How to play Build an Empire style Minecraft Survival 1.15.2

This is another flavor of Minecraft I play in Survival, by myself, or on multiplayer LAN.  If you are playing multiplayer you will have to make some considerations for destruction or anti-griefing.. but this game can be a challenge against yourself if you do not have others to play along.

The biggest thing is that you are expanding from your spawn point, not dying from monsters (much), and increasing resources from 'town' to 'town' as you build across the map.  And roads.  I build roads in all directions eventually, leading to each new 'town' with its own resources, mines, crops and animals.  Each village not only become self-sustaining, but also provides 'exports' to other villages of things it specializes in, or has been lucky enough to have a lot of in its area. 

For example, when you find a village with carrots and beetroot etc that is the time to send those 'exports' to the gardens of other 'towns' you have built, and bring some of their excess materials back to this 'town'.  It is kind of like the Spanish explorers bringing tomatoes back to Europe after finding them in the New World.

Be sure to light all new structures, as you can see there is a skeleton in the unfinished building in this town!  This town was lucky to have a black sheep that could be caught, and the black banners then get different dyes put on them that are available all around the building site.

Start with a single house and garden in each location, for survival.  Build up your tools, your food supplies (We're on MONSTERS mode, and we have to eat!), your bed, your mine etc.  Each additional house you build in the area gets a small stock of food, resources and tools, as well as the furnace, chest, minecraft table, doors, windows and bed. 

Why more than one building?  To make it a town.  To store more stuff.  If you were on Creative you could throw a few villager spawns in each one, but really - I just imagine that the more resources I can build up, the greater the buildings expand, crops, streets - and that town starts exporting colonists (me) to another location via another road, and building again.

Experiment with each 'town' having its own building style, and using natural resources from the area.  See how your own building style develops as you progress building your Empire.

 Some basic supplies in a chest

 A second garden in this town expanding more wheat, sweet berries and sugar cane.

Each town also gets a sign on its main building telling the name of  the town and its own banner motif to tell it apart from others.  In 15.1 you will need to kill a spider or two and build a loom - as well as have sheep and dyes, to make the banners.   The colors of the pattern should represent whatever sheep and dyes are available in that area.  This town was pretty rich to start - so each building got a copy of the banner.

 

As resources increase, the rooms get fancier, buildings might get taller or rebuilt, and specialty buildings like a town hall, library, blacksmith or magician might be built.  Really really rich areas might have a castle surrounded by several small peasant village homes.

 A castle being built with the resources from two towns

This town had three completed buildings after a week of Minecraft days since the 'colonists' moved from the main complex.   When I set off from the other complex I had some food, my tools and armor, 3 wool and some wood.  Everything else at this complex came from the land surrounding it.

The road from the original town, with an unfinished building three houses and the start of a tower.

The original town also had a pen full of sheep

The second town has a road continuing off into another biome, and ready to start again or continue to build in either one.  I might go finish the tower now, or add two more buildings to this one and a sheep pen before I continue on.

The nice thing about the Build an Empire style is that the road is endless, the accomplishments are what you decide on for yourself and over time, it rises and falls at each place.  Just imagine - what happens when a creeper destroys half your village?  Do you build again?  Do you make another colony?  Can you transfer your livestock between towns, or your riches to some central castle?

After a while, what is the history of your Empire?  There is one - you were there.  Form a story in an actual Minecraft book or signs saying what happened where and when, and come back later to read it.  In what year did the Illagers come and attack?  When did you build the cathedral with the stained glass?  When did you set off on your first ship across the ocean?  etc.

Biomes o Plenty 1.12

I really like to play this style of Minecraft in Biomes o Plenty as well, with HarvestCraft - except that it just keeps adding so many windy gardens and so forth that the landscape gets flooded (I've heard there is a settiug to town that down but then I hear there isn't...)   Biomes o Plenty really lends itself well becasue there are SO many different region-specific resources, and different kinds of food etc ..try really hard to get oyster sauce as an export good!  It takes so many ingredients it is difficult to even have one to put in an item frame - if you are doing it all on survival!

I had one game of this style that had more than twenty different towns , each with more to offer, different crops etc.  Eventually, when 1.13 came along, I tried to play this way there but it just wasn't as fun in Vanilla 1.13.  Now with 1.15 they have fixed a bit more with bees, fishing, turtles, ocean environments and more villager things that I have started to play vanilla again. 

some handicrafts

I could get the better camera, but these are not fancy things.  I've been knitting to keep my boredom and thoughts calm while I watch TV the past week or so - even before the panic really started with everyone and the coronavirus...

Esme stayed home from school.  I gave her the choice, as Benton county, McKenzie and Paris all shut down for the week but Huntingdon was holding out.  Everyone says Huntingdon will do it as well this week -- they have Spring Break next week but so did everyone else who closed.  I'll see what the news rolls in over the course of the day.

I made about eight washcloths (not all shown here) in cotton and linen.  They will be used in the bathtub and the kitchen sink, depending on the material and texture.  And I worked more on the lap blanket I began in December and finished it.  It was made of one huge skein of hot neon pink yarn and stripes of bits and bobs I had lying around.  It is very warm - but not much more than covering your lap while reading or knitting on the couch.

 picture is blurry, but they're already in the washing machine now, so this is what we got.  I found some really nice color combinations at Hobby Lobby the other day, and I also made up some plain cotton ones and some two-tone linen ones.

 this is a really bright neon pink Esme and/or Mark gave me for Christmas one year.. and there was so much of it I wasn't sure what to do.. so I broke it up with bits of other scraps in stripes.  I still have to weave in all the ends now - one bad thing about stripes!  It is very warm - sitting under it will half cook your feet.  Which, lately, is what we need.  It has been just so cold.

We doctored Minerva's eye yesterday, our sweet 'mama' dog who adopted Rex.  We couldn't find a cut or scrape either there or on her ears or neck or anywhere - but she had a bump near it and the eye was swelling  and weeping.  After a few hours the swelling had gone down.  This morning she looks almost better, just a little redness in that eye still.  I hope it stays okay now.  We bought a bit more medicine in Tractor Supply in case it starts up again after all this crazy is going on in the markets.

I am working on a green net market bag, that is coming close to getting to the top band and handle.  It has been sitting in my desk drawer for months at an odd stage .. something wasn't working.. I ripped it back last night and started it again, seems to be doing properly now.

Haven't been out to the garden today yet.. the cabbage seedlings seemed to do okay with their sun yesterday, no burning showing.  I picked up extra kale and mustard seed at the co-op while we were there picking up two bags of dog food. 

March 15th Square One Garden

 

5 eggs today, and some daffodils from a few days ago

The garden doesn't look like much right now.  I haven't tilled - I've barely cleared last year's dead grass and leaves and started to uncover the things that are there.  So, this is Square One.

In case you're wondering - the garden gets beautiful come May and June.  But it always has to start somewhere.  I love to look at the difference the months make.  It reminds me what is possible when I get out there and it looks like it does today.  Take a look at this 2014 garden post or the bounty in this 2012 produce post.  I'm looking at some more of that two-tone Zephyr squash.  It always did so well.

It is 43 degrees outside, and I am really feeling the itch to get away from this Coronavirus news and work in my garden.  I've been planting in my indoor greenhouse, but at some point I know the cold crops have to go OUT, and the garden needs to be cleared and tilled.  It is planning to rain all next week, too - which means it will be too wet to do anything.  It is a tough call between not getting sick with a normal cold and getting the garden out....

Although it is cold, I thought - I have these thermal clothes for riding in the post office route, so let's put them to work.  I took out the cabbage seedlings and pea seedlings to get some real sunlight for about 15 minutes.  Then I went out and cleared a few little bricked-in sections with the hoe.  I dug up a bit of soil from the base of some trees behind the garden and mixed it into the second pea area.  I did that last year as well, and ended up with some beautiful results.  I've planted peas already along the pole garden fence, just a few days ago before the rain.

 I did a very very minimal corn and beans garden last year, and a few tomatoes.  I put up this fence to keep the deer out of it.  It was a bad time last year - the deer and rabbits were eating almost anything they could find because the weather was just so fluctuating.  It is doing the same this Spring, as well, and I might have to makeshift measures again to keep them out.

I was looking through the garden the other morning and I scared two large deer nosing around the back fence.  They barked and ran away looking back at me like 'you're not supposed to be here yet!'

I also heard Canada Geese down at the lake, a mile down the road.  They were very noisy and I could hear them flying back and forth across the swamp to the dam and back again.  I will have to make some time to get down there and see what is going on soon.

 the goat and our chickens.  The chickens have really been enjoying all of the little bits of green I bring to them out of the garden.

 This is apparently kale that overwintered in my flower bed.  I have read that the flowers are edible, and it might also reseed itself if left to its own devices.  I'll just plant more kale around it.

 Hard to tell but this is the same beautiful area as in one of the posts above.  There is asparagus coming up in there, and lemon balm, and a stray daffodil that helps me know where the gladiolus is going to come up later.  I need to clear all of the bricks so they are visible and dig in the three beds that will be radishes and kale and cabbage, carrots and herbs.  I had a pepper plant and two tomato plants in here last year, as well.  It will look so much better after it is cleared and truly started on.

 the raised bed we planted with the Jones and Irene a few years ago.  I cleared out a lot of weeds out of the foreground one, and I know that lemon basil and purslane will grow in there as the weather gets warmer.  I usually put some cold crops in as well and a few carrots.  Last year I put six jalapeno plants and radishes in the very front area and had jalapenos all summer.

The back section also has strawberries and an Amish dianthus plant that Esme bought.  It has kept coming back as a perennial and has beautiful two-toned flowers.  I also had arugula and kale in there.

 the white daffodils with peach centers, and a bed I am digging to put Good King Henry and Sorrel in.

 the viburnum (snowball) bush.  The goat was munching on it the other day when she broke her string - but we got her repositioned away from it now.

pole garden where I have planted peas against the fence.

Almanac work today 

conditions: 43 degrees, light rain expected

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dug out round brick with fence in main garden (old snow pea fence), added forest soil

weeded one half of the raised bed

dug out and prepared new brick bed by white daffodils for sorrel

planted sorrel seed in six rows, 3 inches apart

transplanted cucumber seedlings in house, planted more seed

seed started lemon basil (1 pot) and red marrow squash (1 pot) and blue hubbard squash (1 pot)

tried to save garlic bulbs in indoor greenhouse, will see if they grow

aired cabbage seedlings outside for 15 minutes

planted clover seed over area outside chicken yard and in all walkways in the main garden

Almost Spring

 

I'm reading 'The Hidden Reality' by Brian Greene, and 'The Night Country' by Melissa Albert.  Both of them are just gorgeous books physically - metallic inks, iridescent covers... it is a treat for the sense to pick them up as well as to read the words.

Speaking of senses, I spoke about synesthesia with someone today and realized it is just so hard to explain it!  It would be comparing picking up this book and rubbing your fingers over the textured cover with the way German milk chocolate melts in your mouth, mixed with brass trumpets and cymbals and the feel of cold blue velvet crushing under your fingertips.  But how to you explain the ability to combine those ideas into a shared experience with someone?  I mentioned the movie Ratatouille, where Remy is telling his brother Emil about the combination of flavors in cooking being like light and sound and bumpy vs sharp blobs merging into one different thing... that is about the best I can explain it.  I feel very specific combinations often - one thing suggests two others etc.. but sometimes it really is completely indescribable.

 cabbage plants starting to get their second set of leaves .. I am wondering if they need fertilizer or if it is just the light levels... they are not progressing as fast as usual since their last stage

Also discussed that a lot of people are going to be trying to self-isolate and grow their own food and so forth after this virus scare.  It might be even more than that - we might go 'back to the land' etc as a society.  I don't know.  It takes time and resources and skills - and for me, the biggest part of that is Time.  You don't just step into a self-sustaining lifestyle.  It builds up over time, each thing in its season, learning as you go.  And at the very best, you have people living near each other who each are good generalists abut also specialists in their own things, herbs, wool, soap, meat animals, wild game... every single person can't have all the tools and knowledge and structure in place for everything at all times...

A garden doesn't begin to produce food until it has been planted at least a month.  Even radishes and kale and lettuce take about that long, and you need to keep resowing seed to keep the harvest coming.  If after a month you get distracted, and go elsewhere, the harvest goes unused.  If you can't wait a month before you need the supplies - you will have to find other things to do to meet your needs.  Corn and beans and tomatoes take time and planning as well.  And then there is preserving the harvest, and collecting enough good seed to plant for the next year.

People can start to learn the skills of planting seeds, hunting and fishing and recycling/repurposing things but during a health scare is not the time to expect instant results from it.  It is going to take continual gradual work to build up a life that is sustainable.  Even if you buy full grown chickens and cows and goats so forth, it takes time to get the skills to trust and produce food from those items.  Chickens lay eggs, goats give milk after having kids, etc.  It also takes fencing, housing, feed for the animals (where will that come if the feed store isn't accessible?) and favorable weather - starting each thing at the right time of year for it - not frozen or baking temperatures.  Your animals and gardens need water, as well.  There is just so much to think about in preparing.

Esme and I have been using recycled containers for a few weeks now to plant seeds to start for the garden.  It is more fun for her than just having pots available - because once she eats a yogurt, or I finish a bottle of tea I make it into a pot - and then it is 'what should go in THIS one?'  She planted lemon basil in hers today, and I planted marigolds in mine.  That way the container gets a second life, even though they don't recycle plastic at our center.

Mark had to take a picture of me making a liverwurst sandwih the other day, because he still can't believe people actually eat the stuff at all.  It's a Minnesota thing, and I only get the craving once in a while. We are making roasted pork loin tonight with potatoes and rolls - and got the idea for each of us to create our own spice rub.  I crushed fennel seeds and mixed it with garlic and onion powder and pepper for mine.  Mark used his 'dragon spice' ginger rub on his, as always.  Esme asked for onion powder and pepper for hers (and I threw some garlic in too because the onion powder is so strong I didn't want to use so much of it.)  We each get a different flavor experience in the same meal.  That's pretty neat!

bit

I planted the Wando peas today out by the pole garden fence, before the storm. I did not water them, and it was mostly wind and not rain - so I will have to bring a bucket out there tomorrow to water it down good.  The ground was a  bit cool to the touch, but some lukewarm water will help, and the air temperatures have been getting higher, which is good.  It was supposed to rain all day yesterday and today.. the ground was slightly wet, but not a lot.

The rose and the viburnum are starting to get new leaves.  The hollyhocks have come back up, as have the strawberries, the lemon balm and the lambs ear. 

I would like to dig out and plant the sorrel  - check ground temp info on that and I also don't want it to wash away as the seeds are so very small.  Green onions, and broccoli or kale, as well.  The thing growing in the garden leftover from last year has tiny little seeds on the top like I saw in the broccoli article... but it is a kale or something.

There was some asparagus today!  It is starting to come up.. and it is slightly purple?

Peaches and peach daffodils

 Our peach-centered daffodils are looking more like orange - I am wondering if that is because they just opened?  The yellow ones have been open for weeks, but these are always late risers.

The peach trees are blossoming, as well - and the red globe variety was attracting a lot of bees.  I caught one of them sitting still enough to get the tiny details on its wings.  The larger pink blossoms are 'Loring' variety.

I took a look at the plum tree and it is not entirely dead - there are tiny bits of green here and there but it will be a while before I see any leaves from it, or buds, the same with the black cherry tree.

There are hyacinths and lambs ear showing, and I am hoping to have a few days this week to get out there in the sunshine and clear beds and put in some cold crops.  I've started some cabbage and tomato and pea seedlings inside, and am ready to plan what can be done this year.