Minecraft | 14 Must Know Starting Tips For Building a City

Today we are going to go over some must-know  building tips to help you improve your own towns   and villages in minecraft these tips are designed  more as a guide and should give you a better   insight when it comes to taking on such projects  when it comes to building it’s always best to  

Start from the ground up so today we’re going  to be taking a stroll around one of my favorite   builds where we can go over a few things that  i built and why i’ve done this and this should  

Hopefully give you a bit of a better understanding  about how i build and why i build things in a   certain way now like i said let’s start from the  ground up so we’re going to start with pathways  

Which are going to be one of the key foundations  that make up the majority of your build   these are so much more important than people often  realize because this is a point where we can not   only create a layout but also create sight  lines and the sight lines do play a huge role  

In the way you lay your town out now there are two  key elements here that i really want to discuss   more in depth and that is curves in the road and  elevations now curves in the road are going to  

Be essential for creating a little bit more of  an organic feel rather than everything feeling   so formal and straight because when everything is  formal and straight on a single straight path and   a sort of 90 degree angle bends everything is  gonna feel just too formal and it will quickly  

Become quite boring having a build up all on a  flat is to have the same effect because you’re not   going to really be able to create much in terms of  sight lines because you’ve got no elevations and  

No areas where the world is raised so that you’re  looking down on things so we need to create both   of these together in the right kind of manner so  it’s always good to create curves in a town so  

If you’re creating a road and you want to have a  curve just small curves even if it’s only weaving   slowly in and out just a small amount but just  enough to give you a little sort of hidden area  

Behind a turning so when you reach that corner  it will open up into a new area of the town it’s   also important at the same time to create a high  elevation so that you feel like you’re walking  

Uphill or downhill a little bit this will create  not only sort of more characteristics to the town   but you will find in certain areas where you  raise up into the town that you’ll be able to look  

Down in a certain area and get a big overview of  something or you might have another area where   you might come around the corner and you’ll  be facing a hill and your video out of clc  

Maybe the castle at the top of the hill or some  kind of build that will stand out this is just a   way of creating better sight lines and a better  layout in general creating more of a realistic  

Feel and creating that atmosphere that every town  really needs so first things first when it comes   to building anything and that is to make sure that  wherever you plan your roads or your walkways make  

Sure that you have a form of elevation and some  form of curves in place so that you can create   nice sort of little features in between everything  and create those sight lines that you really want  

Next up let’s talk about building in general so  this is going to be for the houses now one of   the common things that i see a lot of people do is  they build up an entire village or a town even a  

City and you’ll find that everything’s looks very  similar you’ll have very much the same sort of   height in roofs you’ll have very similar sort of  styles most of them will be the same kind of shape   just with maybe slight variations and you’ll find  that as you’re walking through the town everything  

Starts to feel very repetitive you know it don’t  feel like you’re really sort of moving into a new   area because everything just looks the same the  key here is to alternate the shapes you’re using  

If you’ve got one straight house in one place  why not put a house with a bit of an angle on   next to it then you could build another house in  a different sort of angle or different direction   make the roof higher add a towel add a  balcony add a little overhang with an  

Archway or something underneath it find a way  to make each build look unique and make it look   different from the last one in terms of shape  the shape is the main thing here and variety   is definitely the key now while you’re working  on variety it’s also good to try and keep in mind  

That what you want to build in the area because  we don’t want to fill this with just a bunch of   townhouses you know we want to have some kind  of theme plan a little area where you might have  

A high street or a shopping area where you might  have some shops or maybe some warehouses if you’re   building a medieval sort of style maybe another  area where you might have trades you know such   as a blacksmiths or maybe merchant ships coming  in that might be wanting to trade with your city  

Or something you know that has a form of trade  with it now while you’re doing that you also want   to think about different classes a lot of cities  will have higher class areas and lower class areas   so you might want to include some larger houses  and then another area where there’s smaller houses  

One particular thing that i like to do because  i think all of you know just how much i love   to build the docks and harbours and stuff like  that but what i like to do is i like to keep the  

Smaller houses to the front of a harbor because  the harbor is going to be the main point the main   view you know one of the main sort of lines that  you’ll be looking at when you’re sort of trying to  

Take a good view of everything that you’ve built  so i like to keep smaller houses towards the front   and then slope a hill upwards behind it so that  the next house is behind you can build a little  

Bit bigger you’ll start to see a bit more of  those and then a hill will slope up a bit more and   again you’ll get another sideline so what you’re  doing is you’re creating sort of pitched levels  

At different sort of tiers so you’ll be able to  see even though you’re far back you’ll still be   able to see those houses in the distance and then  at the top of the hill have your main feature that  

You want to build in this example the main feature  here is the castle in the background so as you can   see the castle stands out on top of everything  else it’s a big build above everything so  

It still gets that sort of uh point of view that  you can see from the docks while i’ve got the main   build at the top of my town and i’ve got all these  different areas and sections that i’m building  

You also want to try and think of any other type  of main structures you may want to build here so   keep in mind while you’re building all the sort  of type of buildings aside from your houses your  

Trades and your shops and stuff other just single  one-off buildings you might want to include this   could be something such as a church a cathedral  a watchtower a barracks you know something along   those kind of lines maybe a big lighthouse or  something of the source you know keep these  

Things in mind where you’re building them because  you want these to be placed in good locations that   where they’re sort of not stuck behind anything  and don’t get views you want them to sort of stand  

Out just a little bit above everything else so  make sure you have a little elevation so that that   build can be seen because if it’s a main feature  or a main building you want to make sure that it  

Towers above the smaller general houses because  this is a bigger build this is something that the   people are going to want to see and you’re going  to want to be able to see it across the town so  

Make sure that you choose a good location on an  elevation where it can be seen and it stands above   everything else one of the last things i want to  mention about buildings in general is if you find  

That things start to feel repetitive don’t feel  afraid to go back and change a building you know   if it’s not looking the way that you want then go  back remove it or edit parts of it that you don’t  

Like change it up until you’re happy with what  you’ve actually got because if there’s points   of the building that are not looking right  no matter how much you build then points are   always gonna bug you or at least they certainly  would for me now when i come to building these  

Large-scale builds i’m not gonna lie i can build  things break it build it again build it again   i can build it up to 10 or 15 times sometimes  because i’m very picky with the way that it looks  

So don’t think that you’ve got to get things right  the first time if you don’t like it go back and   make changes until you feel happy with it it’ll be  worth it in the end okay heading up another level  

Let’s talk about the roost now the roofs again are  just as important as the main builds if not more   important because these get seen in the skyline  they sit above the other builds in the distance  

So these are going to be seen a lot so you  want to make sure that you’ve got a good   variation in these you don’t want these  to all look the same as the one next to it  

A lot of times you’ll find the there’s not  always an easy way to make roost look very   different other than angles but there are  small little things you can do you can put   a tower on a roof for instance this will create a  different looking roof and certainly a different  

Height point as well having a roof where you’ve  got different levels where you might have a point   that sticks out make sure that sits a bit lower  than your main roof maybe have another roof that  

Just out of the side and make that a different  angle this way this gives you multiple sort of   roofs that are different angles different heights  and creates that nice sort of view in the distance   another thing to consider here are small features  in your roots what you can change up add in small  

Chimneys and making sure that the chimneys don’t  all look the same on every building that you have   them on make them vary to change the shape change  the angles change the blocks you’re using on them  

You know keep that variation there if you have a  sort of peak point of a roof make sure the roof is   different shapes so for instance across my builds  you’ll find i’ve got many sort of roofs that i’ve  

Made with just stairs i’ve got other ones that  are made of four blocks and they go up like one   block then two blocks then two blocks then two  blocks i’ve got some that are stair block stair  

Block stair block all the way up and then there’s  others that are done with slabs and some that are   made up with different angles try to create as  many different variants in the shapes and the   layouts and the styles of the roofs within  your build you can keep a consistent theme  

If you like with having some that are kind of  the same across the board but spacing them out   but dotting other ones all in between so that it  feels that you’ve got a mix so that when you’re  

Walking around the town it don’t feel like you’re  walking around the same place all the time you   want it to feel like there’s a little bit of  difference going on there’s a bit of a change  

And a bit of a different style so that it’s not  100 match because no city or no town is ever 100   perfectly matched throughout it there will be  sort of variations and change within the theme  

Now with that being said that leads me straight  on to the next big one which is colors colors are   so so important and this goes for the buildings  themselves the roofs and everything in between so   you want to make sure there is a bunch of  variation here because this is really going  

To make the town feel different from place to  place and make it feel less repetitive as you’re   walking through in the example you can see on the  docks i’ve got many different houses the bases for   instance of the bills the lower part of the house  i use different blocks we’ve used bricks we’ve  

Used stone we’ve used composters we’ve used bricks  we’ve used granite we’ve used wood we’ve used all   different types of woods in fact so there’s  many different bases around here just on the   bases alone the upper levels you can see we got  many variations in colors from whites to creams  

To browns to yellow tones to orange tones there’s  so many different colors and then again jumping   straight further up onto the roofs again look at  the variations we have in colors we’ve got grays   we’ve got browns we’ve got oranges greens we’ve  got reds there are so many different variations  

In colors here and this is what really brings  the place to life because there is no areas where   there is a big buildup of just one stuck color  we can see that it’s scattered throughout the   entire city and everywhere has a different sort  of look to it because we’ve got different colors  

It makes the builds feel like there’s different  looking areas and creates a nice bit of color to   the atmosphere you know if you have everything  just one color it’s gonna feel plain it’s gonna   feel boring and repetitive but adding in a bunch  of different colors creates a real variety and  

Really adds so much life to a town so make sure  you don’t use all the same colors for one build   no matter what you’re working in what style you’re  working in just find a way to make some form  

Of variation even if it’s just a small variation  because it will make a large difference in the end   next up is one i talk about all the time and that  is the small details because the small details  

Matter so much now for example this could be  something as simple as a texturing whether it be a   path a build a roof or something else just varying  some of the textures will make so much difference  

For example if you’ve got a stone pathway why not  add some stone bricks and some andesite this will   add so much texture to the flooring alone you can  even dot in some coaster or maybe even some dirt  

Path just to add a bit of variation and a little  bit of muddy patches to really make the area feel   sort of you know it’s been trodden or walked on  the same thing goes for walls of buildings or even  

Roofs of buildings if you’ve got a brick roof  why not add in some polished granite and some   granite to give that really sort of rough look to  it it really adds such a fine little bit of detail  

That really makes the build stand out find places  where you can add small details to you know little   things like if you’ve got a bunch of warehouses  why not add some stuff outside them that looks a  

Bit like storage such as barrels maybe some bricks  maybe you’ve got a sort of warehouse where they   store loads of bricks and stuff maybe it could  be a delivery of food like pumpkins make them  

You know stack them down in a little stack or some  melons you know if you’ve got a little house and   you’ve got a little area outside why not put a  workstation or something down to just make it  

Look like a little workhouse for the person that  lives there you know maybe you’ve got a large   area that’s sitting outside of a building and you  don’t know what to do with it why not use it for  

A bit of storage add some barrels maybe add some  logs and put some extinguished campfires on top   to make it look like some firewood you know just  find these little places where you can add details   even such things as such as hanging  lanterns or flower pots or leaves  

These little features are very small but they add  so much detail on life to a build so be sure to   go around and make sure you had plenty of them in  because they really will bring the place to life

Okay before i share this next one i’m gonna hold  my hands up and say i’m guilty but this one is   very important so add in interiors to all of your  buildings now there are many of my builds that i  

Haven’t added interiors to but i have done many  with interiors too and they make a huge difference   not only for yourself for exploring but also for  your friends if your friends are exploring it’s   nice that they can go into any building and  be able to explore and find different things  

Now if you’re struggling to find a use for a  particular build or you’re feeling like you’re   starting to do repetitive things and making  everything just look like a little house or   something why not sit back and try to make a  certain feature for each building make a use for  

It for example say you have a wheat farm why not  make a bakery and then underneath the bakery you   could make your wheat farm and then that way that  could be the place you go to always get your wheat  

You can make bread there or you can get the wheat  if you want to breed animals and so forth maybe   you could make a little flower shop and underneath  you could have a flower farm or how about a green  

Shop with cactus and bamboo you could make farms  underneath and have that as a place you go to get   those particular things it’s just a little way  of making a particular use of a building and  

Making it functional at the same time as a place  for you to go to get that particular resource   on the other hand if you’re just looking to add  a simple interior a good way to vary things up  

And to make it feel different is by adding  colors so if you make your builds big enough   you can make a two-layer wall which means on  the inside you can add a color so make it say  

A green terracotta wall or a red wall or you know  so many different colors you can choose from but   try making different colors inside those houses  to make each one feel a little bit different  

You know if one house you’ve used a lot of greens  and stuff maybe make the next house some reds   the next ones purples or blues you know make that  variation in color and that way each house you’re  

Going into even if the interior is very similar  the colors will make it feel very different now if you’re struggling with your interiors and  you need some inspiration then be sure to check   this video out here for a bunch of cool  ideas and i’ll catch you in the next one