Came back to BTW with strategies

[Puzzled]

I've been playing BTW since lenses came out and played a lot until I rage-quit after HCS became default. (preparing for "haha noob") I recently started a new world and I hadn't felt so scared about minecraft since the first few days of playing (in a good way.) After dying a lot I came up with a few strategies to help me survive.

First Day: Chop wood until I have 20 or more blocks and punch any chickens in my way. Then find a nice cliffside or hill to dig a base in.
First Night: Use the wood to create 3 wood picks to make 1 stone pick to make 2 stone picks and then a furnace and two stone axes.
Second Day: Do not go outside until all the mobs are gone and I have full health and hunger if possible.
So on: If me and a mob are in a fight where one is in the water, the one in the water almost always loses. When traveling always make a path of packed slabs behind me to follow if I get lost.

[Gilberreke]

General consensus these days seems to be that making a stone axe before a stone pick is preferable

Welcome back :)

[CreeperCannibal]

Its nice to see you've got the "grab wood and food" idea down for the first day.
I usually skip the wood for the third wooden pickaxe and instead use 2 picaxes to make my first stone axe which i use to gather wood and meat. Beyond that I find shelter and, if it presents itself at the surface, coal. As coal will grant me extended light for more cobble mining.

Ninja'd by Gil

[Puzzled]

Most of my first day is used to find a suitable place to live where I am near all the resources I need so I don't have to travel a long way to find pumpkins/animals/surface coal.

[jkievlan]

I wouldn't bother punching the chickens. If you quickly punch 14 wood, you can make a stone axe. Then go out and kill one (only one!) animal for a snack during the night, chop some wood with the axe (making sure to save a little durability for making planks), then go into your hole and start with some serious stone mining. The next day, hunting will be your priority, so make sure overnight you get enough stone to make 5-6 axes (after a furnace and some stone picks of course).

[eternal8phoenix]

Welcome back.

One of my personal early goals is to bury a pair of most animals somewhere they are safe for me to come and get later on. Preferably just out of loading distance, so I don't have to worry about things sneaking in to get them.

If I had to rank them in order of desirability:

1 Chickens. These will probably be lured to my house rather than buried for later.
2 Cows.
3 Pigs.
4 Sheep.

My biggest early game struggles are with food. Those house-chickens start to look real tempting sometimes...

[Puzzled]

One of my personal early goals is to bury a pair of most animals somewhere they are safe for me to come and get later on.

I did that with a sheep and left a block open, apparently all the zombies huddled in a corner to get it. The next morning I found an iron shovel near the sheep's hole.

[Mud]

General consensus these days seems to be that making a stone axe before a stone pick is preferable

Welcome back :)

I recently tried this after seeing it in a few LPs, it really does work out better.

[erikdk321]

Making an axe first also lets you kill off nearby animals faster before wolves or zombies does it.

[ExpHP]

I find it amusing how we all like to jump in on all of these early game strategy threads. The early game is just so fun to discuss!

I'm fighting hard against the temptation to spell out all of the basics again myself. :P

[Mud]

I find it amusing how we all like to jump in on all of these early game strategy threads. The early game is just so fun to discuss!

I'm fighting hard against the temptation to spell out all of the basics again myself. :P

I've sat down more than once with a paper and pen and done the math on what mats I should have by first nightfall and tried to figure out the exact order in which I should acquire them. Early game is stressful!

[eternal8phoenix]

I've sat down more than once with a paper and pen and done the math on what mats I should have by first nightfall and tried to figure out the exact order in which I should acquire them. Early game is stressful!

Ok...I have to ask...how? I'm not entirely sure as to how one can "math" that, given how many variables there are to consider, like spawn biome or availability of defend-able hiding locations. What exactly do you consider?

(not asking for any values, just what they represent, if that makes sense)

[Mud]

I've sat down more than once with a paper and pen and done the math on what mats I should have by first nightfall and tried to figure out the exact order in which I should acquire them. Early game is stressful!

Ok...I have to ask...how? I'm not entirely sure as to how one can "math" that, given how many variables there are to consider, like spawn biome or availability of defend-able hiding locations. What exactly do you consider?

(not asking for any values, just what they represent, if that makes sense)

Just simple stuff like "to have the tools I need by nightfall, I need X planks which means I need to punch Y trees until I can get an axe and then continue to collect Z logs, etc." It ended up being more trouble than it was worth.

[ExpHP]

Just simple stuff like "to have the tools I need by nightfall, I need X planks which means I need to punch Y trees until I can get an axe and then continue to collect Z logs, etc." It ended up being more trouble than it was worth.

I just remember the magic number 14 (+1 if you need a shovel).

Beyond that, I see no issue with just collecting everything you can (so long as you get food too). Logs collected with your first stone axe are just as useful as logs collected with your twelfth stone axe.

[Gilberreke]

I find it weird that people bother to cage animals on the first day or go looking for coal or pumpkins. None of those matter for me on a first day.

I do care about hunting. I usually try to have at least 8 pieces of food before sheltering for night. Preferably sheep for the armor, but I tend to pick up stray chickens too, because they are so easy to kill. Cows I might grab if the opportunity presents itself, but I don't bother with pigs, too much hassle.

The reason I don't care about caging animals is that it's trivial to cage them the second day if you really want that (I don't, I never cage animals for later, what's the point?). If coal isn't available right in eyesight, I usually dig it up during the night anyway and failing all that, there's the furnace to give you some light and then if I still don't have coal, I might try to find some surface coal on the end of day 2.

Again, on Better With Friends, we went hunting for food (just hunting) for more than two minecraft weeks to feed 7 people and we never ran out.

[Mud]

I'll have to give that a try in my next world then. I'm admittedly borderline-obsessive about burying animals early on.

[eternal8phoenix]

snip

I bury animals ASAP just because I hate trying to lure them across long distances, and because I'm paranoid about extincting all of the animals within a reasonable distance of spawn through my own actions, or through other predators. I just hate hauling animals over multiple biomes or through complex terrain. If I can possibly avoid it I will.

[VegasGoat]

I bury animals ASAP just because I hate trying to lure them across long distances, and because I'm paranoid about extincting all of the animals within a reasonable distance of spawn through my own actions, or through other predators. I just hate hauling animals over multiple biomes or through complex terrain. If I can possibly avoid it I will.

I was going to say exactly that. An additional advantage of burying chickens by your base is that they distract the spiders so you don't have to fight your way out the front door every morning.

[erikdk321]

I think burying animals the first day is a waste of time, but i usually do it whenever i come across 2 cows or other animals when i feel "ready".
I dont see the point in walking 500 blocks instead of 100 for a few animals.

[Ozziie]

I was going to say exactly that. An additional advantage of burying chickens by your base is that they distract the spiders so you don't have to fight your way out the front door every morning.

Funny you should say that...

Spoiler

Show

An additional advantage of burying yourself in your own base is you distract the FOUR spiders so the chicken can do what it wants :(
EDIT: Make that 5 :S

[eternal8phoenix]

I think burying animals the first day is a waste of time, but i usually do it whenever i come across 2 cows or other animals when i feel "ready".
I dont see the point in walking 500 blocks instead of 100 for a few animals.

Eh, I'm kinda a master of day one now...I can easily get a stone axe, enough food for a couple days, enough wood for the night and bury a couple cows/chickens for later. My bigger problem is getting to a point where I can adequately feed myself and I'm not relying on mushrooms to keep my 1 point above peckish. Hence why I want to have a guaranteed easy to reach chicken or two.

[EtherealWrath]

Usually I take a quick look around- see if anyone left a crafting bench/furnace lying about
If not then punch enough wood to make a stone axe- then chop 4 logs and make a second axe.
One axe sometimes isn't enough for a days work- this is easier than making a second axe on the fly.

[Mud]

I've recently developed a habit of only taking half of the pumpkins from a wild pumpkin "patch" so I don't lose all of them if I die before I can settle.

[dawnraider]

I've recently developed a habit of only taking half of the pumpkins from a wild pumpkin "patch" so I don't lose all of them if I die before I can settle.

How it's it that you die before you settle, unless you just don't on the first day, in which case, "haha, noob."

I think burying animals the first day is a waste of time, but i usually do it whenever i come across 2 cows or other animals when i feel "ready".
I dont see the point in walking 500 blocks instead of 100 for a few animals.

Eh, I'm kinda a master of day one now...I can easily get a stone axe, enough food for a couple days, enough wood for the night and bury a couple cows/chickens for later. My bigger problem is getting to a point where I can adequately feed myself and I'm not relying on mushrooms to keep my 1 point above peckish. Hence why I want to have a guaranteed easy to reach chicken or two.

I find it better to kill the animals the first day rather than burying them, and then you don't run into issues with food the first night.

[Mud]

A good example would be my last world, where my initial spawn right next to a pumpkin patch. I took half of them and about 1 minecraft week later I was a few ore away from being able to craft an iron tool and start my first settlement and was killed by something or other. And yes, I still play nomadic until I collect enough iron to make a hoe.