This is basically because I found 1400 blocks of jade in an island near here - and well, what do you do with that much jade? The pyramid was built over a cavern entrance and still didn't use up even half of my new stash of jade. So, I started seeing what else I could make with the blocks.
They are sort of like ziggurats, more than pyramids - but the little house ones were an interesting puzzle to solve. I had never had REASON to make glass stairs before, but having seen some in a loot chest a while back, I had a light bulb that they could work really well to put a window in each of these little houses.
Aspen farming : when you don't have enough trees, similar to this that had been a treeless plain full of vegetable plants and animals - aspens are a great go to. Each one will drop 2 to 6 saplings, more likely 4 to 6. Acacias are pretty prolific, as well, but a bit harder to plant near each other as they spread out more. Cherry (sakura) trees also have that sideways sprawl. Aspens grow most always straight up, and only require about 4 to 6 spaces between them to drop full saplings when you cut them down. (no leaf overlap, which can cause problems with some trees). Silver birch trees grow straight up, and quite tall, but the leaf overlap means you might have to cut down three or four of them before they begin to drop their leaves into saplings. Fir trees are a great wood type - and drop lots and lots of saplings, but the trees only have 2 to 3 blocks of wood in each one so you have to really want fir wood as your material. Lemon, orange and banana trees do not grow well in some biomes. You can quickly turn an area into a forest if you work at it with the right kind of saplings, and have plenty of wood for any project that you might need, pick axe handles, torches, bean and grape supports etc etc. Since there had been no wood in this location when I arrived - I made the house here with dirt, and a willow wood roof that I had left over blocks from the last place.
Island life and the living is easy...
I kept passing these three little islands grouped together, and the largest of the three had a lot of minerals showing all over the sides of it as I zoomed around it in my boat. This was a mid-point between four other places, so eventually I gave it a name and a spire with the directions indicated just so I could remember that yes- this is the place. Then I saw the minerals, and pulled the 1400 blocks of jade out of just one of the sides of the caverns - along with seven other minerals in different amounts, and there is even more in there.
I made a little 'island life and the living is easy - the sea is full of fish' base and decided it didn't even need a full house - just a roof and a small garden.
How the spire mapping system works :
When you get to a really interesting place it gets a spire, 4 to 12 blocks high, with a torch on top hopefully, and then a sign with a unique name on it. The sign on the spire that faces the actual feature, where a house might be built, has the name of the place on it.. for example 'Shurl Island'. The sign on the opposite side says both the name of the place and 'cross (Place)' with the name for the place that is exactly opposite. IE: If you see the sign, turn around and go straight in the other direction - you end up in Place. And of course, the other two sides of the spire are also 'cross (Place)' for where you would end up if you walked / boated in that direction.
Building an actual road between the places is the best - but sometimes the terrain is such that you cannot easily build roads and bridges, or you do not have enough resources to build a road between two good points but still need a good way of navigating a long distance between them. This spire system helps you not get completely and totally lost while exploring the known Universe - everything has some sort of constellation relation to each other like breadcrumbs, and you can track your way back or realize you've somehow gone in a circle. Some spires have all directions marked with 'cross' as well as the location name - and it gets really useful when you do lose your way and have no idea where you are, but then pass a cliffside with a spire on it that was founded on the other side. Ah, that is where I am - but how did I get here? And then you can complete the circles and know how to get from one place to another easier.
In this world, I came across blindly from three different established places and hit the same long narrow island with jungle trees. I did not know that the Tidaris island was so large - and had started two different houses with small farms and mines. But, because I had a spire with a torch on top in the second location - I saw it when I climbed up the roof on the other house and was able to realize that it was all the same place, and yet, still large enough for both locations to exist (one with a good mountain to mine and harbor straight across from the city, the other with resources of bamboo and clay and a flat inland route that led through to another biome).
Some places will also have signs with arrows that indicate a string of places that are in that direction, in the order of appearance. This particular world has maybe seventy named places, not all of them with full towns and gardens in them. This little island itself was a rarity in that it was a named place for a very long time, that I came through often, but had not seen any reason to settle it - until I saw inside one of the caves on the back island and saw a whole shelf of blue covelite (which looks like lapis lazuli). Then I saw a jut of purple sygilite, and some silver sand (which makes lovely silver sandstone), and the jade, and blue limestone and a wall of coal and a wall of shale etc etc..