Building A City Currently at [v1.3] Pre-Notes: [*]This guide will not tell you how to build certain buildings block by block, another tutorial on some buildings will be made in the near future. [*]This thread is not for posting images of your own towns and cities unless you have a extremely good reason [*]This thread does not cover every way to design your towns, but simply give you basic knowledge to have a good start. [*]Looking for a list of things to build? Got Builders Block? A list of building to construct is included int his guide. Table of Contents General Knowledge Builders-Block The Building List Themes & Time Ages Basic Building Materials & Textures City Layouts Creating History Advanced Architecture Change Log General Knowledge Cities, towns and villages are so much fun to build in minecraft, it makes your world feel less empty and within multiplayer, you can gather and help each other to create massive towns which will make your server stand out from the rest. There are numerous reasons why people find building a town/city/village very hard and time consuming and some of the reasons are below: [*]Materials are needed at a massive scale to create a town, and not just the bulk materials either. [*]Cities take time and planning to build and lots of people get bored as time passes. [*]Builders Block happens to every builder, even the great ones. Obviously it easy to guess that you need to plan alot before trying to build as its certainly a little more complicated moving buildings across the street just because it blocks another building. So feel free to use this thread as a reference of the things that you might need, or think about when starting your town. Builder's-Block We get eventually get builders block. This is a state of mind you get into where you start thinking to yourself "What do i build now? It horrible for any minecraft player but especially for someone who is trying to create a town. Mining is a brief alternative but never fills the gap of building things. It just comes and goes aswell which is the most annoying part, one minute you will be making a massive castle and the next minute, your just stuck on what to do. How to counteract this builders block? Well a few tips include: [*]Google - Yes, just go onto google images and search for towns, cities or simply buildings. Images will stimulate your mind and give you creative thoughts. [*]Mincraft Forums - Again, such a simple idea, just go onto some forums and have a look at what other people have created, you can then base a design off of it and you ill know youll never stick to your first thought completely [*]This Thread - There will be a nice long list of building below of what to what into your town and eventually, every one will have pictures for them Remember, dont just build a building to add to your town, every building needs a purpose otherwise its simply crowding your town/village. The Building List Here is a large list of the buildings that could be put into your towns, links to previews of the buildings will be available next to the names eventually. [*]Animal Shelter [*]Animal Pen [*]Archery Range [*]Armoury [*]Art Gallery [*]Artillery Defence [*]Bandit Hangout [*]Bank [*]Bar/Pub [*]Barracks [*]Barrier/Fence/Wall [*]Bath House [*]Bio Dome Outside Example [*]Black/Silver/Goldsmith [*]Blasting Pit [*]Boat House [*]Bunker [*]Bus Station [*]Canal [*]Castle/Fortress [*]Chapel/Church [*]Community/Recreational Center [*]Construction Zone [*]Court [*]Demolition Site [*]Dog House [*]Dry Cleaner [*]Dueling Arena [*]Embassy [*]Factory [*]Farm [*]Farmers Field [*]Flag Pole (With flag) [*]Fountain [*]Garbage Dump [*]Gas Station [*]Government Building (Ex. Parliament Buildings, White House) [*]General Store [*]Granary [*]Greenhouse [*]Guard Tower [*]Helipad/Landing Pad Example [*]House/Apartment [*]Inn/Hotel/Motel [*]Jail/Prison [*]Keep [*]Library [*]Lumber Mill [*]Lumber Yard [*]Machine Shop [*]Marina [*]Market Square [*]Mansion [*]Meteor Impact Site [*]Mill (Lumber, wheat, reed...etc.) [*]Mine (Open Pit, Shaft, Strip) [*]Mineshaft [*]Missile Silo [*]Mob Spawn Building [*]Monorail [*]Monument [*]Nether Portal Laboratory [*]Observatory [*]Office Building [*]Oil Drill [*]Oil Pump [*]Oil Rig (on sea) [*]Park [*]Parking Lot [*]Pirate Bay/Cove/Town [*]Pier/Port [*]Port Crane [*]Port Warehouse [*]Port Docks [*]Power Plant (Nuclear, Coal-Powered, Wind Turbines...etc) [*]Processing Plant [*]Public Pool Outside Example Inside Example #1, Inside Example #2 [*]Quarry [*]Recreation Center [*]Redstone Facility (place for redstone mechanics) [*]Restaurant [*]S.A.M. Sites [*]School [*]Science Laboratory [*]Shipyard [*]Skyscraper [*]Slaughterhouse [*]Space Ship Launch Pad [*]Sports Center/Field/Rink [*]Stable [*]Statue [*]Store (Food, Tools, Weapons, Supplies/blocks) Outside Example [*]Storage Shed [*]Subway/Mine Cart System [*]Sunken Ship [*]Tailor [*]Temple Outside Example Inside Example #1, Inside Example #2 [*]Tool Shed [*]Town Hall [*]Train Station [*]Train Yard [*]Tree House [*]Underground Parking [*]Underwater Facility [*]Warehouse [*]Water Wheel Building [*]Water Treatment Plant [*]Well [*]Windmill [*]Wizard's Tower [*]Workshop [*]Zoo If you have made one of these and its clear that its what the name of the building says it is, please pm me a picture of the interior and exterior of the building =D Themes & Time Ages Before i start this section, i must add that this is my opinion and its not something which everyone agrees or disagrees with. Styles are identical to Themes, the difference being styles are how you build something and themes are what you build. Styles/Time Ages Styles or Time Ages are very important within minecraft because it shows the difference between a medieval town and a modern town, for example, a older building with have beams and triangle roofs while buildings today can look like rectangles of abstract shapes. The most common styles that are used are Minecraft Style (Old & New) and Industrial which will be explained below. -Minecraft Old is obviously slightly different to Minecraft New and feels like a medievil version of minecraft. Cities hardly existed. instead Castles are build with the whole town designed inside the outer walls. When building walls, they should be very thick and reasonably tall. The corners usually contain some sort of turret or look out post. A castle does not always have a moat. Common building materials include wood/log and cobblestone. [*]Town Inside Castle [*]Turret or Lookouts [*]Thick & Tall Walls [*]Cobblestone/Wood/Logs -Minecraft New is a newer version of Minecraft old (suprisingly). Castles are extremely rare, forts are constructed as a replacement for castles. Forts usually do not have towns right next to them. Settlements were usually spread out and have a small wall made of cobblestone or a fence giving a little defence to the outside world. Common building materials include cobblestone, wood, logs and some brick. Smooth stone shouldnt be used. [*]No Castles [*]Forts Instead but not Next to Settlement [*]Small Wall or Fence for Border [*]Spread Out [*]Cobblestone/Logs/Wood/Brick [*]No Smooth Stone -Industrial is a lot more modern then the other two i previously described. Think around the World War eras, Factories, warehouses, and companies are very well established. Castle and forts are historical sights but compared to the old buildings, the current buildings are huge. This style shouldnt be surrounded by a wall but the city can be separated into sections for housing, industrial, weaponry, harbor etc. Common materials include Smooth stone, Ore Blocks, Brick & Glass [*]World War Era [*]Massive Buildings [*]Castles Used Historically [*]Seperated City for Specific Uses [*]Smooth Stone, Ore Blocks, Brick & Glas Theme Themes are not always in every city that you make. But help differentiate them. an example of a theme is a mining city. most of the building would be wooden shacks and have a mineshaft close by, maybe included a wood shed, warehouse and other things that miners would need. You dont have to have a theme but it makes it easier to connect the city to a reason why it was built int he first place rather then just being built... Basic Building The basics of building a town is simple. Copying and pasting buildings to make a community. However we all know how boring a ton would look if it had the exact same building duplicated around it. Here are a few tips to making your buildings look a little different making your town unique. Names: The will easily make each building and your town different by placing names of what the buildings are and the name of your town Shape: A very important point in making buildings. You dont always have to have a cube or a cuboid shape for your building, try "L" shapes or making the second floor smaller then the first, look at abstract architecture on google if you want to look for something which is inspirational for you. Organisation: A messy city is a poorly built city, keep similar buildings within the same area, market part of town, housing and other areas all tend to group to one another Standards: Very important is that you have to keep standards within your town, a simple standard would be having a 2 block wide path going all the way through your town. Why have standards? Your town/city would look really odd if you didnt have anything you you kept constant. Example of a Simple Standard Remember to add parks, gardens rather then building more and more houses. Your town will become very boring if its simply tons of and of houses and buildings with no standards. Materials There is usually tons of ideas and options for what materials to use in your city and it is a very important part of making your city look and 'act' the part. Please note that i am ringing up techniques that i have seen from other servers as well as this one. This is a highly debatable section and this is partially my opinion. Base Materials: Base materials are the main bulk or your building, the most popular being wood, cobble, smooth stone, brick and wool. Usually you tend to avoid the most expensive blocks as you will be using lots of it. usually people build there structure out of a base material and then fill it in with other materials and details so you have somewhere to stay if it turns night time. An Example of a base material of Smooth Stone Secondary Materials: With your main structure places, you building needs something to make it...well interesting as it looks pretty boring right now. Secondary materials are used for variety for patterns and words. You obviously can have more than 1 secondary material as its not used in a big a amount as your base material. Popular secondary materials include iron/gold/diamond and lapis blocks, log, smooth stone, cobble (depending on your base), smooth stone steps (doubled) different colors of wool and mossy cobble. Cobble will be discussed a little more later in the patterns section. An Example of a Secondary Material Added into the original Base Material) Adding Detail Once you have an actual structure that you like, the details on the building is next. Most of your detail will be inside as its just an empty shell, but the outside can also have a few details on it, here are a few ideas which are used regularly Windows: Glass Tables: Logs, Planks or Smooth Stone Furniture: Check Out My Furniture Inspiration Topic Doors: Wooden Easiest Fences and Draping Decor: Wooden Fences A finished example of detail, secondary and base materials added Patterns I have briefly spoken about this earlier, about using a certain pattern throughout your city, well this is also on buildings, using a certain pattern can make your buildings look less well boring. A common pattern is a grid pattern (See below). Others could be lines of secondary material, patches of mossy cobble to add age to your building if your using cobble as a base. There is a million options to choose from! Common Debates: Its surprising that some people despise some blocks being used throughout the game as well as being used in buildings so expect a lot of haters if you use certain blocks: Cobblestone: Some people think that cobble can look ugly, but i think most people are in agreement that it looks a little ugly when used excessively. Cobble used in patterns works best! Gravel: Being everyone hates Gravel (star....) i wont post much about it, but some people like the look of gravel as a flooring and if you are using regenerating walls, but that it still useful =P Diamond/Gold Block: When overused, its screams hacking and looks terrible, its a ice touch on buildings but not in massive loads. Iron tends to work better. City Layouts One of the first things that you will think about when you are building your city is how you design and lay it out. There are 3 used plans that i have come across that work quite well and a 4th which isnt worth bothering to explain. You dont always have to follow a plan to the exact layout and design but they are usually based or started from these layouts. Most towns usually have a town center as well as a church. Towns usually have a main road with smaller roads for housing areas. Grid-Line Pattern: Pros Easy to Expand Looks Neat & Organised Easy to Navigate Cons Only Effective with 10+ Buildings Gets Repetitive Quite Easily A basic style is what many towns use today where everything is condensed into a structure and fixed layout to keep things looking organized and tidy. Main roads are normally 3 blocks wides while smaller roads are two. HapHazard Pattern: Pros Easy to Expand Little Planning Needed Doesnt Need Loads of Buildings Cons This pattern is literally a collection of building which is surrounded by a winding road going through it. This design doesnt have any cons but people may seem to avoid it because it doesnt look as pleasing to the eye. Tiered Pattern {No Picture} Pros -Looks really good -Easy to defend -Easy to traverse Cons -Tedious work to setup -Can't really expand This pattern is very interesting to design, plan and to look at. Use different heights on a hill to show the different wealth's of the town. At the bottom of the hill you would have the working houses. above that would be the markets and the blacksmiths and armories. And the top level the castle/keep. This also can be used and designed to have only 1 road going through the middle of the town connecting everything together ----- It doesnt matter what design you pick or use as its down to the designers preferance. But also things to think about is do you want to give your houses yards and back gardens? Do you put your houses right up against the curb of the road? Do you want all the buildings to be two stories or higher giving it that downtown feel? or sub-burbs with only 1 story buildings? The choice is all yours! Creating History Ancient Golem Created by FirstBreed This is mainly for those interested in making kingdoms and alike, but it can apply to cities/town. Giving your city history can make the world more interesting. If you are making a city, then you can add monuments/memorials/statues for certain wars/battles/events. Maybe there was a huge Spider War where half the city was destroyed (in which case you would build a statue of a Spider scaling a big wall), or was there an earthquake that split 1 island into 2? Adding these can take up empty spaces and make potential players more interested in exploring the city. The theme of the city could also be related to any events that happened (miner town with lots of gold left over from a gold rush). The city could even be named after events (like, using the previous 'gold rush' example, you could call your city Yellow Cliff). If you are making a kingdom, you can go a bit farther with this because you are not limited to the city limits (not that you were before). You could make the events rather than represent them only in cities. Maybe there was a meteor shower that demolished a town, leaving behind lava, or perhaps it was there a gold rush near a mountain, in which there are many abandoned mining towns lying around with mines speckled with gold. You could even make cities enemies of each other by creating battlefields between them (whether crater filled plains, or empty, collapsed trenches). Change Log Versions of this guide in development This it everything currently on the guide to starting a town. If you have any suggestions, errors or pictures to add to this guide, please message them to me. This tutorial is still in the middle of being completed xD But i thought id post it as people are starting to build up there cities
Thanks ^^ Will be adding some more onto this over the next week and hopefully it will nearly be finished =D
LOL is the picture of that castle XxisoulxX's castle? his looks exactly the same... even has the random ish tower in the background
