Strategies for finding villages and trading with villagers

[LiquidAngel]

Hey people, BaconAngel from the IRC here

So I've been playing a lot of BTW lately with a friend of mine, and we've now come to the point of finding a village.
Problem is, we are simply having a lot of trouble finding one. We have scoured are world some 5000-10000 blocks out in all direction and have yet to find one.

I want to know if there's any strategies we can use, that you've found useful? (We've both tried to just travel out via the overworld, and via the Nether, no luck yet).

Also, when we've found a village, is there some strategies that are good when it comes to trading with villagers to get the things you need to get to go to The End?

Thanks in advance! :)

(Bonus points for people who have a good way of dealing with the Wither Storm, to get the Nether Stars)

[DiamondArms]

Can't help much on the finding villages part, other than placing down lots of netherside portals and keeping some obsidian and a lighter handy when you do find one.

Trading, on the other hand, I can share some tips (which I stole from other people on this forum).

1) Shopping List: Book and Quill is a really handy way to keep track of what your villagers are currently trading. once you exhaust your on hand resources, taking down what you need to bring next round helps to remind yourself what resources need gathering.

2) Priest Leveling!: Priests enchant armor (vMC thing so no spoilers there). Fun fact, enchanted armor can be rechanted by priests without issue. prepare a set of armor and tools before hand to fill those orders. Also, enchanting can eat a lot of emeralds in one sitting. accumulate as much as possible before starting.

3) Other Villagers: as part of said need for emeralds, you'll want to trade with the other villagers as well. Avoid butchers and blacksmiths, as they'll mostly want to sell you meat and gear. Keeping villagers at level2 is handy for maintaining a circulation of trades. Farmers are considerably easier to gather for, but having an extra priest or librarian around to offload some of your other resources is not a bad idea.

4) Resources: You're still pre-endtech, so stuff like block dispensers that make resource automation happen aren't available to you yet. Build farms. BIG farms. The more you have growing, the more you can gather at each interval. automate what you can and expand what you can't.

5) Exploring: Don't just keep your eyes peeled for villages. Bottlenecks for Villager trades usually involve rare or complex-to-produce stuff, so you'll need things from all over to keep leveling your villagers.

6) Extra options: Develop your village as a full base. You'll be spending a decent amount of time there, away from home where things grow. It doesn't hurt to replace some of their crops with ones you need for selling. Some of the resources villagers sell to you can be recycled to sell back to them or their fellows, so having a few item processors around to convert the resources helps.

[magikeh]

I find the best way to find villages is to go trecking diagonally through the world rather than sticking to a cardinal direction also rather than looking for villages specifically, look instead for biomes. I like to spend most my time looking for desert biomes as they can usually be easily skirted around and you can see quite easily into them. (flat and no real obstructions) Also deserts have those pyramids in them which is always a nice bonus. Also boats, holy man are those things your best friend for travelling, not only do they speed along but they also take very few hunger haunches to operate.

[EtherealWrath]

I find boats are fairly useful- head along the coastline until you see something worth exploring (jungle/desert ect), then set up and explore that biome and any useful connected biomes. Being methodical and patient is key, otherwise you'll end up getting lost or covering the same ground twice.
(you may start in desert, but end up with desert→plains→desert→jungle→swamp→plains→jungle→desert, with other useful areas branching off the side)
A pencil and paper is also fairly useful for sketching out a rough map and keeping notes.
Some areas of the world are safer than others. Be careful where you camp for the night.

Once you find wheat- use flour as an exploration food; hunt meat during the day and make sandwiches.

[LiquidAngel]

Just want to add a good suggestion I got from Abculatter_2 on IRC:

To use maps to explore with when trying to locate villages.

[abculatter_2]

Just want to add a good suggestion I got from Abculatter_2 on IRC:

To use maps to explore with when trying to locate villages.

As an addendum to this, I also recommend starting your explorations by putting down nether portals in the nether that are approximately 256 blocks apart. This makes them just about perfectly spaced for every portal to have a max-zoom map to explore.