How to Find and Raid Ancient Cities in Minecraft 1.20

Minecraft 1.19 has added ancient cities now one  of the largest generated structures but also being   one of the most dangerous so here’s how to find  and raid them so ancient cities only generate in  

One biome and that is the deep dark the deep dark  only spawns in one place and that is in areas of   low erosion so that basically translates to the  deep dark is always underneath mountain biomes   and so because of that generally among the  largest peaks and between the mountains you  

Will find ancient cities so for instance  right here if we go down this cave   and basically keep going lower while staying  directly underneath the mountain biomes   we’ll see right down here that the normal terrain  turns into skulk and then from there if we go even  

Lower down we will find ourselves an ancient city  and this ancient city is incredibly low down if we   dig down here you’ll see we’ll get to bedrock very  very quickly just over here and so basically when  

A ancient city generates it’ll only ever generate  at one y level and that is y negative 52 of course   that is the lowest part of this area is y negative  52 but because of that from this area and upwards  

Is the ancient city and you’ll never have one of  these lower down or higher up in terms of y level   now if you are in the deep dark biome especially  under a large group of mountains you will find  

Many ancient cities you’ll notice this ancient  city generated right next to this one over here   you see each ancient city only has one of these  central areas that sort of looks like a portal  

And you’ll see this one here is right over next to  that one there with no real barrier in between and   i’ve actually found ones where there’s up to four  ancient cities that just generate in one massive   area and so if you’re underneath a mountain biome  basically a hundred percent chance you’ll run  

Into one of these so it’s as easy as mining down  to negative 51 negative 52 something like that   and just going forward until you find one of these  underneath the mountain biome so what actually   generates in the ancient cities there’s always one  central structure and they always look something  

Like this now this does sort of look like a portal  but it also looks like the warden’s head a little   bit with these sort of ear like shapes on the  sides and a big open mouth so it’s hard to say if  

Mojang will actually ever turn this into a portal  or just keep this as sort of a massive monument to   the warden underneath this massive structure we  just go underneath it which we can actually open   up with the skulk sensors here there are some  secret redstone doors if we go down under here  

You’ll notice there is a redstone room i actually  really like this because something that minecraft   lacks a little bit of is showing players how  to play the game without just having to look up   everything and of course i always like providing  tutorials for everyone it’s also nice to see that  

Minecraft is showing the players in the game how  to do some different redstone functionalities so   for instance this right here is like an and gate  there are some different logic gates in here and   redstone functionalities over here for instance  we learn about how the target block can power  

The piston and this redstone block will power  this lantern here and over here we can see how   the lectern will power a redstone lamp as well  there’s also some other things we learn over   here for instance that power cannot go through  glass but it can go through solid blocks and  

There are several different types of these that  can spawn some with more interesting redstone   configurations some with less interesting and  these are always directly underneath the portal   there now if these don’t end up opening up for  you you can always just break basically anything  

Here and this will just lead you right down into  the redstone room if we go like this and there’s   always this interesting soul fire that generates  at three blocks deep underneath the portal here   so it definitely does signify there’s something  special here eventually but certainly nothing  

We’ll see into 1.19 now around that are these sort  of barricades with the wool blocks here if you   walk on wool blocks it makes the wardens not get  after you and i’ll go into that a little bit later  

But overall we can see the entire ancient city  has the look of an abandoned structure sort of   like a giant fortress what i actually really like  about this is the fact that certain parts of this   generation remind me of pillager outposts and  woodland mansions for instance this here basically  

Looks identical to the top part of the pillager  outpost just smaller and also if we look around   here but we may find a wool room and in this wool  storage room they store the exact types of wool  

That are stored by the vindicators in the woodland  mansion and so i believe this is meant to lead the   player to believe that this structure was built by  the pillagers and then later abandoned by them and   throughout it we can find different things like  ruined treasure rooms with some good treasure  

Inside there is the icebox room which is right  over here and this actually has a unique loot   chest if we go in here you’ll see we can go right  in here and see there’s all kinds of ice down here  

And also some loot down in there very interesting  room here overall and it also is kind of doing   that redstone teaching thing as well as having  some note blocks here where you go into there   overall i’m not sure exactly what mojang’s idea  was with this but certainly the deep dark seems  

To be a place to learn redstone functionalities  at but unfortunately it’s not quite as peaceful   as that as also throughout the ancient cities we  have the skulk shrieker spawn in now there’s no   hostile mobs that can generate in the ancient  cities or the deep dark biome except for the  

Warden and of course if the sculk shrieker is  triggered three times in a row we will get the   warden so i’d be very careful with that and that’s  basically what makes a structure super dangerous   is the fact of the wardens being here now what  exact treasure is actually in the ancient cities  

Well if we open up some of the chests here there’s  two different types of ancient city loot there’s   the first type which is basically a generalized  mix of a bunch of different item types this can  

Have a lot of variation of what you actually get  so for instance here there are soul torches a lead   a candle some coal some skulk and some amethyst  shard just be aware in opening these that wardens  

Can generate in sometimes to look at another  couple chests here you can see this one here has   the other side music discs some skulk catalysts  a potion of regeneration bones skulk sensors and   this disc fragment and basically the disc fragment  here is a special item you get in these chests  

If you look in here we might see another special  item so there is the other side music disc there   is also the swift sneak books here and just be  careful here because of course this is not the way  

To loot this i’ll go into looting it in a second  here because this warden would kill you if you   were not in creative and so we can basically get  ourselves some enchanted diamond leggings as well   and basically any enchanted book but specifically  you can also get the swift sneak books in fact  

This is the only place to get the swift sneak  enchantment now you can see in this chest right   here there’s more discs fragments you can also see  there is diamond horse armor glowberries bottles   of enchanting name tags and overall a really  good variety of items but all those come from  

The exact same loot configuration and this can  also have these skull catalysts in it and if you   see right here it can have echo shards as well as  enchanted diamond hoes i like how these items are   really relating to the deep dark for instance  the hoe helps you mine the skulk the fastest  

And the leggings of course are for the swift sneak  enchantment now basically what the echo shards and   the disc fragments are for which you only find in  the ancient cities by the way are for two really  

Interesting new items in minecraft 1.19 so if you  put nine disk fragments in the crafting table like   this you will get a brand new music disk this  is the only new music disc of the update but  

Definitely an awesome one and if we play it  it basically is very similar to the 11 music   disc and i won’t play all of that because it’s not  incredibly um melodic but there’s some interesting  

Story and lure behind that if you listen to it it  definitely has a story behind it much like the 11   disc now what are the echo shards for well the  echo shards can be used to make a brand new item  

You see if we surround a compass in echo shirts  and actually not like this but we’ll surround it   all around like this we get a recovery compass  i like how they made the texture very different   from the music disc here because these actually  look slightly similar and basically what the  

Recovery compass does it’ll point you into the  direction of where you died last now of course i   haven’t died yet on here but when i do die they  will show me the direction that that is and of  

Course the use of this especially in the ancient  city as it will probably die a lot and so this   will point to where you die although unfortunately  this item is completely useless in hardcore mode   still a very cool texture and something super  important because sometimes it’s hard to find  

Where your items are overall a bit of a niche  item but definitely something nice to craft that’s   also the only use of the echo shards although  they may add more uses to those in the future   and so those are generally the types of things  that you get in the ancient city loot chests  

Now there’s one other type of chest you find here  which is the ice box chest that generates in the   ice box structure there’s one right over here  we’ll go down into it and if we basically go down  

Here you’ll notice there’s always a chest under  here and in it is a special loot table as well   including things like packed ice baked  potatoes golden carrots and suspicious stew   this is sort of meant to be like a little room  to refill on supplies i have no idea why they’re  

Storing ice here it’ll probably come out later in  some new update or some new lure of why there’s   ice hidden down here or maybe it’ll always be a  secret sort of like the secret of why pillagers  

Are having wool being stored here as well as at  the woodland mansion so that is the loot that   you find at the ancient city so now that you know  about the ancient city and how it generates how do   you actually loot the structure without spawning  in the warden and getting instantly killed  

Well i’m going to show you how to do that right  now so what do you need to bring to raid the   ancient cities well it’s all right here you want  to bring some projectiles you could use arrows  

But i would generally suggest eggs as when it  spawns in a chicken that can distract the warden   also you want some potions of instant health  some swiftness potions if you can get them you   can either do speed two or speed one whatever you  like i would definitely suggest some milk buckets  

Some shulker boxes an ender chest a bed to set  your spawn point elytra and fireworks to get away   from the warden quickly also a fortune hoe and a  pickaxe this can actually be silk touch as well  

In fact silk touch is probably better because you  can pick up the items with that and the pickaxe   and the hoe will enable you to break through some  of these ancient city blocks safely you want a bow  

With power five on it as well as some spectral  arrows if you can of course if you’re in bedrock   some standard arrows and last but not least you  want some potions of night vision now of course  

With the potions of night vision when you drink  it you can actually see the entire ancient city as   it’s so incredibly dark it’s definitely important  to bring that with you and overall i would suggest   getting as many of these items as possible and i  would definitely suggest setting your spawn point  

Here and to never raid the ancient city before  you have elytra because they’ll definitely enable   you to get away from the warden very quickly  which is vital when trying to not be killed by   it so the most important thing when raiding the  ancient city is to go very slowly and to also not  

Upset any of the shriekers or the skulk sensors  because the only real way of doing this is to   crouch the entire time i would potentially suggest  going to options going to controls and changing   your sneak to toggle then you can just toggle  the sneak key and even jumping up blocks here  

You can stay crouching here which is incredibly  useful if you’re raiding the ancient city as it   enables you to be safe without having to touch  that shift key anymore you just go kind of slowly   the idea behind this is you want to get all the  treasure without getting killed by the shriekers  

Now in certain scenarios like this with a whole  bunch of shriekers and things around it you’re   basically going to have a very hard time raiding  this something i forgot you want to have as well  

Is a bunch of wool blocks now you can always just  mine these out of the ancient city but having   this is vital to raiding it effectively so in an  area like this how would you actually get that   treasure safely well basically just block up the  skulk sensors here because placing and breaking  

Wool blocks does not count as a sound that these  skulk shriekers pick up on you can just surround   them in the wool blocks here because wool blocks  absorb the sounds of the skulk shriekers here   so you can make yourself safer from that and they  kind of protect whatever angle that they’re facing  

So for instance if we wanted to get loot from  this chest here something we could actually do   is we could surround it in some wool like this  even just put wool basically all around the chest  

That there’s just a layer of wool whatever area  could have sound escape from if you kind of think   of it like that then if we go in here and grab  that treasure it actually should not alert any of  

These skull shriekers then if we look in here and  grab that treasure you’ll notice it didn’t alert   any of these skull shriekers there because the  wool here is blocking the angle from the sensors   now of course skulk shriekers themselves do  not have the powers to see items outside of  

Just stepping on them but the skulk sensors  do and so you want to be careful about the   skulk sensors more than the shriekers as  the skulk sensors are the most dangerous   and interestingly enough what you can actually do  if you’re sure that no sensors will pick up on it  

Is you can surround these shriekers break these  shriekers with let’s say your hoe as it’s the   quickest of course right there we broke a block  underneath it so now we’re gonna have our warning   level go up one so you want to be incredibly  incredibly careful to not do that very much  

As the warning level takes ten minutes to go  down by one if it gets to level three then you   will have a warden spawn in which is incredibly  dangerous now again here we’ll just surround   this in wool from every angle that we think  could potentially have sound come out of it  

Like for instance something like this will  probably be fine we can open this up here   but you saw here it actually did alert that one  down there thankfully there’s no shriekers within   range but you want to be really careful about that  you can never do it perfectly that can always be a  

Good technique to grab the items out of here now  something you do want to do is break as many of   these skulk shriekers as possible without alerting  any of the sensors because once these skulk   shriekers are gone in an ancient city then the  ancient city is completely a peaceful mode area  

If you saw right there actually stepped on the  shrieker it’ll also make it alert a warden you see   the warden approached one more time there so the  third time one of these things is alerted then a  

Warden will probably spawn in which is incredibly  dangerous and we want to avoid now the point of   the shulker boxes here are so that you can grab  your items from the chest that you’ve looted   and safely store them away without any issues  now let’s say we’ve grabbed some loot right there  

We want to get to a safeish area we’ll just go to  an area where we do not see any of the shriekers   anywhere nearby so for instance this area looks  completely fine of course it might not be but  

We’ll find out right now it was completely fine  yep we can just put all of our items in here that   we do not want to get lost so we’ll put let’s  say our coal in here and these different items  

Then we’ll grab out the ender chest place it  right there this is why you want the silk touch   pickaxe we’ll put the shulker box in there break  the ender chest and those items are completely   safe even if we’re killed by the warden as if  you want to completely raid an entire ancient  

City it is very likely that you’ll get killed by  the warden multiple times now to make crouching   around this entire ancient city be a little bit  quicker you can always drink a speed potion but   something that’ll help even more than a speed  potion is a swift sneak pair of leggings which  

You can occasionally find in the ancient cities  here what you can also find is you can find a   book of swift sneak and you can put that on any  pair of leggings that you want also if you are  

Eating any sound like eating a carrot that could  alert the shriekers will not be sent if you are   crouching down now certain of these structures are  really easy to raid and that’s one of the reasons  

Why you want to bring these wool blocks is so that  you can pile up without any real danger of dying   unless you just fall off the structure like i just  did there you’ll notice i didn’t say you needed to  

Bring any armor for this and you basically don’t  because there’s no real direct attacks you get   other than that of the warden and most of the  wardens attacks do not count your armor anyway  

Now i’m going to grab out what’s in this box  right here and you can see this one had a book   of piercing swift sneak 2 and the fire aspect and  overall just a lot of good stuff and of course up  

Here we could store that back into our ender chest  for safe keeping and you’ll basically just proceed   to go through the entire ancient city grabbing as  much treasure as you can trying to block up those  

Shriekers and have them not see that you are  there now of course that’s fine if you do not   alert any shriekers but it is very likely that you  will and so i will show you what to do if you do  

Have that happen so that you do not instantly die  from the incredibly dangerous warden and a warden   just summoned in right here and usually we would  be dead but i’m not worried at all because i have  

The elytra on here so you can simply fly away from  it i basically sort of fly up and try and glide   away from its position something like this is even  fine as long as you’re a little bit over 20 blocks  

Away from it it won’t really try and come and get  you now it can track the player from a pretty long   distance but once you’re about 20 blocks away  there’s no direct attacks it can do actually  

Just flying around the ancient city here we can  fly incredibly close to the warden and it won’t   really pick up on where we are and we can fly  throughout all of here and just be completely safe  

From any warden that might try and get us and so  generally that’s how you escape from a warden and   because it wasn’t really triggered by anything you  can just wait until that despawn 60 seconds later   come back to the area and continue on with raiding  it and really raiding ancient cities that way  

They become much easier especially since if you  don’t care about the warden too much you can go   over to a let’s say really good area to get loot  from maybe an area with a lot of the shriekers  

Just of course being careful that the wardens  despawn by then so for instance if we go to   an area like this it’s very dangerous you can try  and destroy as many of these shriekers as possible  

Before the warden comes in once the warden does  come in and we can just finish up destroying these   we can fly out of the area before it’s too deadly  even just getting somewhat far away is good enough  

Just be aware that the warden can smell you out  if you are too close to it and if you want to know   some more information about how to actually kill  the warden and some other techniques to avoid them  

Or to trap them when you’re in the ancient cities  i have a video all about wardens and there’s an   icard on the screen right now if you check that  out that’ll definitely help you in raiding the  

Ancient city as well also if you walk on the wool  blocks these sounds of your feet are not picked   up by these skulk sensors there that’s also a good  tip to know if you are having issues with that and  

These long corridors can be great just be aware  the warden can go through them if you want to   stop the warden from going through these go like  this just be aware some of its attacks like the   sonic charge can still definitely get you through  blocks anyway that is how you raid the ancient  

City and get tons of loot hopefully you enjoyed  this video and i’ll see in the next one goodbye