Ashes to ashes (City edition)

[Psychicash]

So the old server I was on was closed. It was sad. So now I am on a direwolf20 server. I decided to focus more on building and quality buildings at that. So I took it upon myself to do the city construction challenge, link below. This is an old challenge but it looks really fun. So far I am really enjoying it. I mean I've been through quite a few server resets and many many single player worlds. It's always the same thing for the most part. Tech race... at least that's how it seems sometimes. So I will post updates as I move on and complete tasks. At the moment I am already up to the stone age. I will post more screen shots later of the other buildings.

Below are my two centry towers and what will be the main gate in to the city. The wall isn't completed yet but hey it is a work in progress right

http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum...l-mode/297932-the-city-construction-challenge

 

[pizzawolf14]

Woo hoo! I love me a good city build!

 

[Psychicash]

http://imgur.com/a/z4ogG

New pictures. I've put a pattern base down for all the towers and walls, I've cleared all the grass. I've also placed signs where buildings will go. So now it's just going forward with builds. I have some interesting plans once I get to Redstone hehe.

 

[Psychicash]

I should note the house on the beach was my first house. The flashing islands was my first town hall. I abandoned both (see my "so this happened" thread in the general topics). The rest is from my new location. I should have labeled them lol. One is a tavern with green Windows and is missing a fire place. The other with red Windows is the city hall.

 

[Psychicash]

http://imgur.com/a/0aojH

Update - just finished with stage 2

 

[Psychicash]

Update. I've laid out much of where things will be going. I've finished the bare bones of the wall around the main section of town. Though no decorative touches there yet.

After laying out much of the city I'm realizing... I don't have enough space. So by proclamation of... Me, I'm hereby annexing the neighboring biomes into Ashtopia (working name). More to follow.

Also considering Ashalot, Ash Valley, New Ash, Las VegAsh (with a casino), and Copperton.

 

[Master_Builder_800]

{Snip}
Also considering Ashalot, Ash Valley, New Ash, Las VegAsh...

Hmmmm I feel like there's something similar about all these names... Nah

 

[pizzawolf14]

I'm a fan of Ashlanta, but I may be bias

 

[rhn]

Update. I've laid out much of where things will be going. I've finished the bare bones of the wall around the main section of town. Though no decorative touches there yet.

After laying out much of the city I'm realizing... I don't have enough space. So by proclamation of... Me, I'm hereby annexing the neighboring biomes into Ashtopia (working name). More to follow.

Also considering Ashalot, Ash Valley, New Ash, Las VegAsh (with a casino), and Copperton.

Looks promising.

However a small tip that I use when I design castle structures: I try to think about the strategic reason for why certain things would be placed in certain places. For example the towers on walls. They would be placed there to cover the blind angles below the walls. But this means you have to really think about their placement in relation to the shape of the walls for it to look realistic.
Example:


It involves a lot more planning, experimentation and time. But IMO it looks so much better when it eventually falls into place. It just somehow looks right(even if we don't think about or understand the reason why) when it follows the "RL rules".

 

[Psychicash]

Looks promising. -snip-

I get what you're saying and I've tried to do this. Do you have a suggestion about the tower placement? Right now they're just circles on the ground. If there ate changes to be made now is the time to do it.

 

[rhn]

I get what you're saying and I've tried to do this. Do you have a suggestion about the tower placement? Right now they're just circles on the ground. If there ate changes to be made now is the time to do it.

Nah, perhaps that section out to the left on the map. Below what looks like it is the gate.
But was more a general thing to think about when planning it. Whenever there is a "outward angle" on a wall there should in theory be a tower on its point to strengthen the wall and cover its blind spots. "Inward angles" don't really need it as the walls would be able to cover each other then.

Was not meant as any critique, more of a challenge to anyone who build castles to try and add an extra layer of complexity to it when they build. I love challenging my self that way Looking up RL castles etc. to get inspiration. I find it much more satisfying when I can see the finished result and see that it would possibly be challenging to attack due to things I considered in the process of building it

 

[pizzawolf14]

I find myself doing realistic architecture in Minecraft as well, even when it's harder by a large margin.

Example: in an old ftb ultimate world (sadly don't have that world anymore) I built a dam with sloped walls and a floodgate in case of hypothetical Minecraft earthquake.

 

[Master_Builder_800]

I built a dam with sloped walls and a floodgate in case of hypothetical Minecraft earthquake.

remember its only hypothetical until it happens

 

[Psychicash]

Ok so I'm on my last two days of my work week. Then it's back to building. So here's my question.

I have many things planned. I have as you can see a bunch of waypoints each representing a structure as part of the challenge. There's also about 30 more than are hidden for future stages.

I do have some areas for miscellaneous community building that I haven't decided on. What would you like to see me build?

 

[ICountFrom0]

Grain Silo.

It should have some meta functionality. A place you drop the wheat from the field, and it's raised up to the top of the tower and dropped in. A vanilla item elevator and at the top of the silo it falls into a hopper and inside there's storage for the wheat.

Latter there's just a drop off chest, the pipe hidden, a deep storage unit inside, and automation to grind the wheat into flour, and output bread into another chest.

 

[rhn]

You could also do Lumbermills and farms outside the castle as well to support its denizens.

 

[Psychicash]

Sorry for the late update. This week has been kind of crazy and I wasn't able to get as much time as I would have liked. I love the ideas and have already picked out spots for them. I finished the outside of the bee house. I've carved out a room for the lab below but I haven't put anything in there. I apiaries are ones that I scavenged from local villages. Love it when they leave those laying around.

I've also been working on a mine. I have a basic layout but it's not up to showing yet. It's very much a work in progress. I am wondering if buildcraft has some kind of framework like from a quarry but one that I could craft and place. Either way it's coming along slowly. I'll include pictures when I'm finished.

http://imgur.com/a/yX6P4


EDIT: I've tried to keep with the same aesthetics as the rest of the city. I'm considering replacing the corner wood planks with the dark wood logs... Not sure. I wanted it to be a blonde wood to go with the honeycomb but I am wondering if it's still too stark a change from the dark wood that is the main framing material throughout the build.

 

[Psychicash]

Sorry for the lack of updates. the server has been,.... laggy this past week and I've been banished to the salt mines again. LOL. Apparently someone left the demon invasion chunk loaded to max size and it seems to be... causing... some ... lag. On the other hand it looks really cool. (no it wasn't me... I promise... fingers crossed.)

 

[pizzawolf14]

I've been banished to the salt mines again.

*Tosses holy water*

Good luck man. Never dealt with those demons you're talking about but anything that's called a demon can't be fun.

 

[Master_Builder_800]

Good luck man. Never dealt with those demons you're talking about but anything that's called a demon can't be fun.

I'm assuming he means the demon invasion from blood magic's lvl 7 alter, but thats just a guess. I've never actually messed around with blood magic