StrongHolm II: The Second Coming

If you're not familiar with my previous attempt with StrongHolm, I've decided to give it another go.

Basically the idea was to renovate a stronghold into a home, unfortunately I leapt on the idea so quickly - I did it when the end portals were in the game but never actually worked at first. The one in the previous attempt would never ever work. The other day I did start to renovate again, which was my intention and started laying down a spruce wood floor, the first proper step to making it a home. Then I realized about the portal and decided it was just better to start a new world in snapshot 40a and try again.

So I created a world and changed the game temporarily to creative so I could find a stronghold and it lead me far across the lands and across the mountains.. In fact when I began to get close I had no long passed a NPC village which was just a few hills away from "the spot" and so would be very handy!

360 of the area:

I am using Misa's 64 x 64 Realistic texture pack. (Just ignore the unpatched textures)

 I sat down and changed the gamemode back to survival and used the shovel from the bonus chest and broke the first golden rule and dug straight down, hoping the ender pearls weren't wrong and I would just end up in lava. (And yes I did chuck the ender pearls away before going to survival. It goes legit here on in.) Thankfully I got rich - in coal at least, on the way down but it's always needed, and I hit a huge vein. Even found a bit of iron too and upgraded the pick for a faster descent. When I broke through however I didn't land on stairs to go down like last time however, but right onto the very end portal itself.

I also found a number of chests down there, I didn't really know they had secret chests down there, but then I haven't explored any new ones since the original stronghold. Some nice treasures though from Iron ingots to redstone, bread iron helmet and leggings(!) and eventually an iron chest plate, 1 enderpearl etc.

More pictures from my adventure around:

Not far away from those last few places I found a proper cave system, left and right from where I was. left was dark and mysterious but I found brown mushrooms growing, (I also know where red mushrooms are growing above ground but had a full inventory by then) and to the right was a cave  with a lava fall. After much wandering around I haven't found a natural way up (yet) so just dug a natural double-wide stair case shaft up on the other side of the End portal room. (Which led to the very full inventory!)

I did want to keep the rainbow silverfish spawner as it was kinda pretty (:p), but it got too annoying in the end with them. Lots of xp from them though. As you can see, by the time I actually explored the NPC village farm, I had a full inventory! I did encounter slimes as well in the stronghold. Still can't believe one of those chests had a diamond! Switched to default as I rooted around for space for carrots  and potatoes, but at least I will be able to grown my own when i find a suitable place.

To-do list:

*Make chest for stuff! (DONE)

*Make bed for setting spawn (DONE, but haven't slept yet.)

*Start making a home out of stronghold (Living area, kitchen, bedroom storage, nice above ground entrance)

*Make wheat/carrot and potato farms!

*Find more diamonds

*Make Portal/goto nether

*Collect Blaze rods from Blazes/enderpearls from Enderman/Make Enderpearls

*Continue to make home nice and as substantial as possible to be a strong enough to go to the End/defeat end boss/dragon.

Reaching New Heights!

A little update on my World#2,I've taken on another adventurous project, (I keep on adding to my list) as I regenerate this world, improve buildings inside and out and rejuvenate the place. It's something I tested on my creative copy of the world and liked the idea of, but hadn't put into progress until today. That is, to very ambitiously raise the ceiling of the living room

The plan is to raise it to the very top skylight, up from the the one you see, and possibly redecorate after swapping the sand walls for something different: With a big deep breath I slowly begun the very messy process of removing the snow-block ceiling as it was, and the stone and dirt of the mountain, moving upwards. I did ad-lib something that wasn't in the original plan though. I removed the dirt wall behind the lava fall to see how safely I could get rid it and how much. After nearly causing a lava fall inside, (I just about managed to dig down in time and put a load of dirt blocks down to catch it before it hit the wooden floor and cause potential disaster!) I had the sudden idea of putting glass up there as well so you could see the lava fall all the way up there as well.

Putting glass up there was not in the spec when I tried it out on my creative copy, but I'm really please I did, I also still managed to incorporate the upside down stairs as coving into this new design. Whilst i was up there I realized it was a really nice view:

All that's left to do now is redecorate. Had to alter some building work near the top of the mountain to allow for this work but it's all worked out so far. here is the final look:

In the bedroom (boom chica wah wah!), I finally got rid of the make-shift kitchen that really wasn't working out for me:

Big ol' space now! As you can see instead of the stairs going straight down from where those other stairs are (going up) there's now a fenced of bit. This is because I added steps down from that direction so you have to go down a few steps first before going down the adjoining set.

Also finished off the hallways of the new stairs going up from the extension:

It's very plain right now and the Jack o' Lanterns will be replaced with Glowstone eventually. I had to make a decision though, as some of these clay walls, using up most of my clay from my recent scavage, were visible from the outside. So I had to decide whether I was going to make all the outside stone walls clay on the outside, and I had too.

I also finally, finally automated my wheat farm after experimenting on my creative copy of this world. It's a very basic, maybe the most basic design but it suits my needs, and is finally automated after 2 years! It does give me a little bit more wheat however.

OLD:

NEW:

Finally the tavern has not been forgotten about! It's getting larger in structure with the frame for the second floor!:

I also have a radical plan for the library and art gallery. for the longest time the art gallery (in a former cave) had needed updating from it's original cobblestone walls, but I simply can't decide on a look. The brick/colored wool idea would take forever with me doing more hunting for clay, so I had a great idea! Swap the two rooms over! The library is due to be renovated anyway, so if I swap them round and have a medium sized art gallery where the current library is and the library in where the art gallery now is it would make the new library into a more grand, bigger, "Great library!". I've already tested this out on my creative copy of the world, choosing a really old fashioned look for the library in wood, with 3 different wood types. (One for floor, 2 for the walls. Only snag is I'd have to bred cows like mad to slaughter them for the new book recipe. I'm very excited for this idea though.

The new Bucket list to do:

*New floor for viewing room (Room with water window, recently with new blue walls half-way up)
*Continue re-building the tavern. (In progress)
*Furnish extension off front room
*Finish new kitchen in dinning hall (In progress)
*Continue putting stone slabs alongside gravel paths (In progress)
*Finish off science lab
*New fountain outside front of mountain home
*NEW enchantment room in the former old science lab space? (Off the landing down to storage.)

LONG-TERM:
*Continue digging tunnel under the ocean for glass tunnel rail-cart relocation.
*Redecorate emergency exit route/minecart tunnel (Already sorta started)
*Renovate library/art gallery Maybe swap them - Library in art gallery and small art gallery where library is.
*Finish furnishings in apartment block
*Stone wall around Mount Doom
*New replacement for main cobble bridge??

A New Base

It's something I've talked about doing for a long while, and at last I'm doing it!

Rather than blog about world#2 all the time, I have started a brand new world to make a base rather than a home. Normally when I start a new world and look for somewhere to build said base, I usually look for a large patch of surface stone to build on. This time however I have found a nice patch of land to build. Although not completely flat it is very open. Just for the foundations - as I've no idea what I want the shape to be like, I am creating the tranches in creative mode, just to get an idea of size and shape. When I'm happy with something final I will turn it back to survival, and yes I will clear it legit. (could take a while!)

So this is the area:

A better view at night:

As you can see it's going to be a huge area! At the moment I'm trying to add and take away areas so it's not completely rectangular. I want to try and work with the land if possible, looking for shapes naturally that I can use as shapes for the building to get away from the "rectangle" look. When I mentioned this last time I mentioned things I would have like maybe dorms with bunk-beds instead of a bedroom, no living quarters, a mess hall, who knows.. I'm thinking maybe building it out of stone-brick although that will take a lot of smelting and a lot of coal. There is surface lava however so with buckets I could just use lava.

I'll post more news on this when I've decided on more of a shape and "look".

Calling "Time" at the Great-Green Tavern

'Tis a sad day on my World#2 as it's finally time to demolish and pull down the old tavern:

The fact is, over the last two years my building style has changed and improved greatly, and although this current tavern is only a year old, if that, it's time for it - and it's retro sandstone blocks, to go. It shall rise again however, in it's new form styled on the outside very much in the style of the kingdoms mode, so it will be larger, notably with an upstairs as well. In just one Minecraft night I went up to the roof and took it apart then went around the four walls lowering the building to the ground..

I may change the interior walls to wood and make it really rustic, not sure yet. Since I continued this morning you can see that I out on a small extension at the side so it's a little bit longer and not totally square and boring. Although, with the upstairs overhanging the downstairs, it will be quite different anyway.

I've also started re-decorating the back viewing room (With the water-window) adding more colored wool and might add a few item frames to keep a nautical/sea theme!

No carrots, but Diamonds and.. POTATOES!

So I did a very stupid thing. I was playing on a server belonging to someone I'm subscribed to on You Tube, and I had to revert it back to 1.3.2; after playing however I forgot to change it back to the snapshot. Without thinking I went to my World #2 and soon discovered my carrot farm was gone. After all that work and finally managing to get a carrot.

Thankfully I managed to get another carrot and with bonemeal stared again. In the meantime I decided I needed diamond tools again and needed a new place to mine them, and I found the perfect place. Since I started this world two years ago there is this hole in the ground, a cave not too far from the rear of my mountain home. It's on the way to the half-way house and although I have explored it I've not gone extensively in there. So I am turning this into a full mine:

I managed to find a few diamonds and have a few left over, I did lose my sword later but have enough to replace it. I also have back with about 2 & a bit stacks of Iron! i really needed some more anyway, and I founds loads as well as some more gold. Also I was gaining xp in my mob chamber and I saw an item drop, when I went round to check it out after it was clear and I got a potato! As you know it only takes 1 potato/carrot for a farm and with some bonemeal I now have a full potato farm! I now have lots of carrots, some bake potatoes as well as the new item pumpkin pie.

As of this post, the furniture in the new-look dinning room is installed, it's just the pictures to add once the bug glitch has been fixed. yesterday I also added the furniture in the patio area outside the back of said dinning room and decided to open the back entrance a little, mainly due to aesthetics and being equal on both sides. As a result I've tried to create a more "patio doors" kind of look with glass.

At the moment here is the current bucket list of things to do:

*Lower half wall decoration in dining room kitchen + fittings. (Started first one)
*Re-decorate library.
*Re-decorate Viewing area. (Water-window room)
*Start making potions After recently making lots of awkward potions. (Started)
*Finish changing walls to clay blocks in new stairs from living room extension
*Furniture for front room extension


Bigger projects in this world:
*Continue the digging underneath the bridge for my underwater glass tunnel for my Minecart railway.
*Completely flatten pub/tavern and rebuild in new style.
*Re-decorate the very long passage ways of the Emergency Exit tunnel!
*Finish re-decorating the art gallery one day! (If I even find materials I like!)
*Build big stone wall around Mount DOOOoooom 

I've also removed the mini en-suite kitchen in the bedroom, not really needed. Not sure what to put there though. Also moved the first couple of steps to downstairs from the bedroom over as it's safer.

The Three C's!: Coca Beans, Clay and Carrots!!

So lately I decided to turn on LAN mode on my world #2. I did this because, although I have a jungle tree farm I have no coca beans! *sad face. When you have an old Alpha world like mine, not only do you have to travel an extremely long way to find a new chunk with each version, but you have to travel an INSANE distance! So I turned on LAN so I could travel there and sure enough after a very long while I found a new jungle biome complete with coca beans. I picked about a stack of coca beans and when I got back, not only did I make cookies, I also dyed two white sheep for infinite brown wool and replanted some of the coca beans on my jungle trees for infinite coca!

Now if only I could just get a carrot and a potato from a zombie...

After crafting and filling up a diary, I made a new book for co-ordinates, so whilst at the jungle I took a screenshot of the co-ordinates so I could get back their easily, and return I did. Upon my return I went clay hunting and came back with about a dozen (maybe) stacks of clay blobs. I have built some stairs leading up from the extension off the front room, (formerly the mushroom farm) that now leads right up to the back lounge, a new route up to this room instead of via the bedroom! The first stairway down from the back lounge however, is clay blocks, hence all clay needed. It also means I can finish the outside walls of the bedroom converting it from cobblestone to brick.

As well as this, as mentioned in my latest video, an update video I cover the new entrance to the V.I.P. room as well as modernizing the decoration inside that room as well. Also talk about my fail attempts at recording a nether episode, I did get plenty of soul sand however for the lower half of the dinning room walls and plenty of Glowstone. All the walls are done, most of the lighting in the great dinning room re-decoration, as well as a great deal of progress on the new kitchen.

After a week, maybe two I still haven't got a potato or carrot of a zombie, but when I was looking for something else to do I decided to upgrade the doggy kennel, I never got that far. As I cleared my inventory I found I did have a carrot! The painterly [texture pack] website hasn't updated yet, so there's no texture for it right now. It doesn't even show as the default look just a blanks gap where a carrot (and item frames) should be. So I must of had it a little while and not even have noticed! I set about changing my farm, the old mushroom farms (Below the wheat farm outside) has been terra-formed  into the new farm for carrots (3 rows) and potatoes (5 rows.) A new secret door on the back wall facing the stairs you come down, now leads to the new mushroom farm.