Hey, all! It's been a while since I've stopped by and I'm starting what I guess can only be described as a new challenge.
Recently, I discovered a youtuber named Shadiversity because he's Draw With Jazza's brother. Shad is very knowledgeable about medieval castles and stuff, and Minecraft is roughly set in the middle ages (though it's a fantasy world), so..? After watching, like, 20 videos, I decided I had learned enough about how things were/maybe/maybe not done back then to try to build a semi-accurate castle in Minecraft. If this goes well I'll have an awesome castle and village to gawk at.
Did I mention I'm procrastinating sewing a cosplay idea for DragonCon?
Anyway, to the spoiler!
//Part 1
Recently, I discovered a youtuber named Shadiversity because he's Draw With Jazza's brother. Shad is very knowledgeable about medieval castles and stuff, and Minecraft is roughly set in the middle ages (though it's a fantasy world), so..? After watching, like, 20 videos, I decided I had learned enough about how things were/maybe/maybe not done back then to try to build a semi-accurate castle in Minecraft. If this goes well I'll have an awesome castle and village to gawk at.
Did I mention I'm procrastinating sewing a cosplay idea for DragonCon?
Anyway, to the spoiler!
I ran around for a bit looking for a decent place to start. I wanted a hill overlooking a flatter area that wouldn't be too hard to shape to my needs. Once I found this place (in the middle of a forest), I started dealing with all the darn trees that were in the way. I've deforested places before (see: Stoneveil at the start and during planning (RIP)), so this isn't new to me.
I found these two large oaks that had grown together. Man were they a pain to take down. I will note, however, that leaves drop sticks now, too, and appear to have increased the sapling drop rate. Since oaks now produce food, sticks, and wood, I can kind of see them becoming the number one farmed wood for the area. Never thought of how convenient the stick drop would be until I had it.
Here's half of the area deforested.
If I were doing a challenge that required wood be set off in a chest, I think I would have already met the requirement for the next 10 stages...
All of my resources organized into a chest. I'm playing without any general restrictions, so in another area when I had access to some iron I went ahead and got it.
While I was busy digging away, this tradesman came by to visit. I told him I didn't have any emeralds available for trade, but he insisted on standing around watching me for several days.
The next part of this involves/d a lot of terraforming. Again, not the first time I've terraformed a place, but this is by far the largest terraforming project I've ever taken on, and I haven't built a house yet! I started going layer by layer, but that just felt too inefficient.
So, I chunked the area to be formed up instead. I initially planned to go down to where the large patch of poppies are (I think you can see them in the first pic) for the entire base of the castle, but later decided against that after discovering just how much stone I'd have to dig through on the back corner (where I'm currently standing).
Progress shot after removing a section or two. I kind of just cut sections randomly, because I'd still be counting if I tried to measure it out evenly.
Progress shots from the eastern point.
As mentioned before, it didn't take long to realize that it would be better to have a smaller "internal" wall and then the large external wall around the whole thing. Here, I've decided that anything less than 4 blocks tall for the internal section is going to go, creating a nice, sheer cliff face to use as the backing for the wall. Historically, many castles would dig out a plateau like this, build one face of the wall, and then dig out the other side and build the other face, to make a wall that was near impossible to ram. I'm basing this choice on that and laziness. I only have to build up a little bit on the inside to make ramparts with the wall itself just being one stone face wrapping around the plateau.
A distance shot of the internal "wall" and the last few sections I have to clear.
All sections cleared! Just have to clean up the top of the internal plateau.
And now the top has been cleared. I'm leaving the raw stone for now. My thought is that can be the floor for the furnace room or something.
Looking out towards the future home of the village from on top of the internal plateau.
A view of the entire project so far from a nearby tree.
Now I'm going around the external plateau and digging in the same manner as the internal one to make the base for the wall that will go around it. There's this interesting little lake cave that goes around that I want to turn into a sort of feature somehow. Right now I'm envisioning an arch going over it with some glowstone and finished bricks lining it inside.
I found these two large oaks that had grown together. Man were they a pain to take down. I will note, however, that leaves drop sticks now, too, and appear to have increased the sapling drop rate. Since oaks now produce food, sticks, and wood, I can kind of see them becoming the number one farmed wood for the area. Never thought of how convenient the stick drop would be until I had it.
Here's half of the area deforested.
If I were doing a challenge that required wood be set off in a chest, I think I would have already met the requirement for the next 10 stages...
All of my resources organized into a chest. I'm playing without any general restrictions, so in another area when I had access to some iron I went ahead and got it.
While I was busy digging away, this tradesman came by to visit. I told him I didn't have any emeralds available for trade, but he insisted on standing around watching me for several days.
The next part of this involves/d a lot of terraforming. Again, not the first time I've terraformed a place, but this is by far the largest terraforming project I've ever taken on, and I haven't built a house yet! I started going layer by layer, but that just felt too inefficient.
So, I chunked the area to be formed up instead. I initially planned to go down to where the large patch of poppies are (I think you can see them in the first pic) for the entire base of the castle, but later decided against that after discovering just how much stone I'd have to dig through on the back corner (where I'm currently standing).
Progress shot after removing a section or two. I kind of just cut sections randomly, because I'd still be counting if I tried to measure it out evenly.
Progress shots from the eastern point.
As mentioned before, it didn't take long to realize that it would be better to have a smaller "internal" wall and then the large external wall around the whole thing. Here, I've decided that anything less than 4 blocks tall for the internal section is going to go, creating a nice, sheer cliff face to use as the backing for the wall. Historically, many castles would dig out a plateau like this, build one face of the wall, and then dig out the other side and build the other face, to make a wall that was near impossible to ram. I'm basing this choice on that and laziness. I only have to build up a little bit on the inside to make ramparts with the wall itself just being one stone face wrapping around the plateau.
A distance shot of the internal "wall" and the last few sections I have to clear.
All sections cleared! Just have to clean up the top of the internal plateau.
And now the top has been cleared. I'm leaving the raw stone for now. My thought is that can be the floor for the furnace room or something.
Looking out towards the future home of the village from on top of the internal plateau.
A view of the entire project so far from a nearby tree.
Now I'm going around the external plateau and digging in the same manner as the internal one to make the base for the wall that will go around it. There's this interesting little lake cave that goes around that I want to turn into a sort of feature somehow. Right now I'm envisioning an arch going over it with some glowstone and finished bricks lining it inside.
//Part 1
Oh well.
