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VOOZH | about |
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VOOZH | about |
Ancient cities are among the most dangerous and challenging structures to explore in the game. It is mostly dark throughout, and while the cities do not have any normal hostile mobs in them, mobs can easily wander into the ancient city. They are home to an abundance of sculk shriekers, which can spawn wardens, who can easily slaughter players, even in full netherite armor. However, the player can obtain a lot of great loot, for example, enchanted golden apples which have the largest chance to generate in an ancient city, compared to any other structure.
There are several benefits in going to an ancient city:
To prepare yourself for an expedition to an ancient city, there are a few things you need to do.
To locate an ancient city, you first need to make sure you're in the right biome. Ancient cities are found exclusively in deep dark biomes, which are more likely to occur beneath tall mountains, and never generate below aquatic biomes like oceans, rivers and swamps, so make sure not to waste your time digging underneath the wrong biomes. When you locate a mountain biome, dig down at the foot of the mountain to Y=-51, and then start tunneling horizontally towards it. This gives you the highest chance of finding a deep dark biome.
Once you find a deep dark biome, start exploring around until you find an ancient city. Not all deep dark biomes contain an ancient city, so you likely have to explore multiple deep dark biomes until you find one. While you explore, try to stay between the Y-levels -30 and -50 as much as possible, as these are the coordinates between which ancient cities may generate.
A more tedious, but more guaranteed way is to dig parallel tunnels at Y=-51 in a zigzag pattern: dig a long horizontal tunnel, and when you reach the end of the deep dark biome, dig to the side for a few hundred blocks, and then turn around to dig another tunnel. Tunnels should be spaced about 200 blocks from each other; ancient cities have a massive footprint of about 220 blocks on each horizontal axis, so they cannot be missed even when tunnels are spaced that far apart.
You should approach and reach the ancient city either from the same level or from below, as if you mine into it from above, you run the risk of falling directly into it. If you survive fall damage, then death likely comes from the warden.
When you explore the city, the most important thing is to sneak at all times, unless you are on the corridors with gray wool walkways. This causes slower movement unless you have Swift Sneak on your leggings, which you wouldn't have if this is your first trip to an Ancient City, as it can be found only in an ancient city. However, there is a trick to sneak faster: sneak diagonally. When pressing two directional keys (such as forward and right) at the same time, the player moves at a faster 1.8 m/s as opposed to 1.3 m/s. This can make it hard to see where you are going, so you can use the third-person view to get an eagle eye view of your character.
Use your potions of Night Vision to see without having to place torches (as that potentially alerts sculk sensors and shriekers). Torches, however, are useful as a last resort if you run out of Night Vision potions or are under the Darkness effect, so use your night vision to identify spots where a sculk shrieker or sculk sensor cannot detect the sound, and place torches in those places, so that you can see by their light later. There may be some areas where it is extremely difficult to get through if you have run out of night vision potions or have the darkness effect and you should simply avoid these areas. Lastly, you can throw your snowballs into an area to check how many sensors there are, or if the area is safe. Additionally, doing this at a distance allows you to stay out of range of the warden that spawns if it is your fourth time activating a shrieker within ten minutes, for the warden spawns relative to the sculk shrieker, not the player. However, this technique should still be used only when you have a good escape plan.
If you end up triggering a sculk shrieker, you can mark the place where you encountered with, for example, a redstone torch so you don’t accidentally trigger it again.
The most dangerous block in the ancient city by far is the sculk shrieker, as it is directly responsible for spawning in the wardens. So one of the most important things to do when exploring an ancient city, is to destroy all the sculk shriekers to stop that from happening, or place wool around them to stop vibrations. Breaking the sculk shrieker triggers nearby sculk sensors, which can in turn alert other shriekers nearby, so placing wool is the recommended choice. Breaking all sculk shriekers without spawning any wardens is a challenging task, but it is not impossible. To do so, the player needs to understand how the sculk shrieker works.
When a sculk shrieker activates, it starts shrieking and increases the player's "warning level" but it does not actually spawn a warden right away. It does so after its shrieking has finished, if the "warning level" is at four. The shrieking lasts for a total of 4.5 seconds, during which the player can do a couple of things to utilize the situation, as multiple shriekers cannot trigger at once:
The player's "warning level" decreases by one every ten minutes after the last time it was increased, so keeping track of the time and the "warning level" is important if you wish to completely avoid spawning a warden. A different sound is played depending on the "warning level" after a shrieker is triggered, and these sounds can be recognized, or in Java Edition, if the player has subtitles enabled, each of them is subtitled differently: "warden approaches" for a "warning level" of one, "warden advances" for a "warning level" of two, and "warden draws close" for a "warning level" of three. Seeing the subtitle "warden draws close" or hearing the associated sound is a good warning that the next shriek will summon a warden.
When a player approaches a patch of sculk blocks, the first thing they want to do is to count how many sculk shriekers there are. If there is just one shrieker, this makes the task quite easy. The player simply needs to sneak up to the shrieker and break it with their hoe – even though this triggers the sculk sensors nearby, no wardens can spawn because there are no more shriekers nearby that can spawn it.
However, the presence of just one shrieker doesn't mean the player should not prepare for emergencies. It is perfectly possible for there to be another, hidden shrieker the player fails to see, or there is a hidden sculk sensor behind a pillar or wall or something that alerts another shrieker further away. This illustrates the importance of scouting the area before breaking any shriekers, preferably using the third-person view to view from a higher vantage point and from different angles. Spyglasses are also invaluable for this reason. Even when thoroughly prepared, the player should also prepare for the scenario below.
If a patch has more than one shrieker, or if there are multiple interconnected patches containing shriekers, the player must act strategically and be mentally prepared: As soon as one shrieker is broken, all other shriekers nearby are alerted, so the player should surround the shrieker with wool. In case one is activated, all of them should be destroyed to save time and prevent shrieks.
As such, it is imperative that the player have a safe, planned route to escape the warden.
As mentioned above, a sculk shrieker has a range of 40 blocks and shrieks for 4.5 seconds. This gives a small amount of time to run in case a warden appears if two other shriekers had been activated earlier. Ideally, the player should have a safe escape route leading all the way out of the ancient city, toward the surface.
Ancient cities are full of loot chests with all sorts of valuable resources, everything from common items such as coal ores to items of high value such as various enchanted items as well as amethyst shards. Unlike some structures such as woodland mansions or even strongholds, the ancient city's mass amount of loot chests are easy to find. Not just because of sheer amount, but because if you have a potion of night vision, you can see them easily. This is partially because they aren't separated by massive walls. However, it's also because they're placed in obvious structures. Examples of these structures are shrines with lit soul sand or a small warden statue, large towers that very vaguely resemble pillager outposts, (these towers are made out of deepslate, don't confuse them with the domes clearly resembling pillager outposts, which are made of dark oak, are low to the ground, and have no chests) or simple but clearly unnatural clusters of blocks to mark where the chests are.
Getting loot from chests in the ancient city is tedious, because chests may be surrounded by several sculk shriekers and sculk sensors. However, something you can do is destroy the sensors first so you can safely loot the chest, but this may get difficult if there are more than 2 sensors nearby because breaking one of them may activate another sensor nearby resulting in the shriekers detecting your activity. As a result, it is best to scout out the area thoroughly before making any triggering noises. You can also block the chest completely off with wool before opening it. However, this is not entirely foolproof.
Another thing that you can do is rush to destroy everything, but this may be extremely dangerous because the constant noise gets you quickly targeted by the warden if it emerges.
If the warden decides to despawn, you can quickly rush to destroy all sensors and shriekers while he is burrowing into the ground to ensure a safe environment. Be sure to check if there are no more shriekers nearby.
Most of the chests in an ancient city are in little structures. When exploring an ancient city, look for structures with walls on every side. There is probably a shrieker in the little structure, so make sure to be very silent when going in. The best way to tackle rooms like this is either to run away from it, then stack up, (make sure your tower is only as high as the walls) and finally bridge back over to the structure (wool is the best block to do this with to avoid making noise). This is a safe way to get over the walls, and then safely break the shriekers. But these aren't the only chests in the ancient city. Some are higher up, so they require different strategies to obtain. To get the chest in the tower, stack up using wool. If there are any shriekers, break them. Make sure to check the roof of the tower in case there are any shriekers there. To get down, MLG, or break your pillar. But there are even more rooms or structures containing chests. If you see a structure with stairs, go up them, but make sure to sneak. There could be a lot of shriekers up there, so make sure to bring a lot of wool. There are 2 chests in this structure, so make sure to get them both. But there are even more chests in this structure. If you see a structure with stairs, go up them, but be VERY CAREFUL. There are 2 pressure plates on note blocks at the top of the stairs, and there is almost always a shrieker in this structure, so be very careful to go around the note block. Cover up the shriekers with wool, then look for an iron trapdoor. If you break or open it, you will fall into a secret ice room containing a chest. If there are any shriekers, break or cover them with wool. To leave this room, go back to the place where the iron trapdoor was, then climb up the ladder. There are about 24-27 chests in each ancient city.
There are a few strategies with breaking sculk shriekers:
Even the above strategies are not entirely foolproof, and it is still possible for something to go wrong and for the warden to spawn sometime during your explorations. When you hear a loud rumbling and growling noise, you can see the warden rising up out of the ground when it spawns. If this happens, you can still somewhat easily evade the warden without dying. When the warden spawns you have 7 seconds to get as far away as possible before it finishes its spawning animation and begins to track nearby vibrations/smells. During its spawning animation, you can sprint away from the warden without any consequences. However, this comes at the risk of alerting even more shriekers, which can spawn a second warden if the first warden is at a far enough distance. It may be tempting to sprint away after the animation finishes, but this creates noise that the warden can hear, increasing the likelihood of it giving chase (and likely killing you in the process). You must keep sneaking and slowly move away, unless the warden has already begun chasing you.
If you can't seem to get away from the warden because it keeps sniffing your location, then Arrows, Eggs, or Snowballs can be used to distract it. However, if you choose to distract the warden then there are five things to bear in mind:
Avoid creating too much noise if possible. The warden is blind and instead operates by sound, using noise to pinpoint whatever it was that awakened it. If it cannot hear anything, then it just roams around randomly, sniffing the air, waiting for any noise to happen, though it can still detect an entity if they get too close to the warden or bump into it. Over time, standing too close to the Warden (within 20 blocks) causes it to begin pinpointing the player's location by scent, so keeping a fair distance and escaping is important. If the warden hears too much noise, something gets too close to it, or sniffs you too many times, it roars and begins chasing its target.
Unfortunately, if the warden does decide to chase you, its fast movement speed, ludicrous melee damage, and its armor and enchantment-piercing sonic boom attack makes escape incredibly difficult. However, it is still possible, especially if you have prepared for such an emergency beforehand. One escape method is to sprint to somewhere the warden cannot follow, such as though a two block high gap (wardens are just as tall as Endermen) and then try to get further away from there. Be warned that if you didn't create a hole about 30 blocks long before, the warden can still attack and kill you with its sonic boom attack.
Another strategy is to pillar-jump upward by placing blocks underneath your feet until you are higher than the warden. You need to be much higher because the warden can melee attack up to 5 blocks above itself, and 30 blocks with its ranged sonic boom attack, which it can use 10 seconds after it has started chasing you. Once you are a couple blocks up, continue upward (if possible) until you can reach the cave ceiling, then dig into it to create a small cavity and wait there for things to calm down. If you cannot see the warden, then listen to its heartbeat: the warden's heartbeat slows down when it is no longer angry, and even further if it can't find you for a while. Alternatively, if you're patient enough, you can wait at the ceiling until the warden despawns entirely.
If you sprint through a corridor with wool on the floor, you run silently provided you stay on the wool. While this doesn't slow down the warden, the lack of noise vibrations may allow you to lose the warden's aggression sooner. These corridors are rather large and span throughout the center of the city, so they aren't too hard to find.
Should you die to a warden, don't panic. Instead, the best way is to wait patiently at a distance for the warden to despawn. If the warden fails to detect any vibrations or smell nearby entities for 60 seconds, then it burrows back into the ground and disappears. Meanwhile, your items stay on the ground for up to 5 minutes (300 seconds) before disappearing, giving you plenty of time to pick them up once the warden despawns. However, if the warden is able to hear/smell you or another mob, then its 60-second despawn timer resets, giving you less time to retrieve your items.
Wardens are attracted to noise. At first, this may seem annoying, but if you use a block that makes noise, like a bell or note block, and link it to a redstone clock, the warden is attracted to it. This is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, so use at your own risk. However, this doesn't consider some elements. If this is built before the warden has spawned, the noise alerts a sculk shrieker or sensor, which spawns a warden, and this takes some time to build, therefore it is difficult to build after the warden has spawned. The warden also has a sense of smell, so if you stay too close for too long or if the warden is aggravated at you, then using distractions is not an option.
By taking advantage of the above strategies, it is theoretically possible to simply brute-force your way into and through the Ancient city, if you have the patience for it. This is extremely tedious to say the least, but it could allow you to eventually reach the loot in the city and clear it out without having to face the warden at all. You must, however, be aware of where the exit is and be ready at all times to turn around and immediately make your way back to and through that exit to safety and then wait for things to calm down and return later to continue on.
Simply put; make sure that you have a safe escape route ready and available, ideally one that leads all the way back to the surface. After that, make your way into the city (by sneaking) and then simply start breaking every Sculk Sensor and Sculk Shrieker you can find. This causes an absolute cacophony of noise and surely causes the warden to spawn in short order. In that case, you simply need to turn around and quickly begin making your way toward the exit mentioned earlier, distracting the warden away from you as needed, and once far enough away, leave the ancient city and wait for about 60 seconds to allow the warden to despawn (ideally you should wait a bit longer to account for potential delays). Once the warden has despawned, you may safely return back and start breaking Sculk Sensors and Sculk Shriekers again, and leave once again when the warden appears and returning once more when the warden has despawned again. By repeating this cycle continuously, then as long as a sculk catalyst does not generate any new sculk sensors or sculk shriekers, the ancient city eventually runs out of them in the long run as the player gradually breaks them all one by one.
Also, the alert levels of shriekers go down over time, making it so you can just wait 30 minutes to do one large go and leave to finish it another time.
Ancient Cities don't just have insane loot, but being so deep underground heavily increases the chance of valuable ores such as diamonds and gold. As a result, if you have an iron pickaxe, you can mine these ores to get yourself a diamond sword—just avoid summoning a warden in before you're ready, though. Once you've done so, what happens next somewhat relies on luck and generation. Once you have your diamond gear, get an anvil and look in all of the loot chests. Often, Ancient Cities have Enchanted Apples and some sort of Sharpness book in some of the chests. Use the sharpness books to enchant your sword, and gather as many golden apples as you possibly can. Then you're going to need a tunnel, at least 34 blocks long (it must be 30 blocks long to escape the warden's sonic boom, but you can make it 34 blocks to be safe). Make sure at least the entrance to this tunnel is 2 blocks tall. Here's where the loot takes its toll: without coming out of the tunnel, get close to the warden and use your sword- which you should've enchanted with the books possibly found here- to spam attack the warden. If it sonic booms you, eat your enchanted apples to heal rapidly. Be careful though- your amount of enchanted apples may be limited. Also, don't get too confident. Stay at least 1 block away from the entrance, otherwise the warden can melee attack you, in which case not even the enchanted apple can save you.
As already stated, wool is your best friend in ancient cities (aside from night vision potions and pickaxes for mining escape routes), because it suppresses your sound even if you aren't sneaking. This is incredibly useful for this strategy. Don't even bother trying to break the sensors or shriekers. Just surround any sensors, shriekers, or chests with wool. Of course, you'll need to scout the area well before opening the chest to avoid making a mistake. But once you've done so, open the chest and grab all the loot you like. Repeat this process for every single loot chest, and once you're satisfied with your gatherings, you can head back up to the surface and store your treasures back home. And once again, feel free to mine some ores while you're down there, as they're much more common deep underground.
There is a redstone lab under the center of every ancient city. You can find the city center easily because it has a massive structure made of reinforced deepslate on top. The secret door to the lab can be opened only by a specific method, which is random each time. First, you must find the chest in front of the "warden face" and open it. Then grab the golden carrot inside the chest and go down to the bridge opposite to the chest (don’t eat the carrot yet). Finally, go under the center: the two recessed deepslate walls are the doors. To open the door, go to the door that has a chiseled deepslate block on it and eat the golden carrot. This activates the sculk sensor behind the door and opens it. If there is a golden apple, then eat it while on the tiled deepslate to open the door. When there is two walls, walk between them to open the door. If there's nothing, then walk on tiles to the left of the door where you would normally find the chest to open it.
If this all sounds too complicated you can just brute force your way into it using a pickaxe.
At the moment, the lab does not contain any noteworthy loot, apart from lecterns (which are moderately expensive and useful for village construction/renovation) and a lot of redstone blocks. These are not particularly rare, but it has educational purpose for new players, as it teaches them about how sculk sensors can be used for wireless redstone. Redstone lamps are probably the most desirable of this loot as they require glowstone to craft, which can be risky and laborious to acquire normally. If you have a silk touch tool, the glass panes in the lab have excellent resale value to Cartographer villagers.
The lab can be turned into a secret base after you remove the stuff inside and fully secure the ancient city. Due to its central location and secure nature, it also makes a great base camp while exploring.
Making a base in an ancient city can be a challenging but rewarding task. It's completely hidden, almost no reliable way of finding one (except mountains and using Chunk Base), and has wide open spaces. The only mobs that spawn naturally in the deep dark biome are bats, making the tedious chore of mob proofing the base optional.
The warden drops one thing; a sculk catalyst. Though in small quantities this is largely useless due to sculk catalysts being simple to find in deep dark biomes, in large quantities, it can be an effective and renewable portable experience source (as it drops 5 experience per block), unlike nether quartz ore, which is not renewable, and bottles o' enchanting, which is much more expensive to farm. When you can't access your experience farms directly, catalysts can be used as a substitute to mend your low-durability gear.
If you'd want to increase your enchanted golden apple stocks but fear the warden, players can make warden switches to make exploration easier and safer. This basically prevents the warden from spawning and thus if you'd ever want more apples or Swift Sneak books, players can flick a lever to prevent warden spawns. And if you ever want to keep your catalyst farm running, players can easily turn off the switch.
