Lost the Save Again

Well ladies and gentlemen, it happened again. Due to some error that I still cannot figure out, I got the "Saving Chunks"/black screen error on my 1.7.3 world. This time I may have caused the error. I had started a small outpost of colonists in an area far enough for both Millenaire villages to be frozen and not in memory. But I felt as though I had not put enough thought into designing it so went to get rid of it. I mined the Town Hall chest and nothing bad happened. Then I mined a Citizen's chest and BAM! Game crashes.

I loaded up MCEdit and tried deleting possibly offending chests but to no avail. Whenever my character came inside the range of where the chest even was it would crash. So I went back into MCEdit and started deleting entire chunks from the area. This was a very bad idea. I assumed that if those chunks were to be deleted, then when I return they would be generated again. It was not so. I still could not get to those areas without crashing. Meaning whether or not they could be regenerated is currently unknown, however I have my doubts. 10 or so chunks were permanently removed from the game.

So with this futile situation I went ahead and deleted the save. I need to take the time to find what is causing this error. I attempted to reproduce this on a save devoted to testing MineColony but could not. Perhaps it is due to faulty interactions between MineColony and Millenaire?

Millenaire Experience Thus Far

For the first couple days after I upgraded to 1.7.3 and put in Millenaire/MineColony, I really could not focus on much of anything else. I made a new world with my Main's seed and started up a MineColony settlement there in order to get used to the way it functions. As it turns out, Nippon Island just is not large enough to handle all the colonists and their houses. The farmer was also getting very farm-happy and started turning a bigger portion of the island into farmland than I expected. Even when I placed fencing he kept on going. The miner, though, proved really good at mining and bringing up nice stuff.

So, I decided to go for it officially. I deleted that world and made yet another world with the same seed. It placed me a distance above the spawn point I've had since 1.5. I walked a little and found a village. When a village is generated, I know before I see it; my game freezes for a few seconds as the buildings and NPCs are put in place. I learned the ropes and helped the village grow. Then I added colonists to the mix, including a miner who had a shaft in the pit of the village miner. I didn't anticipate it, but something like seven other colonists spawned.

In order to have the villages grow without me actively watching over the game, I would dig a hole in the floor of a house I chose to live in and idle there. A couple days after starting the world, I came back to find the game had black screened.

Each time I attempted to load the world it would load the chunks then immediately say "Saving Chunks" and go to a black screen. I assumed it to be some kind of conflict between mods. I could not find anything that would make them conflict, since all the mods I have use different ID numbers. Even with MCEdit I could not find a block that would make it crash. Since that world had become unstable I put it in a zip file and generated a new save, again with the same seed.

That is the current map I am using. This time I was placed right in the center of the Yusarian continent I have mentioned in the past. It looks very similar to Europe and Russia combined the way they are in real life and stretches for about a kilometer. I picked my home with the farmer and began helping the villagers by collecting the blocks they needed to upgrade their buildings. I watched as the village, named Vaucelles-le-lac, grew and evolved in architecture. I also began mining underground, for the first time in my Minecraft experience on a non-Peaceful mode.

Then things started to get weird. With a population of 31, a dozen or so peaceful mobs and who knows how many monsters walking around, my frame rate began to drop to unacceptable levels. Even on tiny fog I still had stuttering graphics. On top of that, the village was giving a "not enough space" to build their next building error, meaning it probably was going to stagnate at the size it was. Given these two issues I packed up what I didn't need to bring with me and left for a new village, or some other experience.

I headed east, to where my 1.5 spawn point was. I found it, slept a night away there, and continued on to Nippon. I was sort of surprised that, although Vaucelles was over 600 meters away, no other villages had spawned. It was so weird and unfamiliar seeing Nippon in its primal, overgrown state. My heart then told me to go to a land mass connected to Yusaria, one which has a striking resemblance to South America. Unfortunately, my recollection of the map's terrain was poor and I found another village, Douvres, on a different landmass east of my goal. Oh well. This is going to be my new home. I'm bunking with someone there. As I did last time, I will assist the villagers and protect those who require it.

Also, I got my first 11 diamonds in Vaucelles, the first ever mined on Easy mode.

I don't plan on adding MineColony features just yet. Maybe after Douvres I'll stake it out somewhere and let the colonists do the construction for me. I realized I could modify the designs of the structures they build, to the point I could literally have them construct an entire starship for me if I so willed it. Although their premade structure plans look very nice as it is.

Upgraded to 1.7.3

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been having a kind of Minecraft envy. For as long as I can remember and probably more, I've been playing 1.5_01. Although there was nothing wrong performance-wise, it was simply outdated and lacking in features that most everyone else had already taken advantage of, for instance pistons and trapdoors. Therefore Saturday I went to the library, downloaded a bunch of mods I wanted, and upgraded to 1.7.3.

After a lot of tinkering I found that some mods just would not work together. At least, though, I have the ones that I really wanted included. My mod list:

• ModLoader - the basis of many mods.
• AudioMod - another fundamental, helps mods make noise.
• Single Player Commands - provides a SMP-flavored command line. I find it extremely useful.
• MineColony - this is what I really wanted to upgrade for. The version for 1.5_01 was buggy and I wanted to improve it.
• Millenaire - like MineColony but way more complex. 1.8 and 1.9 introduced villages and villagers, but Millenaire brings in multiple types of villagers in different cultures, and it can be customized to my fitting. I daresay better than the new villages.
• Zan's Minimap - help me find where I am.
• Zeppelin mod - very interesting, allows me to build flyable craft out of blocks.
• Optimine/OptiFine - boosts my FPS. Very awesome.

Other mods I wanted to add were Industrial Craft, Lightsensor, Shelf, Wireless Redstone, and the Technic Pack. Unfortunately, when I tried adding these I got black screens. I'm satisfied with what I have.

In particular MineColony, Zeppelin, and Millenaire have my imagination restless. I've always wanted more of an RTS feel to Minecraft. Interactive NPCs moving around doing things, with me being able to command them. As you have doubtlessly read I have a desire to make nations in Minecraft. Ones with bustling economies and maybe - just maybe - warfare. Millenaire makes villages on the map that start off as basic then grow themselves into more complete settlements, even if I am not helping out. MineColony allows me to have more control over the size and makeup of the settlements, meaning I could form a city based upon my personal desire for it to grow. The automation would let me devote more time to building and adventuring, although if I wanted to I could leave behind my automatons or level it all down.

As for the Zeppelin mod. I have a non-legit world which is similar to Creative mode and I've been doing lots with the Zeppelin mod. Being the sort I am, as soon as it was in my Minecraft I started trying to push it to the limits. Zeppelin works a bit like this: it turns all the relevant blocks into an entity, such as a dropped item or a mob. That means there are some limitations for purely technical reasons. For instance, water will pass through your craft. I found this out the hard way by making a submarine only to end up having it flooded as it went underwater. You also can't sleep in a bed while in movable mode or access the insides of chests or furnaces. Still, I was thinking: what if I made a ship - or fleet of ships - that acted sort of like a generational ship? Think of it: a farming ship (even though farming could only be done when not in movable mode), a storage ship, a command craft, and so on. Just sail the skies of a Minecraft world for days on end, exploring what there is to be seen. Making settlements here and there using MineColony. In another world dedicated to Millenaire, I'm using a little craft to fly from settlement to settlement. I could upgrade to an airship and even more.

Of course my main project is the Earth map. Even there, now new things can be done. Up until this point I have been the only entity with constructive abilities to build and live in the settlements I make. The Squid King is the only one in Cush. With MineColony and the ability to modify the structures colonists are programmed to make, I could more easily sit back and watch civilizations appear before my eyes! And then the residents of the settlements would stay where I planted them unless they were somehow killed by me or a hostile creature. I need to learn more about the exact operations of MineColony and Millenaire, but at least now I feel less lonely in the infinite world in my hard drive.

Now, concerning my purely legit Main world. Millenaire villages will not appear in pre-existing chunks. The place I live and mine in now, simply put, is old. Very old. Remember Yusaria? That entire kilometer-long continent and probably much more area predate lapiz lazuli, which was introduced in Beta 1.2. There are areas where the sand and dirt have straight lines and horrible transitions due to terrain generation bugs of older versions. The two new tree types don't exist until you walk some distance from my house. So what does this mean? Is it time to abandon my trusty Main save? I could:

• Delete the world and start from scratch in a new one. I don't personally care for this idea simply because of all the work I have put into this map over the months. All the resources collected, just gone like that. I have built a couple nice things on there that I'd hate to see gone.
• Migrate to a new part of the map and begin over there. That will make an already big map even bigger, and filled with land that I may not go to ever again.
• A compromise I just thought up. Write down the essential supplies I have as well as the map's seed. Then generate a new world with that seed and hack in the resources I have. Then, get going!

Edit: I pulled the seed of the map and made a 1.7.3 world with it. The terrain appears to generate basically the same way. I spawned at a different point than the first time and flew around when I noticed prehistoric Nippon Island! Maybe I could place a MineColony village there.

New Element of Play to Earth Map

Along with playing with Easy mode on the Earth map, I've decided to take the plot a step further. The ancient Egyptians believed their leader, the Pharaoh, to be the living embodiment of their chief god. Each dalai lama is considered to be the previous one reincarnated. There is this sense of the leader being divine and continuous despite different bodies.

I'm sort of adopting this into my style of play. During normal Minecraft play, when our character dies it is respawned at our last spawn point. Despite the character's death, it is effectively immortal. In the show "Doctor Who," the main character can be fatally wounded and will just transform into a new individual with the same basic personality. In my case, my character is currently the First Pharaoh. In real life he was the Scorpion King. In Minecraft, he shall be known as the Squid King due to the presence of squids in the Egyptian waters. My character is the Squid King and will be responsible for beginning the construction of Cush. If, during the time I'm exploring underground or at night, I get killed by a mob, then I'll respawn but then I'll be the next pharaoh - King Squid II. And so on. This sort of adds a touch of realism by bringing civilization into existence under multiple leaders, instead of one seemingly immortal ruler.

The Village of Asshur

This post is long delayed but finally pictures and an explanation of Asshur is ready for viewing. The people of Asshur, properly called Assyrians, are sort of cousins of the Tubalites. They borrow the title of tubal for their leader. On a map, Asshur appears to the east of Tubal, through a mountain range and across a river, where their official settlement limit is. Here's an aerial view of Asshur:

Here you can see five buildings, one farm, and a cobblestone road. In the middle of the village is the tubal's house.

Already, you can see there's been a bit of an upgrade in architecture between Asshur and Tubal. The bases of buildings are lined with cobblestone and corners of levels made with wooden planks don't have corner pieces. Logs still make up the roofing. Even the tubal's dog has a little doghouse connected to the building!

Inside view:

The internal design is still simplistic, but now there are windows! This is part of the technological advance that humanity has made. Glass windows.

This image is of one of the villager's houses, and it really shows the architectural style better:

Another advent that has come with Asshur is the concept of the supernatural. Humanity's first religion has appeared. The Assyrians serve and worship the Creator deity Anu (name taken from real-life research of ancient Assyrian deities). The right-most building in the first image is their temple. The leader of the village was also charged with being their priest, a title which would later be termed tubal-anu. Entrance to the temple:

A small atrium connects the front entrance to the sanctuary.

Inside the sanctuary are a couple double chests, furnaces, workbenches, and the temple dog. Dominating the room is the altar. This is where the Assyrians offer sacrifices to Anu: the first wheat of each harvest. They drop the wheat into it and after five minutes it "supernaturally" despawns. Also put in there are the bones of the deceased and enemies when they are not otherwise used for taming wolves.

Underground, the Assyrians found their land underfoot had already been explored by the Tubalites. However they were able to explore further than the explorers of their cousin town and also invented a new form of finding resources, which in-game is normally called strip mining: parallel 2x1 tunnels.

Now, Asshur is in the desert. As such, there aren't very many animals that come around to sustain them. Tubal offered to make a trade agreement with Asshur and it was accepted: Assyrians could come to Tubal and collect wool and leather from its animals. In return, Tubal wanted trees and charcoal to subsidize what they already have. Some intelligent Assyrian realized that he could make a profit by establishing a trading post halfway between the two villages and offering his services as a neutral place of trade. The pictures below show the trading post, its position between the two villages, and the world's first bridge.

To recap, the advancements made between Tubal and Asshur:

• Cobblestone as a firm base for buildings.
• Burning of logs to form charcoal, a relatively cheap and easy substitute for coal.
• Smelting of sand to form glass.
• Introduction of religion and supernatural beliefs.
• Trading post between other villages.
• Bridges.

Next up after Asshur, I am going to dive southward and backtrack to Cush, this map's first large city. It will have technological upgrades such as iron, sandstone, and dyes! What's more, I'm going to challenge myself and make this project all the more rewarding: I will do all building on Easy mode to add the element of danger that hostile mobs bring!

Developing the World

A few days ago I was searching Google Images for a map that shows how ancient man colonized the world. Assuming humanity comes from Africa, as modern scientists do, it would seem reasonable they went to Europe relatively quickly. But alas, not so! Due to the changing climate over thousands of years (I'm using generally agreed upon scientific theory, which differs somewhat from my personal beliefs), the spread of homo sapiens went something like this (source):

• Four major groups of humans spread through southern Africa, with the Sahara Desert stopping them from going north.
• One of the four groups went along the eastern coast of Africa through the northern Arabian peninsula to what is now the Middle East.
• Then, said group died due to global cooling.
• A new group of explorers, from the same area as the previous ones, hit the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula and stick to the beaches, passing through southern India and reaching Southeastern Asia, some of the islands, and even China, in the span of 15 thousand years.
• The path these people traveled is then rendered inhospitable as a massive volcanic eruption nearly destroys the human race.
• Some then backtrack to India while others go further up China and into Australia and Oceania.
• The backtracking group goes all the way through the Indian coast and onward through the Middle East to Turkey. They cut directly through Turkey and migrate right through Europe until they almost reach Spain.
• Asian settlers head north into Siberia and Japan, while some Middle Eastern settlers head into northern Africa. 
• Those in the center of Asia go west to central Europe, while some eastern Asians head toward the eastern border of Russia - right next to Alaska. Thousands of years later they cross over to North America and begin exploring it.
• Another Ice Age kills off very northern populations. North American settlers head to the Southern Americas.
• Ice Age thaws, a second round of people show up and head right down.
• People further populate the formerly iced-over North America.
• It's only within the past 10,000 years (mind you I've just covered 160,000 years) that the British Isles, Scandinavia, and northern Russia were populated.

An interesting picture I found. Observe how we were in Australia twenty thousand years before we entered Europe.

Now why are we getting this history lesson? I want to use this as a sort of guide for where I go with the Earth map. I realize that by using Turkey as a starting point, I'm thousands of miles off course already. However it should be possible for me to eventually fix that. Maybe I could pretend there's some kind of ice age going on. With the village Asshur being east of Tubal, I've developed an eastward trend consistent with early man. However I may break that again, as when I finish with Asshur I want to create Cush - that is, Egypt.

Moving on from Tubal

I have essentially done all I wish to do with Tubal. The village is designed as such:

• The first house I built was the village leader's house. Since the name of the founder is Tubal, the title given to the leader of a village is tubal. It, like the others, is compose of wooden planks in a relatively rectangular shape. The roofing is multiple layers high and made of logs. Inside is a double chest, workbench, furnace, bed, and a couple torches.
• Next to that is the craftsman's house. It is designed mostly the same, although the chest of the craftsman is filled with cobblestone, logs, planks and other things.
• Across from that is the residence of the two cave explorer/miners. It is two stories high and features two double chests on the first floor, with stairs to the bedroom upstairs.
• The fourth building is the storehouse. It has multiple double chests, a furnace, and a workbench. It holds wheat, pork chops, and a couple other things.
• A small fenced farm is right next to the storehouse.
• Surrounding the entire village is a defense wall, shaped in something of a rectangular shape. It extends to the mountains to the north. I haven't finished it, and likely will not.
• To the west of the village is a plain which used as their tree farm.

Here are some pictures for your delight. The first faces north. The upper left is the explorers', the upper right is the craftsman's, the lower right is the storehouse, and the lower right is the leader's house.

Slightly different angle, from over the storehouse:

Lethargic farm:

Some distance away:

View from overhead, showing all of the walling:

As far as technology goes, they are still in the stone age. They have workbenches and furnaces, however they don't use the furnaces for anything more than heating their houses. Their tools are primarily stone, although only a couple of the houses have wooden swords (the other has a wooden sword). For armor they use leather. They also have domesticated wolves, which required I hacked in a bunch of bones. Now there's probably four or five dogs around Tubal and on the nearby island.

The Tubalites are avid tree farmers. West of the wall was once a huge mass of trees that took me forever to completely cut down, and a few stray saplings have just recently grew into trees. But alas, now it is time to move on from Tubal.

After traveling north, west, and east, I decided that the desert land to the east would be the best to start the second village. Referring to my table of Biblical nations I found Asshur, the forerunner of the Assyrians, settled in the approximate area. So we have a new village. These people will expound on what their Tubalite ancestors and cousins began in terms of technology and architecture!