Tech progression and choke points in BTW [SPOILERS]

[johnt]

I had initially thought that surviving required finding wheat as soon as possible because breeding cows seemed so essential to the btw tech tree, and because animals disappear quickly for a variety of reasons, but it seems now that you can get a reasonable, if hard-scrabble existence going with very basic resources, for example, you can raise chickens and hemp and get some sustainable food going without exploring at all.

How far up the tech tree can you feasibly get without finding any crops in villages or doing extensive exploring for resources? It seems like anything that requires leather would be a bit impractical since you or the zombies are either going to be killing every cow you see or protecting them for milking.

What's the progression look like to you if you don't rush to find villages and temples? Where do you see yourself absolutely needing to go looking for new crops?

[FlowerChild]

Dude...fucking spoilers and a half man. Put that in the title post haste or be banned with righteous fury.

EDIT: Too late, and I did it for you.

[Foxy Boxes]

I'd say the first true choke point in BTW is iron. More specifically the Iron Hoe. It's the end of having to run around an ever-increasing radius to gather food and the start of renewable food sources.

After that I'd say a windmill is the next bottleneck on the tech tree as you need it to use the saw and everything that comes with that.

Then there's the nether. Although you may have been once to gather enough resources to keep the cauldron cooking, large amounts of netherrack will be needed for most late-game and a few mid-game devices. Once you've an established nether base, you tech tree progression is almost unhindered.

A semi-tech tree choke point is villages, since wheat is needed to breed cows, and cows are needed for leather. Outside of that though, it's still a choke point, but not a tech tree one.

And the final choke point, a non-tech tree one imo, is mobtraps. They take a lot of resources and time to build and aren't strictly necessary. But they do supply a wealth of resources that other sources simply can't match.

Aaaand that's all I can think of.


EDIT: Why does this:

Dude...fucking spoilers and a half man. Put that in the title post haste or be banned with righteous fury.

EDIT: Too late, and I did it for you.

Make me think of the phrase "I've already fixed it, and you are not coming back."?
... And now I'm picturing FC 'testing' Steve?.

[ion]

you can do fine until SFS kicks in. then the glue requirements would make you search for a village

[DaveYanakov]

Actually, I often find gold while digging for an iron pick with which to harvest redstone so I go straight for the bling farming option and make the iron pick first. Now that I've finally figured out how to assault nether fortresses with a small chance of survival, planters generally come along before I would need an iron hoe and also have the material to spare for one.

Leather is where I really run into trouble as well. Getting a decent supply assembled requires either finding a village to start your breeding program or an equivalent amount of time exploring and slaughtering every cow you happen across.

[Gabecraft1234]

What is your nether strategy? I have yet to complete a successful blaze rod run.

[savagelung]

What is your nether strategy? I have yet to complete a successful blaze rod run.

Most of my nether fortress was encased in netherrack, so the blaze spawners I found were enclosed. All I did was partially block off the room and stab their "feet" to get a handful of rods.

If your fortress is mostly outdoors, you're probably going to need to use a bow and pick off some of the naturally spawning blazes from a distance.

[DaveYanakov]

What is your nether strategy? I have yet to complete a successful blaze rod run.

Wear armor, carry a bow and plenty of arrows, build 2 high arches every three meters as you go with a covered tunnel and airlock near the fortress entrance.

Wither skeletons are not an issue with enough cobble and you can generally keep the blazes at enough range that you can avoid being hit.

[SterlingRed]

Nether fortress rule #1: Unless you are in an established safe area, never stop moving. If you are always moving you can avoid most ghast and blaze attacks as well as keep yourself from getting ganked by multiple wither skeletons.
Rule #2: Always assume a wither skeleton is around the blind corners and prepare accordingly before rushing around the turn.

[Benanov]

And the final choke point, a non-tech tree one imo, is mobtraps. They take a lot of resources and time to build and aren't strictly necessary. But they do supply a wealth of resources that other sources simply can't match.

Several versions ago I built a mobtrap entirely out of wood (and I do mean entirely: this was back when you could smelt logs for charcoal.)

A simple low-output drop trap is quite feasible very low on the tech tree if you don't mind dropping about, oh, a row of wood (9 stacks) on it...and you can use furnaces for light, because you only need the lights on when you're building it.

It's not the high-volume mob processing plant but you can do it completely waterless if you don't mind the danger of being dive-bombed by spiders (they get a hit in before they die.)

I haven't built one in 4.65 yet but I think that'll be a project.

[DaveYanakov]

I am now curious to know if the webs those spiders would aim at you would also break their fall... Want to test that tonight?

[Benanov]

I am now curious to know if the webs those spiders would aim at you would also break their fall... Want to test that tonight?

Sure! The danger is only when you are collecting the drops. This can be minimized by collecting only during the daytime.

[Taleric]

After a few warm-up runs I could see not needing villagers till late, late game.

So, not too bottle-necked here.

It almost feels wrong with how I progress however; I am able to have a full set of diamond armor + tools, portal up (uncharted), chickens/pumpkins galore, dogs on standby, and plenty of leather amassed. All this after exploring most of first large map and the only BTW tech I have is cauldron, waiting for hemp to grow.

So something feels off... once I snatch those diamonds I am am pretty set :/

It feels like the thing to do, so w/e, still feels "off".

I love to automate and will have pigs stuffed with kibble shortly after hoppers. As well as my SFS line, so all changes so far are great, lengthening enjoyable progression.

It is just that hop onto an abundance of diamonds and gold (quickly outnumbering iron ingots) that makes me think I have found a loop hole.

[Benanov]

Holy crap, this game is hard now.

I've scratched out a hardscrabble existence on one of the SMP servers here, hard difficulty. The 'abandoned village' is 4.64, so it has all the plant types, which is good because I haven't seen many animals.

The wheat balance is very good. I will note that it is possible, through very careful food management, to profit food-wise off of bread-making enough to grind hemp. Since E(wheat seeds per mature wheat) is about 1.1 now having protected fields is very important.

Choke points seem to be cobble/wood balance, a reliable food supply, and coal/iron. I've finally got food stable - I had to make a vertical mill as I haven't found redstone yet - an old trick from the superflat server. Caving is very dangerous and the low amount of coal available does not lend itself to safe lighting.

The 'flow' of the game is a little off in my experience. In older versions and VMC there was always something to do. Now it seems like if you're out of step with your food supply you can find yourself waiting for time to pass - so there are some choke points where you don't have enough supplies to do what you need to do.

However, this is the anti-nomadic existence, where you make do with what you are given rather than trying to find an optimal spot.

[DaveYanakov]

The way I have been approaching caves is to dig into solid rock and pave as I go. You can get 6 blocks mined per slab quite easily and that will generally give you the coal and or paving slabs needed to explore a cave in relative safety. Just remember to keep trees planted at all times as you are going to need mass quantities of wood.

[Rianaru]

I've definitely noticed that wood is much more valuable than before. I know I like to build really big, and I use a lot of wood for that, but I find myself going through stacks and stacks of it just for everyday expansion and maintenance. It's definitely motivating me to build a tree farm as soon as I possibly can, but that might be a while because of the iron changes