How do you landscape?

[crazybrit]

In Minecraft I always feel like the environment owns me. I usually search for grassland biomes or swamps for there relatively flat landscapes. My "towns" are always disheveled as i tend to build around things. I'm not a big fan of shoveling out hillsides as it seems to be very time consuming.

I was wondering what you guys do to build large buildings and towns. What biomes do you prefer? How much planning do you put into building structures that house automated systems? If someone builds in jungles properly I would give you a golden star.

[Ribky]

I prefer to build my large scale buildings and build upon my towns in desert and plains biomes. The optimal would be a desert next to a plains to get the early extra functionality out of the windmill during rainstorms and good access to dirt and animals to start up farms. I don't mind flattening deserts down, because I use almost all of what I shovel up for glass/sandstone/etc, plus flattening out deserts really ups the chances of finding surface and just below surface dungeons (my current world has 4 within walking distance of main base). I try to conserve early resources for landscaping and generally grab as many stone shovels as I can and go to town, sand and dirt shovel up quickly enough that it isn't worth using iron for me.

It is time consuming, but in the end it generates valuable resources that I use later on. Sand is multi-functional and dirt is what I usually use to mark off tunnels that I haven't explored yet.

[orangeweaver]

I tend to take the completely stupid path, spend hours searching out a little sunken oasis in a jungle, build little flotillas in the water, dig into the hill side and move back and forth between a heavily dwarf style (huge expanses of blocks mined out where I fit my machinery and farms) and an exterior area I have more manual farms in, that is largely aesthetic and always have the plan to build a village in / around but can never find a village for villagers.

Also to my dismay I missed the memo that you cannot build snow golemns in jungles so when I started my snow golemn farm was super angry to find they would die within the second of their creation. This means I now have to make a minecart track out, through the damned jungle to the nearest snow biome (not far away but jungle terrain is such a pain to pathfind through for a railway) just to build a small snow farm for some blocks. BLAST!

I have also been told that I build my bases like I was designing for an old Tomb Raider game, yeah a lot of overlapping pathways / bridges / overhangs that outlook onto parts of my base but you have to maneuver around to get to each floor haha.

[StormBeforeDawn]

Mcedit a fricking huge island into the ocean. Terraforming a 500 meter circle, even with BTB is just painfully boring.

For smaller stuff, like a 64X64 chunk a filler or a quary from buildcraft is an incredible time saver.

[crazybrit]

I have also been told that I build my bases like I was designing for an old Tomb Raider game, yeah a lot of overlapping pathways / bridges / overhangs that outlook onto parts of my base but you have to maneuver around to get to each floor haha.

Wow a true jungle builder! Jungles are lovely but cleaning up all the "undergrowth" can be quite a hassle.
Sadly I think that even if you make a snowgolem farm outside the jungle biome they will still die once they arrive to your tomb raider outpost. =[
*awards you a golden star*

[RenEvo]

lots of iron shovels/pick axes, and a few good movies on netflix. I flatten that shit out.

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

I usually live in jungles bordering plains to begin with. the under growth keeps unwanted mobs from spawning early on. later in the game I usually just build castles that spread out above and below. I suck at planning out towns and such. and so I usually just stick to ever growing buildings.

[orangeweaver]

Wow a true jungle builder! Jungles are lovely but cleaning up all the "undergrowth" can be quite a hassle.
Sadly I think that even if you make a snowgolem farm outside the jungle biome they will still die once they arrive to your tomb raider outpost. =[
*awards you a golden star*

Oh yeah they will die. I'll have to make it that huge intangible continent shift / new level that is inevitable in any good tomb raider for variety sake lol.

It'll be a small outpost 100 blocks or so by rail from my main base to the snow farm, which is what is irritating because I'll have to be in reach to make them produce snow even if I'll be having them automated.

[crazybrit]

I usually live in jungles bordering plains to begin with. the under growth keeps unwanted mobs from spawning early on. later in the game I usually just build castles that spread out above and below. I suck at planning out towns and such. and so I usually just stick to ever growing buildings.

*awards you a golden star and gently pats you on the head*
ok since two of you have built in jungles I'm going to give it a shot.
now wheres my flintosteel...

[Horizon]

Don't use fire to clear out forests unless you want your world to look like the vietnam war.

[Poppycocks]

I build around the landscape. I find MC landscape interesting and try to tie my architectural elements into it whenever I can.

[Urian]

I use a mix of adapting my buildings to the landscape and adapting the landscape to my buildings. I spent much of yesterday turning a mountain into a valley, several stacks of TNT were used :) Otherwise I usually do it increments and I tend to listen to audiobooks or watch youtube while playing so it won't get so tedious when it's a repetitive task.

[Elevatator]

I prefer the awesome 1.7.3 mountains.

[crazybrit]

I build around the landscape. I find MC landscape interesting and try to tie my architectural elements into it whenever I can.

Very Elven of you eh? Reminds me of Rivendell.