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I could make teal wool pretty easily, though - I have cactus. I probably will at some point; I like teal.

My order is normally structure -> interior -> landscaping. I was thinking about flower beds at the base of the wall, and some kind of path. BUT - the hill is really big, and irregular, and almost any kind of landscaping is going to require a lot of work, so it's a very low priority, and normally would come after figuring how to use all that interior space.

Pens and such will go on the valley floor. Not currently planning any more buildings although honestly I could use one down there because it's a fairly long way (in terms of in-base activity) to either the chateau or the smeltery.

From what I've seen (no real studies) the main problem is object creation/destruction cycles. Geographicraft gets a lot of stuff from IntCache (an attempt to get around creation/destruction, I assume) and that also seems to consume lots of memory.

I'll probably play it until I physically can't. Not constantly; I might take breaks for a few years but I'll probably come back. I've played the Civ series off and on for 30 years and I think I'll have the same attitude to Minecraft.

That said, my ability to mod is a big part of the reason I keep coming back. After a couple months of play I start getting the itch to mod things; perhaps I'd quit instead if I couldn't.

I think the way mods typically do enchants (or equivalents) is better - to do a particular enchant, you need the right supplies (which are often hard to get) but once you have them you will get the enchant you want. Effectively, it's a quest system, which makes for a better game than the vanilla lottery system.

Villagers as a source of perfect enchants is a kind of quest system, because it's a lot of work to get the right setup (I have never bothered, myself) but it's an unsatisfying one because of the randomness and the requirement for villager abuse (breed and assassinate until you get the right ones).

If they want a quest system that forces exploration, I think it would be more satisfying to have rare biome-specific materials than biome-specific magicians, which feels very weird to me. For example, a rare drop from Husks would still entice players to go to deserts and feel more thematic than having to do villager abuse on a desert village (after villager abuse on a Plains village, a Taiga village, etc.)

Honestly, a section of ocean about 500x100 isn't that big. With a 32 chunk view distance, you're basically never out of sight of land. It takes a long time to map because of the map distance limits, but it's not that big.

I do agree that newgen looks better with larger view distances - you see more variety.

That's a really gloomy shading for rain - I thought it was night-time.

Some better waterfronts on this map where the waterside slopes look more reasonable.

Didn't the fire algorithm burn dense wood down completely once upon a time? I remember having to put out fires to avert mass destruction.

Episode 34: Grounds and Airs



In the morning, down to the sheep pen to get some wool, and then to the farm to collect all the Harvestcraft fiber crops I've been growing (for string). Wool and string make balloons for a DaVinci airship, and I think I've got enough now.

But: before I start work on my airship I want a secure area outside to work in, and before I can secure the hilltop, I need to fill out the hill to make the Chateau look better.



So I fill in the area under the front left wing. Originally I was planning to make a 45 degree slope, but I quickly realize the underlying hill is actually steeper than that, so that would become a HUGE project. So I switch to 2 blocks down for every one over.



And just that little bit of fill took most of the day. The surprise effort of 3D work, gotta love it. And I STILL haven't remembered to place those two missing decorative stairs on the upper left window!

Next day I set out to enclose the top with stone fences - Blue Schist, since I have lots. I'm just going to build it to keep things out, not to prevent falls, and that means they can just be placed against the hill, not sticking up. That will make them less prominent - and less ugly.

First, though, while I'm thinking of it, I pillar up and put on those two stairs. While I'm up there, I get hungry, and snack out of my lunch box -



Aw geez, I forgot to take out the Ikayaki potion food! What a waste.



Initially I try to modify the hill as I place the fences to make them look straighter and nicer, but after a while I decide that's taking too much time. This is my visual check halfway through, to make sure it's OK before doing the back. I decide this is OK, and start on the back.



The llama send up a construction inspector. I *barely* get done before nightfall.

Since I didn't have time for a security check, I go in for the night. I check in on the attic to consider possible uses.



Oh. Right. THAT's why I had so much Blue Shist - I was going to use it for the flat part of the roof. Although - maybe I should use something else? Generally it's best if walls, floor, and ceiling all use different materials. The flat top won't be visible from the outside, so I can focus on what looks good.



And it's a good thing I came inside, because there are still zombies in they yard! I swat a few, and they sleep to morning to collect the drops and find the problem.



And there it is. Fixed.



I put in a trapdoor gate, although it's a bit confusing in conjuction with the trapdoor security for the doors - the gate trapdoor is closed when the trapdoors are up, but the door trapdoors are closed when they're down.



And now, finally, I level the hilltop outside the west wing of the Chateau (the right on the picture earlier) to start on an airship.



My front yard is extremely narrow, though, and it won't be safe to use the front entrance to get to the side yards at night. So I take out the fence footguards to use one of the first floor windows as a door (I put jungle doors on it after this pic). But now my "windows" aren't symmetrical anymore - maybe I'll just put doors on all of them?



I check in on the farm and the sheep. Serene Seasons, in combo with Minecraft's absurdly abrupt biome color changes, makes for a very weird-looking jungle tree here, with part in a fall red maple color and part still in vivid summer greed.



I pause briefly to enjoy my mountain valley in fall colors.



Now I start on a draft design for my airship. My plan is a 19h century look, with a wood platform gondola (floor here) hanging from a brightly colored oblong balloon. Except I initially place the slab platform in the bottom halves of the blocks, and have to move them up.

Having done my security check, I feel confident enough to work through the night. And my security fence does work - it keeps out zombies and creepers.



But the yard isn't large enough to protect me from Skeleton fire. This one misses anyway (you see its arrow below me) and I snipe it, but then I sleep off the rest of the night so I can get the drop.



I then have to snipe two creepers first.



Evidently winter has come to the high country, although not yet the lowlands.



I finish my draft airship design, and do a visual check - although I should have removed the dirt scaffolding. I think it will do. Then I tear down the wool I used for the draft to convert into actual balloons. I have to go down to the Smeltery area to get the string. I end up using 78 string for this, almost everything I have even with Harvestcraft fiber crops and mineshaft loot - again, it's surprising how much 3D structures need.



I work through the night putting the balloons back on, installing safety rails so I can't fall off the forward helm, and installing jungle doors on the other first floor windows, although maybe I'll knock off the fence footguards and make them all into doors, now that the outside area is relatively safe.



But, relatively is the word here. Fences don't stop spiders (although in practice I find spider incursions into fenced areas rare) and this creepy-crawly comes over and attacks me. I'd started to think of myself as safe here and it took a couple of seconds to get my mind into combat mode. But I'm very geared up and I'm never down even one heart.



And then I enjoy a glorious sunrise out a second floor east window. I mentioned some time ago that it had been a dream of mine to build a base up in an Extreme Hills ever since 1.7 vanilla put in those "build here, please" flat areas. And now, I'm living the dream. It's very satisfying.

Next episode: Flight Trials

Congrats on the raid victory.

I've always found it a royal pain to get villagers out of the water. Having them confined in a fenced area is always one of my top priorities anyway.

That's a nice improvements to clouds. The limitation compared to what you should be able to see is so annoying.

The starting map wall does help explain what's going on.

How would you have info about the purple question mark area? Have you been there? Or is this being written after the fact?

So how was the ice boating?

Don't go caving if it's too risky. It just feels kind of off when you have so many mentions of cave openings (an important feature to modern minecraft) but never describe what's inside.

Well, there are certain commonalities to large-scale exploration. One of which is that it generates a LOT of info per hour of play so the posts pile up fast if you get into it and are having fun. If you're building or mining there might well be an hour or two of play without much to say, but that doesn't happen when exploring.

The leafless tree is an RTG tree (I'm not sure which; I'd have to look; maybe a swamp willow) generated without, well, leaves (there's a switch in the tree object). It's supposed to represent a tree which has died. RTG places them in swamps sometimes.

*Technically* I have started ranching cows, because I'm ranching them at the Seljuk base. But that is now de facto abandoned, and too far to bring the cows over.

For comparison, this is what it looks like with the original generation:

The new version is pretty, but not magnificent.

I didn't notice the mistake, and I think almost nobody following in real time would unless you started the episode with a map wall pic. It's at the end of the prior post, but since it's under spoiler you don't see it. Now somebody binge-reading might well notice, because it won't be a day or two between seeing the posts - but they probably won't reply.

I suppose it's not realistic with this being a Hardcore game, but since caves are so important to Minecraft, it seems like you should investigate at least some of the large caverns you encounters.

With a really long trip, I think it would help to include more visual info on the context. You can't do a map wall in progress, but maybe sketching on the pre-exploration map wall?

Episode 33: Past Passing Passes



A last look at a big mountain in the range I probably should have just admired and not crossed for the 3rd time (forcing a 4th crossing later)



and in I go.

On top of everything else, you wouldn't think of two maps as good climbing equipment.

I cross to the next map to the north, with some work, and make a new map. Shortly after
- whoops
- that's a hole -

WHUMP!



Fortunately not a deep one. And I'm pretty fallproofed at present with Feather Falling IV and equivalent to 15 levels of Protection.



Fall resistant or no, that's pretty vertiginous. Normally RTG dosn't make things that steep but I guess I'm getting special treatment. Whee.



800 blocks of up-and-down and I'm still not done. This last part isn't so bad.



And finally some non-mountain terrain.



I come across a Japanese village, Asahikawa, and spend the night there, as it's almost dark. They have little to sell though -

Or so I thought.



Then in the morning I'm still not quite done with the mountains. This, though, is the end of it. There are some more cows on it of which I butcher some for leather I can't get at home.



And now, having done all that work to get to this side, I start getting tired of exploring and turn back east, planning to finish what I can and head home.



Briefly I wonder how there could be another Japanese village here until I realize this is a gate to Asahikawa, cut off by that steep hill Millenaire considers (correctly) unbuildable.



I start a map on the other side and head down on that, enjoying the easier terrain. For now.



Then, trying to complete my maps, I'm forced back into the range.

My, that cow on the right is probably even more uncomfortable than I am.

And as I'm heading through the mountain maze:



Well, isn't that interesting. Another miniature extreme climate. I think I've figured out what's going on here. Geographicraft has smoothing routines to reduce bordergore; but one of the side effects is that an area of one thing completely surrounded by something else tends to shrink. Inland extreme climates tend to be completely surrounded and it's affecting them fairly consistently. Guess I'll look at changing that.



I recently made some changes to make Mesas a little more variable but the effects are subtle. These mini-mesas are an example of one of the things RTG couldn't do before but can now.



I get back to the chateau map and now I'm going to finish at least most of the top edge before heading home. Here's a Roofed Forest separating a Plains and an Ice Plains. This is the new generation, so not nearly as dark as before; if you look under the trees you might be able to see it's not visibly as dark. I would test the danger level a bit if I had to; but I don't because there's that ultra-narrow strip to go through.

By now it's getting dark again so I prepare to bed-plop. I'm hungry, though, so I grab something out of my lunchbox.



Whoa, what the heck did I eat to do THAT? Some research reveals it's some Ikayaki I found in the mineshaft industrial freezers minecart chests. But - it's also sold by Japanese villages. Poking around the Wiki indicates apparently every culture sells some kind of potion food, although a number of pages aren't working so I'm not sure exactly what some of them do. So I now have something to buy from all these villages I've been passing by, at least once they're developed enough.



That very nearly finishes the chateau map and I'll leave the rest for future expeditions, likely after I have an airship. So now one last overland mountain crossing. It looks like there's a relatively easy one right here; south through some relatively level areas and then through a pass over one ridge to some more relatively levels, then south again to the river next to the chateau.



It works, kinda: the first "level" area is actually pretty rugged with a lot of up-and-down here. But the pass, the gap to the right, is low and easy comparatively, and after that it's not bad.

Then home; down to Smeltery level to put things away and make copies of the new maps; and then up to the chateau to expand the map wall.



I have a couple of things to say about this:

First, although this has been a comparatively difficult exploration trip; this was actualy the intent of placing mountain ranges. I *wanted* to create some geography that made some areas more separate from others; so the land is less of a "mush". And that's what this does, especialy in combination with the rivers. I can hop in a boat and zip all the way to the lake all the way on the far left with less effort and not much more time than it takes to just cross that mountain range in most places. It's effort, but it makes things interesting and creates meaningful, separated regions.

This is actually the first time I've really experienced this on the ground. In my previous two journals, I'd started on small continents, which are not really big enough for this to kick in. I did find that medium continent in my last journal, but I mostly just explored the coast and I had an airship anyway. Part of the reason this was a difficult trip is simply that I had not learned to respect what I'd created - meaningful separations between regions. And I think I have: I may do some more land explorations of the basin south and west of the chateau, but at this point, I think I'll wait for an airship to tackle the mountains and north region again.

I also intended that finding good passes would be interesting and worth it and I think it worked out well: my chateau overlooks what is absolutely the best way to cross this range, the path I usually use from the chateau to the Seljuk village.

Second, I'll put out the claim that this map looks WAY better than the maps that current post-1.17 generation creates. The fractal boundaries between different terrains look real and draw you into the map, unlike the weird bezier-curve looking boundaries of current generation. I really hope Mojang can improve that in the not-too-distant future.



And then I relax with a sunset because I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.

Next episode: Home improvements

That mountain just ending at the water is pretty much the norm for current minecraft - you see it in the other shore shots too; they just aren't as high. The generator just isn't aware water is nearby until it's about a chunk away, and IMO it's one of the greatest weaknesses of current generation.

Yes, the map wall shots at the end are great for context.

Coming home to a nice base is always welcoming and you did a good job with the landscaping, which is something I need to work on.

Episode 32: Passing Passes

I've been promising putting rivers in Savanna M and reducing the danger of Roofed Forests and I finally get around to it. In Roofed Forest now I find I run into a mob maybe once a minute; roughly similar to my vanilla Roofed Forest experiences. The Savanna M change only requires changing a config default: the code already allows for it (and, actually, players could already have done this by changing the config). I recreate the world and now the river basin does connect to the sea.

But, had I started with this, I would have lost something:



My Savanna M landmark. Well, it's still there, and it's still a pretty scene, but it's greatly reduced in order to place a river fork there, and it's not nearly as magnificent. Usually such monuments won't be removed to place rivers, but this one would be (partially).

In the actual game, of course, it stays, and I can manually dig out that river connection someday. I think I ended up with the best of two worlds this way, and I'm not complaining.

I want to finish the Chateau map before snowfall so I don't have to touch it. That way I can explore without putting snow on the Chateau map, even once it's there. So I'm going to head out again, almost right away.



I do a round of sheep shearing under the watchful eye of a llama ethical animal treatment inspector.



Then to the river to travel to the edge of my existing explorations. The Forest in the distance is in fall color; the Jungle is in perpetual summer and never is in fall.



I picked this spot to start because it's by far the easiest to get to the unexplored areas. Anything else requires crossing the mountain range. There's an easy pass ESE of the Chateau (the green arrow) which I've been using to get between my two bases; but it's not anywhere near the unexplored area. There's a series of two passes going NNE, where I went to the mountain Norman village, but it's somewhat harder, and still isn't quite there. So I take the boat, which is zoom, and I'm starting with this Savanna at the N side of this large plain-sish area (plains, desert, and savanna, all flat).



I go along the west edge a bit, soon reaching the edge of the plains-ish area with what's probably a splash of Birch Hills.

Then back east along the edge of previous exploration, through (sigh) Swamp. With:



Yipe! Moose! These are quite tough, as I found in my Return to Minecraft journal, and aggressive too. I switch to my crossbow; one shot won't kill it but will seriously hurt it and I think I'll be able to handle it then. But, fortunately, it doesn't attack, for whatever reason, nor do any of a couple others I see.



The Swamp continues much longer than I'd like, at the end finishing with an even more annoying Swamp M, which overlooks the large Roofed Forest I had to climb a mountainside to avoid in Episode 25. (In that episode I'd taken a pass further east of the Ice Mountain ahead and then headed east toward the chateau.) Closer to me the Roofed Forest is Roofed Forest M, still with the vanilla Dark Oaks (for variety).

I fill as much as I can of the map - a little bit I can't get without going into the Roofed Forest, which I don't want to. Although I've changed the light obstruction parameters for RTG Roofed Forest to make it much less dangerous, that doesn't redo already generated areas like this.



Then I turn north and climb over a shoulder of the Ice Mountain to this great view of the end of a glacier, bascally.



And then into the grand glacial valley itself - it's even U-shaped. This is the valley I saw from the yogi's hut, also in Episode 25, and you can just see it on the left on the last hill before the big mountain to the right.

I spot a high mountain pass to my left leading roughly in the NE direction I want to go, and climb it, but have to sleep up in the pass.



In the morning I continue down the pass to the far side of the mountain range. This crossing wasn't too bad, but isn't too useful from the chateau.



I forgot to bring wheat but there's a double set of cows here, so I slaughter some, away from the watchful eyes of the llama Animal Rights Inspectors.



Unfortunately I can't take a relatively easy exit to the north because I need to wrap around a big mountain here to fill out a map. This is a struggle; it's high and steep.



Almost there. Lots of climbing and even some carving later. The mountains are less fun to look at when you have to fight them. Although at least I am winning.



Then through some Taiga and Forest woods, to an overlook over this Swamp and a scenic lake where I saw an inviting *looking* Roofed Forest in Episode 25.



I boat it briefly and then U-turn for a pass back to the west, initially through this fall-colored Mega Taiga.



Then a big-treed Oak Forest with these flowers, and then a regular Taiga.



With this Canadian-flavored scenic lake, which, as usual, I briefly boat in.



Then Ice Plains with some great-looking distant mountains, although I'm dreading having to cross that range *again*, having already done a complicated circuitous crossing this episode for mapping purposes.



Right before I start the crossing, there's this cute little Roofed Forest copse. This is almost certainly generated under new rules, and I'm tempted to check it out, but it's getting dark so - some other time.



The first pass is low and easy. I have to sleep at the top, to this great sunset. It *looks* like this crossing won't be *too* bad - I can veer through that pass to the left.

The next pass is pretty steep though, and I struggle a bit. After I get to the top it's a less rugged Extreme Hills + region.



This part isn't so bad and soom I'm on the backside of the little Birch Hills copse I saw from the glacier area earlier.



Then an overview of the Swamp I went through early in the episode, from a Flower Forest on a mountainside and consequently with sparse trees.



A quick easy boat on a scenic lake, a welcome relief after all that mountain climbing.



Back through the Swamp a bit, and then over to the next map west to pick up some adjacent area there, here in some open woodland from a combination of Plains and lower-density forests.



More great views, marred by knowing what that big mountain is part of, and thinking "oh no, not again!"

And, honestly, at this point I'd gotten the large majority of the chateau map and the adjacent map to the west. I should have just turned back and left the last bits for when I have an airship and a less painful way to cross mountain ranges. Plus, crossing again means I have to cross one *more* time because I'll be on the "wrong side". But, no, I continue. So:

Next Episode: Yes, again!