating kelp as well.
I accidentally picked up some of the kelp and realized it was the first time on this world that I had any in my inventory! This somehow reminded me of the earliest days on my survival island, when I had dried kelp for food as my first batch of wheat hadn't grown yet.
Off the east coast of the sandy island from the last picture was a tiny shipwreck.
To the north was a village, situated on a larger island separated from the sandy one by a river. Three structure pictures in a row!
I decided to check out the shipwreck first. Although it only contained one chest, the food and supply chest, unsurprisingly, the loot was adequate. I took the suspicious stew, coal, gunpowder, and paper, the last of which I was running very low on with the slow sugar cane growth at my pond.
And as for the village? There really wasn't much. I harvested some salmon at the nearby river and tried taming a stray cat, but the flat terrain actually made that more difficult and I gave up eventually.
Every village has its peculiarities.
I continued sailed east until the ocean gave way to mainland, where I found more areas of old growth birch forest, dark forest and ... another mountain?
To be honest, you couldn't really call it a formal mountain, more like a snowy hill with a wide strip of ice. On the plus side, it would be easier to traverse, and there was a large spruce grove here, which might allow me to find and tame the arguably rarest wolf variant, the snowy wolf. I would be crossing over the
hillmountain on my next sweep west.I safely made it through the dark forest, where I found another potential mountain range in the distance...
Nope, never mind. I came to a mountain pass and discovered that the spruce grove was actually part of the stony mountain range on the northern map. Ah yes, all the snow had been moved to a lower altitude.
To the south was the jagged mountain range near my base. The large peak on the left was pretty impressive, reaching way above the clouds, and I somehow had never noticed it before, despite its size. Perhaps I had been viewing it from a different angle. There was another spruce grove here which I regretfully did not explore.
The next morning, I made my second northern turn, where I found more temperate forest and savanna, indicating the border of the warm climate zone.
Heading west, I got my first good look of the mountain range.
The northern end of the range was actually snowless, which was unsurprising given the warm climate zone nearby.
I crossed over the relatively flat summit...
...and descended into the large spruce grove on the other side, waiting for the wolf to come out.
I searched all over and found a lone snow fox, my first fox on this world. I was still pretty disappointed that it had to be the wrong animal, but oh well.
On the plus side, I did find a decently large cherry grove. It obviously wasn't as massive as the one around my base, but it sure looked nice on the map.
To the north was a lone cherry tree. Its seed must have been blown away from the rest by the wind!
I eventually reached the village, but there was nothing left for me here, so I continued on.
The north revealed more temperate forests and plains.
As I was making my way east towards the mountains, I discovered another cherry grove, slightly larger in area than the first. Now this was what made the mountain look truly wonderful!
Continuing east, I found a savanna village. My first non-plains village on this world, funnily enough.
As I was crossing a small area of stony peaks, it started raining and the horizon glowed orange from the setting sun, which meant I had to sleep before reaching the village.
Now that I was nearing the northeastern corner of the map, I was approaching the western extension of the large stony mountain range, the one with an unusually spherical summit, from last episode.
There were some substantial cave openings nearby.
To the north was sparse jungle, indicating the border between the arid and humid zones.
View of the village from the stony peaks:
Upon descending, I checked the cartography house chests for extra maps and compasses, as savanna villages seemed to have lots of those. This village in particular was very rewarding, offering nine empty maps in one of the chests!
Well, maybe not that last chest, but my desire for extra mapping equipment had already been satisfied.
But now, time for the criticism: am I the only one who dislikes savanna village farms? They're just a complete mess and the village will almost always be flooded by the waterfalls they create.
And as for this catastrophe:
And ... what was the villager doing there in that opening?
Continuing west from the village, there was more ocean to map.
Or was it? No, it was practically a large lake resembling an ocean.
Towards the northwestern corner, there was more oak and old growth birch forest to map, but I was a bit surprised to see this:
A woodland mansion. It's the first time I've ever found one on a non-creative world, not that I've ever tried finding one. Despite its rarity, however, that was the one structure I had been hoping to not come across. It's extremely impressive to see, but there just isn't much point in raiding one, since totems of undying can easily be obtained in village raids, which are much easier to tackle. Maybe not on hard difficulty. I've neither took on a raid on hard difficulty nor raided a woodland mansion in any difficulty before, so perhaps the latter is more desirable.
But here we are. I guess we just have to block the entrance up on our next mapping expedition, which will be in a long, long time (why is the entrance to the mansion open in the first place though?). Well, that's enough about the mansion, which I'm unlikely to raid anyway.
As you may have seen, there's more jungle to the north, but I won't be mapping that.
After a while, I reached the stony mountains from the northern map, marking the completion of this one.
The base of the mountains hid a massive ravine with numerous large cave openings:
I'm surprised it still wasn't deep enough to reach deepslate level.
Now, time for the return journey. By evening, I had made it back to the stony mountain ring near our base.
I found more plateau wolves and an armadillo here.
As I approached my base, I found that the wandering trader party from the beginning of the update was still there, so I suppose they can only despawn in loaded chunks.
And now, for the long-awaited part: the complete map grid!
I'm surprised that after this much exploring, the largest mountain massifs were still the ones closest to our base.
With the mapping done, it's pretty obvious what's up next: the ender dragon fight. Slowly but surely in the past ten or so updates (not counting the mapping ones), I had pretty much acquired everything I would need: diamond gear, eyes of ender and phantom membranes for slow falling potions. The only enchantments I lacked now were a few levels of Protection on my armor and Infinity on my bow, the latter of which I prefer to obtain through villager trading since Infinity bows would be a recurring necessity for me due to them being incompatible with Mending.
So in the next update, which may not come for a while, I might start preparing for the big battle. Perhaps even make that long journey to the stronghold. Whatever happens, the end is coming up. Because we are actually going to the End.
I hate it when animals get lost. Once I had to go on a long trip to get dogs, because for some reason there weren't any within about 2000 blocks of my base. I tamed about 6, but by the time I got home I only had one. Grrr.
Map walls are great! You certainly have a lot of mountains near your base.
Looking forward to you writing about the Ender Dragon fight. I've still never done it. I thought I was going to do it in my last journal world, but I got derailed by my forest mods.
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.
It’s unfortunately just too easy to accidentally leave behind animals when you’ve got a lot of them with you. Accidental right-clicks (like in my case), boating across the ocean and forgetting that they can’t teleport to you from unloaded chunks.
The ender dragon fight is coming up soon, probably within the next three or four updates. I still have a lot of preparation to do, and the prospect of fighting it in hardcore for the first time makes me both excited and anxious.