Dungeons and Colonies 10 Part2

I'm on a boat #$%)$*%*$#$

Remember last time?  Well if you don't, go find part 1.  I fight no less than 10 pirates on the deck of the ship.  The masts are tall and there is no real place to retreat for shelter... except back down a deck.  I put a pile of wood on the steps, take a breather, eat one of the Captain's Golden Apples, and then head back up for more fighting!

I climb the mast, and at the top find a pirate that I knock back using a rushing attack, and sure enough he backflips over the rails and falls to his death.  This boat has an extremely tall crow's nest, and I am surprised they have not spotted my windmill from here.  In retrospect maybe I should not have built a windmill till I had the pirate problem in hand... anyways.  Just one more pirate to go.

The Captain stares at me, daring me to open the door.  Diamond axe and shield in hand, and look at that life meter above his head(I can break the 4th wall, Deadpool made it ok, even cool, to break the 4th wall).  I open the door and he rushes out!

We fight all over the deck.  He is quick, but his shield slows him down.  I get bow and arrow out to keep my distance, but I run out of arrows.  I break a sword on his shield, and still we fight.  The fighting goes on, even into the twilight hours as the sun starts to set.  I knock some wood over into his way... but he disappears in a BAMF of smoke.  Where did he go??   BEHIND ME!  He knocks me out a couple of times, but I come back with my stockpiled weapons I got from his underlings and the epic fights with only one man victorious, Skypp!.  

A peak at the loot and we now see how he was able to teleport.  There were 15 eyes of Ender in the Captain's personal chest.  When you use these, you teleport across the world to wherever they land.  Also he had a record.  I have no record player, so I do not yet know the music he enjoyed.  Music lover or not, he was a pirate, and apparently plundered enough to make over 16 golden apples of the highest quality.  I also came away with 18 gold pirate teeth, and a stack of iron bars from the brig.  Inside the Captain's quarters I find a note: "I will be taking the my expeditionary ship to shore and staying for a few days.  Do not let your men get into my stash of Eyes of Ender, my research needs those and our investor will be much displeased, as they come at great cost".  Whatever...

Now what to do with this boat?  It is larger than the Gullwing, even though it is made much more clumsily and not nearly as beautiful.  For a minute I consider flying this boat to the moon somehow...  but decide that it has caused enough disaster and was in too bad a shape to ever really be useful.  So I give her to the sea

I stay on shore and spend the night watching her go down to the depths.  At daylight I will return to my Colony and take several days rest to recover.  My Colony will be safe from these particularly nasty pirates, but it makes me think about what else could happen.  Other pirates could come by, and what about that note?

Dungeons and Colonie's 9

The Jim Robinson's Project

Jim and I looked at our town and said "we need to make this better".  Jim decided he did not want to just copy the old Town Hall, he wanted to make it better.  I gave him the go ahead and the materials to let him do that.  Meanwhile, I noticed Robert was at home.

He had trained quite a collection of hunter dogs for use on his nightly romps through the forest.  I decided that I could do something for him and his "family".

I made some fences, a gate, and a little shelter.   Now his house has a kennel attached to it for him to keep his dogs in at night.  Jennifer Taylor certainly thought I did a good job, she is happy about it.

Next, Jim finished the Town Hall, but I thought I would get to work on making the Town Square look a little better.  I was happy with the results.  The town is still debating on what we'll have in the square, I was thinking of saving the space for merchant shops for when we make products to sell.

With Jim doing such great work, I decided that we should upgrade our woodworking potential of the colony.  Jim and his bro-in-law, Chris Jackson, have been working overtime to get us the colony we all deserve.  It seems only natural to give them the kind of work space they need.  So I authorized the construction of a carpentry workshop, and a upgraded lumber shed, complete with a new set of steel axes.

Next I set out to expand the cliff area near the bakery.  The town will need lots of wool, so I thought I would make a pen to keep some sheep in.  I fenced in the newly filled and blocked up cliff, then went in search for sheep.  I got a long line of them, but due to the wolves in the area, I only got a couple back.  Still that's enough to start a fam.... ?

 

what?  Robert?  WTF ROBERT

Not cool bro!  How am I supposed to keep farm animals if my hunters always kill them??  I already did double fencing to make sure the wives don't mistake them for food, and well... Hunters have bows.  Dammit

Well I'll have to think of a way to keep farms.  Wives killing animals and Hunters killing what the Wives leave alive is a serious problem with this mod.

Here's the town after the rearranging and upgrading.

S.

Dungeons and Colonies 04

Something Worth Fighting For.

My colonists and I are trying to make a new life in a new land.  The revelation that mysterious ships are sailing near us made me realize that we could possibly die to raiders, monsters, or any number of maladies.  We were just a cluster of hovels not too long ago, so if I expect my people to protect what we have, then we should make it something we are proud of.  Right now, I can personally get enough food that my people are satisfied.  The problem is that if I were to go, would my people be able to survive?  No.  They would not even have enough food stocked to get back on The Gullwing and sail home.

My next projects are separated into two sections.  The Seaside area and the Forest Development.  I started rudimentary clearing toward the forest area where our lumberjack is situated.  The hill is being cut back, and my plan is to have a terraced rise in ground level, where new homes and businesses will be built.  That is secondary for now.  Right now it seems right to expand our seaside cliff for a new purpose.

I built a sheer stone wall, almost eliminating our beach on that side.  This actually serves as defense to the town.  A sheer wall will be an obstacle to invasion, and the lack of landing area makes it harder to amass raiders in a vulnerable spot.  This also creates more land for us to use for cultivation of crops.  Speaking of crops, we need something to do with them.  One of our farmers volunteered to be our new baker.  With a new baker, we now need a bakery.

Situated away from trees and on the coast to maximize airflow, our new bakery is also part mill.  I also built it a little higher than the land near it so that it could reach the higher winds.  Joseph Jones is our baker, and he will take the wheat from the farmer and turn it into loaves of bread.  I will have to dispense this to homes until we set up a warehouse.

A little look at the game mechanics.  Before a colonist can get a job, they must get a citizen chest.  So if you have a particular fondness for a named colonist being a certain job, be sure to only move job chests one at a time.  This is what I did when I destroyed the farmer chest and moved it into a new location, closer to the bakery.

After moving him over, I proceeded to tear down the original farm structures.  I'm going to make an more efficient use of the land in this area by creating a long rectangular farm, with fences to protect it from random animals.  I will have to tend this part of the land, as Farmer Smith will only tend to his own area near the bakery.  It will also look very nice to have more of a "lake" of wheat than some old wood.

Our seaside area is starting to look much more pretty, and actually gaining much more use as well.  I need to create some pasture land for the raising of animals.  While being able to have pork and beef would be great, the primary usage will be for sheep.  The wool is needed for clothing, repairing any windmill sails, and also several other buildings we will want to make will use wool as well.

I am also finding myself bonding with my colonists.  With each 4 of the workers having separate jobs now, I can easily identify who I am seeing while doing work.  On the way back to the ship, I pass and greet them.  I may do a blog post to feature each of them.

S.

Dungeons and Colonies Chapter 3

Threats.

My colony, which is still as yet unnamed, is growing.  I am starting to bond with the workers in my town, and look at ways to improve their quality of life.  Unfortunately I still have the memory of whatever that giant rainbow faced ape-thing out there in the forests.  There are threats to my community, and I am the one expected to protect my colonists from them.  I set out, not to eliminate threats just yet, but to find out and record where these threats are.  In the future I'll make sure to neutralize them, but right now I just want to make sure my colony does not get built closer and closer to any big ones.

See that?  That looks like a threat to me.  This hole goes way down into the earth and it is way too close to my colony, all sorts of things could come out of that and hurt my people.  So I go exploring.  At the bottom I find lots of little caves and tunnels and most of them end in dead ends, but then:

An abandoned Mineshaft!  I typically like these.  They are good sources for free rail track, and usually contain many minerals along the walls that I can harvest and bring back to my colony.  They have been asking for some Lapis jewelry lately, and I could always use some more iron pickaxes.  As I get closer, this one seems a little different than the ones I've seen before.  Looking down the railway it looks bigger and wider.  Then suddenly a cart comes racing down the track.  This was not the usual abandoned mine, this was a "Better Dungeons" abandoned mine.  As the cart gets closer a puff of smoke comes forth from the cart.

A freakin' armored and armed skeleton that rides mine carts!  There were more carts coming down the way from both directions.  I decided to run like hell.  One shot me in the back with an arrow and poisoned me.  I stumbled in the dark and lost my way.  I heard water and moved towards it.  A crack in the ceiling was letting lots of water come in.  I explored it, and through the water I thought I saw sunlight.  I jumped into the water and swam to the top and was very surprised at where I came out.

The shores of my colony.  I put up a warning sign and constructed some wood over the hole so that none of my colonists fell in(and hopefully none of the super skeletons get out).  So my colony has some sort of abandoned mine full of super skeletons that ride carts and use poison arrows directly below it.  It couldn't get worse right?  I explore the outskirts of my colony and find very little in the forests, but on my way back I follow the coastline. 

That's not my boat.

In fact that is at least 3x the size of my boat.  That is a BIG ass boat.  I have no idea who is on it, I have no idea if they want to eat me.  Better Dungeons has just thrown me 2 curve balls in one evening...  My colony is not ready for this.  I need to build it better, and hope whatever is on that boat can not reach the shore just yet.

S.

S5 E5: Better Storage

Fort Lookout started out rather simple. One large room, and then the cave front with the glass facing. I had hoped that perhaps furniture would be added soon(heh) and did not really plan any kind of creature comforts. I had one real true need at the time, safe storage and production facilities.



The back room was just a place to put a double chest, a crafting bench, and a furnace. I guess I did not even attempt anything fancy until my furnace/stove at the treehouse. I did not need much storage yet because when the Fort had been finished waaaay back when, I still had not truly mined, and certainly had not farmed.



The area I now call the Observation Deck was really only contoured to match the cave. No function to it except to make sure I could get some torches to act as a guiding beacon.



My storage system at the Tower was a bit better. I separated the storage according to the "building" it was in. The shed had tools and landscaping, the cellar had cured meats and stuff needing to be cold, the furnace area had ores. It was Sugarland where my favorite categorization was established, so Sugarland stood for my template for the Fort Lookout refurbish.



Taking further inspiration from Sugarland, I went up to the transition area between Observation Deck and the storage room. There I created a stove based on the grill I had outside at Sugarland. I added a "chimney" block above it for the heat to go. Half blocks were recently added, so I took the half blocks of wood plank and made some cabinets beside the stove, I'm rather happy about them, I felt creative.



Still on my shelving kick, I made a work bench and some overhead shelving for the space. I am now super happy about Fort Lookout. I have bunks, and officer's quarters, some furniture, extensive storage, and now a stove and crafting area to be proud of. It went from my most primitive dwelling to the one dwelling that contains all current "comforts" in Minecraft. Beds, bookshelves, paintings, carpeting, shelves, all the nice stuff.

Next up! Episode 6. I need to secure the area around Fort Lookout!

S5 E4: Problem Areas

Well since I had been away from this area for months, there were a few things I let slip. When I noticed these things I always said "I'll fix it later". Well, I guess its time for that "later" to be now. Here's a few of my fixes...



I put these up in trouble spots on my river so that I could traverse it at night in dire situations. Just some blocks of man-made cobblestone and some torches all around. It looks kind of medieval, which I guess fits with the Tower area.



I am trying to find new uses for the single stack fences that I experimented with at Sugarland. Here is one of those uses I've seen, legit lamp posts. I kind of wish I could use a smaller block, but I guess I'll have to just wait for better materials to show up.



Once I had a nice gradual cove here. It was a nice and pretty cove that I enjoyed having here. Then a creeper caught me one morning and blew up that nice scenery. "I'll fix this later", and then I had a glitch that lost me lots of glass that I needed for something. I dug up the beach because... well its not like it was pretty anymore.



FANCY! Yeah, I'm playing around with some more carpentry, finding what works, what looks good, what is function. This is fairly functional, but I do find myself just jumping down it on return trips. Oh well, it looks nice.



I'm fallen down this thing like 3 times while not paying attention. Look at the picture, you can see the ladder up to Fort Lookout just next to it. I always thought I'd explore these areas, but eh.



I'd rather feel like less an idiot, so I've boarded this one, and several other holes in the "backyard". Now its pretty safe to travel behind the Fort.

I harvested a good bit of materials during all of this. I realized that compared to Sugarland, the Fort was rather lacking in facilities.

Next time we'll fix that.

S5 E3: Classing up the joint

The bunkhouse turned out to be a bit smaller than I had thought it would take to allow for 3 bunks and 3 storage containers. This leaves us with a long, yet direct, hallway through to the observation deck. I decided that the Fort is not a socialist regime, so an Officer would have to occupy the place. Putting the officer the closest to the observation deck would make sense, whoever was on guard could get to the officer very quickly.



While clearing out the room, I quickly find that there is an error in its placement. The walls are the literal walls of the mountain, and I would not be able to "finish" the room out with wood planks like the rest of the fort. I decided that with executive privilege of having your own room, also comes the executive duty of living in a drafty, cold room because it is closest to the observation deck. But that doesn't mean the officer will be a cave man. We can do some stuff to help out.



My best comfort resources are at Sugarland, that is where I decided to make my first "homely" house after all. So I went there and I collected some wool I had acquired, and then I went and picked some roses on side of a non-landmark hill.



The officer quarters now has a nice decorative rug so that the officer isn't living on stone floors. He gets his bed, and I put a bookshelf beside it. I figure he may be doing some work or writing his reports as he lay in bed.



After exploring the area on the other side of the mountain, I decided some windows would not hurt anything as they are hard to observe from anywhere, the area outside the officer's quarters is yet another "hollow" volcano like structure in a mountain. Next, I knew that tapestries hung in castles kept the warmth in, so I arranged for a large tapestry... apparently of kung fu fighting men, to be hung beside the bed.



On the other side I fashioned a sort of desk and bookshelf in a nook for the officer to use. Another, much classier, painting would reside on the wall next to the door, and executive privilege allowed for a double chest in the room instead of a single.



I was very happy with the room. The highest quality furnishings, yet a little bit of austere compromising by the officer would keep some respect of the junior officers. Then I read the sign we had made up for the room... apparently someone can't spell. Oh well, that'll have to wait till we can procure another sign.

Next we work on some problems areas of The Bay, get it into a bit better shape for an area befitting the fort.