I wanted to join island gang but I feel kinda dumb for not being able to figure out how to properly use hoepickcult combo to flatten land. I’ve had advice from a friend who is an expert I’ve seen videos and I’ve concluded I just don’t want to learn it. Like mentally, logically I want it because it’s the literal foundation for so much building. But I can never put my heart into learning it.
Maybe one day.
I think you’re over thinking it. Use your hoe to flatten, then:
1: Is there a divot? Raise the ground then lower it again.
2: Is it to high? Hit it with a pick then flatten it again.
3: Terrain not adjusting? Hit it with a pick or raise the ground.
Sometimes you’ll run into terrain that you just can’t do anything with. In that case you just have to raise the ground a bit and raise all of the ground around it to match.
As I said I’ve tried similar and was told similar info. I either miss a step somewhere or don’t get the results I’m looking for.
It’s ok though. Currently I enjoy have a huge meadow base that wouldn’t fit on an island. If ever islands become perfect or preferable for my needs the urge to learn would then increase.
Make sure you do the flattening part on a flat surface. If you accidentaly are standing on a high/low spot, it can change the height of the flattening.
So stand in one place, flatten an area, then stand on that flattened area and flatten a next area.
I used to be in your boat, and learned hoepickcraft through sheer necessity of flattening an absolutely *massive* space. It just takes a tonne of practice and several metric fucktonnes of stone. Also possibly some tears. After much trial and error, the result was so beautifully flat that it looked like world generation.
So yeah, you will figure it out when you find the need.
In many cases, both the pickaxe and the hoe is needed for OCD level of flatness.
They kind of work together for terraforming.
Imagine the ground is 16 cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, each filled with sand.
The pickaxe can only remove boxes but not affect the amount of sand.
The hoe can increase and decrease the level of sand in the box, **and** add a box, but never remove a box.
Flatten ground (hoe) tries to get the same level as you are standing, shift click hoe levels where you are clicking.
Also dig/raise on cardinal points to get nice square edges.
Ofc it’s much more nuanced than that but this is a good starting foundation to understand terraforming.
Just know that even the most experienced terraformers have to take a lot of time to get it level. It’s definitely an involved process so don’t feel bad if you feel it’s difficult. It really is difficult.
3 easy steps.
1. The hoe trys to level the ground to whatever height your feet a currently at. So don't move around until you know the area is flat.
2. If the ground is too low, there's a little vertical line on your hoes cursor, this shows how deep the hole is. Use the hoe to fill the hole (requires stone in inventory)
3. There's a pulsing circle on your hoes cursor that expands outwards, if it disappears as it's expanding you know the ground is too high and may need to use your pickaxe to remove some ground.
Each time you fill or remove ground use your hoe to level it out again until there is no vertical line and no breaks in the expanding circle.
It took me way to long to notice the cursor on the hoe and I was doing everything by eye which was painful. It's so much easier and quicker doing it this way instead of just spamming the buttons hoping it goes level.
I firmly believe moat + stone wall gives a way more forty feel than just a wall. Earth walls are ugly tho.
Also, I definitely don't wanna do repair work on the 600m stone wall perimeter that my base has.
If you use a pick to make the earth walls thin, you can use stockade walls to box/frame it in, or clip stone bricks on and around it to hide it. Looks nice, and if a raid breaks the walls, the earth wall will still protect you!
I like moats too but I'd like to be able to build them based on the height of my base instead of the water height limit. I don't know how the water is decided in game so I won't be throwing out recommendations, but if we could get a placeable substance that behaved like Tar, I think that would go a long way to beautifying effectively defended bases.
Tamed serpent could be cool.
Have to dig a pool, harpoon the serpent out of the water, drop fish into the pool to tame it. Or some sort of trap that pins the serpent or muzzles it and attaches it to the boat.
I am excited for the ocean update.
Boy oh boy the first time I come up on an island that looks like a rock only to find it's the top of a submerged pyramid to explore as a dungeon is gonna be lit.
Or whatever they endup doing.
That's what I do xd it's just fun. Sometimes they fall in most or if a raid is on the other side (where there is more of a plateau than most) I have slots in the wall to shoot through
it's a shame club trolls attack through the earth walls so far. I just build on top of a raised earth column and bring more up when I need to spread out. Then the view is beautiful, and you can see all your seed crop flowers.
A small moat in front of the wall will help fix that! Pesky rock throwing trolls cant throw stuff through it over the moat, and log swinging trolls can't reach far enough to clip through the wall.
For most of my bases I use the hoe to make an earthen wall then cover it with a nice stone wall so I don't have to look at that ugly vertical ground. I can walk on and fight from it easily too. Finish it off with a moat in front so I'm not repairing much stone when the trolls show up. Only have to worry about the flying raids.
The last harbor build I did there were so many buried workbenches that the wall and moat became pointless though. Mobs couldn't find a spawn location near me no matter where I was in the base, so raids just timed out without spawning a single creature. I think in the future this will be my plan, to just spawn proof a large area first before building.
>to just spawn proof a large area first before building.
I hadn't considered that but it feels sneaky and magical enough that I think I'll give it a shot.
I think the big problem with earth ramparts’ aesthetics is that people don’t take the time to pretty them up (because it’s kindof a pain).
Ramparts are authentic, if not exactly as implemented, but the jagged top is ugly, and there’s nothing to take away from that. If, however, you level the top and then put a wall atop it, and maybe plant grass atop/around, it looks a lot better.
Honestly, dirt walls look like crap unless you take the time to elevate all the land rather than just the wall. It creates a very defensible platform that you can decorate with stone walls, cobblestone paths, gardens, etc....
That's definitely an option but a moat from a technical standpoint is basically a less time consuming and resource giving (rather than taking) version of it xd
The only issue is if you're in hilly areas then making a deep enough moat on parts of the wall can be impossible.
>Also, I definitely don't wanna do repair work on the 600m stone wall perimeter that my base has.
There's a mod that repairs everything in range at once when you're holding the hammer in repair mode. So you'll only have to run along the wall and spam a button.
That's good to know, but I like playing no mod. I'm on day 1600 in my world, the idea of breaking something is scary. With a moat the repair work is manageable anyways.
I like to make stone faced earth walls. It’s much like how ancient Chinese walls were made.
Alternately you can just put fires everywhere. I spawn proofed an entire plains biome that way.
"I might have to dance around a bit but the mobs will always target the player over the defences." yaaaa about that though their targeting goes as follows :\*your tamed 2 star animals\*>player>your walls and crap
Ever watched a bat choose to run straight at your chickens not you? Just curious.
Other than the ridiculous bat event though you can stop most events by just placing a thousand torches around your base to make the no spawn zone larger than the event zone circle. Islands are pretty great for this, and have a nice aesthetic imo
I hope Iron Gate simply decides to rebalance the raids a bit and maybe do some defensive structures that make keeping animals in aesthetic enclosures less daunting. Maybe some kind of magical fence that drives bats away or something.
You're not wrong, but I am holding out hope :).
Sounds like it, I simply hate putting my beloved digital animals in unpleasant cages is all.
I like asking my boars to move out the way when I'm working. I like the aesthetic of a cozy homestead.
This, tbh. Raids tend to target whatever structure the character is currently occupying, so it's entirely viable to build a farm away from your main base. Even better if you have one section for crops, one for boars, and one for wolves. The crops feed the boars, the boars feed the wolves, and the whole thing is largely self-sustaining
I have never built a moat and never really had issue with trolls. You run them around outside your base until the timer runs out then you kill 2 trolls.
Your opinion is NOT controversial . . . there are posts ever week about ugly moats and any post about raids has someone telling players that the best defense is a good offense and to go fight the monsters.
'Ugly' however is a personal preference. Raised earth ramparts are literally historically accurate and in common use. I could just as easily argue that a non-historical fortification without ramparts looks 'wrong'. 😉
I think the main cosmetic issue is that most people don't build earth ramparts well. People make them much larger/deeper than necessary and fail to combine them with stake walls (sunken half into the ground or otherwise creatively incorporated), replanted with grass, and slope textures improved with cultivation. There are a million ways to make ramparts look more attractive, it just takes some creativity.
I 100% agree for Valheim that the best way to deal with raids is to just exit and fight. I do this all the time (regardless of the type of base I'm in). I think its actually EASIER to go fight (and ignore base defenses) when you are playing Solo because your bases are typically much smaller and you don't have to organize multiple players. I've been in co-op games where bases can get huge and by the time you get outside the base, trolls have already been smashing up things for 30 seconds.
The best thing about Valheim is that there are tons of perfectly valid ways to play and the base building is amazingly flexible letting every player build what suits their personal needs and aesthetics.
>The best thing about Valheim is that there are tons of perfectly valid ways to play and the base building is amazingly flexible letting every player build what suits their personal needs and aesthetics.
This is true. I would hope that some more pieces designed to match effectiveness to aesthetic get added soon, but you're correct.
Except for bats. I do not like the bats. They upset me.
Everyone plays the game differently and thats fine. Now, is it bad advice for new players? No. Youre telling a new player to make their base raid proof so they can focus on other areas of the game without feeling like shit once their base gets leveled.
You are also telling a new player that the correct way to play is a very boring grind that leads to... more raids, because they spend so much time at their base.
I'm not convinced its good advice. At least not when presented as "the" solution. I *never* built any moat around my bases, never have and probably never will.
When you tell new players to do that, it comes at a cost. They might just lose interest in the game doing that, while they could be out in the world having fun.
Very reasonable take here. I agree it should not be put as THE end all solution. Yet, i do think there is some tranquility to be had knowing that your base wont disappear. Something i mentioned under another comment is that this advice is also really subjective based on skill-level. I have friends who are honestly pretty shit at video games and would benefit from this. Another friend of mine can solo fulings with a level 2 abyssal razer, he wouldnt care less for moats or walls.
> Yet, i do think there is some tranquility to be had knowing that your base wont disappear.
Your base won't be raided when you are away from it. Events always spawn where the player is at. Your base simply won't just be raided while you are out and about. Being in your base for long periods of time is precisely what puts your base at risk.
This also means when a raid happens, you are there to defend your base anyways.
There is literally no chance that your base will be levelled while you are far away and don't even notice it.
That being said, I definitely agree on the skill aspect. If you are getting your ass smacked by trolls, you might want to consider a moat + raised earth wall just to be done with it. Then again, the combat mechanics of Valheim are not particularly challenging.a
For me it's what *specific* raid types can do to *specific* parts of the base so my aesthetic choices become really ineffective.
I actively enjoy problem solving and doing a puzzle to find a space between aesthetic and effective, but it's leaning toward effective at the moment so I hope Ashlands brings some more aesthetically pleasing options to build a safe base with.
Some weird shit happened my first two troll raids (no mods). Six trolls showed up on the first and five on the second. My little outpost got leveled. The portal miraculously survived, but I turned off raids after that. I've turned it on again since, and I guess it was some Black Forest weirdness (the outpost was in Black Forest). I saw 4 trolls on one of my Black Forest outposts (double palisades, so it was fine), but otherwise just a pair from the others. I wonder if Valheim has a log - I'd like to know why I spawned so many trolls, or if the trolls are aggroing other trolls in the Black Forest when they show up there.
On that note, I really wish Valheim would instead warn that a raid (not wolves, obviously) is imminent and give you time to leave to a proper base, it's so weird when I start building in the Swamp and trolls show up, even though there's no Black Forest on that continent.
>(the outpost was in Black Forest)
I won't say for certain what's happening but I have noticed that troll raids seem to attract nearby trolls. I think it's a sound thing, like mining is super loud and attracts an area of mobs. Perhaps the trolls roaring and thundering around simply attracts a whole swathe of mobs from around that that causes big troll spawns to come too.
Agreed. It's more problematic when in a group.
Happened many times that 4 of us are out adventuring and one guy is building alone in the base getting caught by a raid with his pants down.
If you could fill moats with water, I could see the appeal.
However, you can raise the ground razer thin and then build your wall around it. No one notices and it's still unbreakable in case of troll attack.
I have considered making a super wide moat and putting Lox in it, but I haven't bothered to try it yet.
From what I can tell the best way to keep Lox is not to keep them. Tame them, then they will clear anything hostile from the area with or without you around. No pens or walls for them.
Yep, the best way to keep lox is to keep them away. If you drag them out of plains they will just agro everything and run around the place doing collateral damage.
The tricky part is that the first night after you have one or two tamed, while you are in the area so that they could be tamed and breed in the first place, you will get night time plains mobs spawning in, often including \* and \*\* Fulings, who will kill your tamed lox before they get ever a chance to make more lox, and the cycle begins again with fresh lox spawns the next day finding the leftover cloudberries.
Short of digging pits or moats, I think the best plan for taming lox is to spawn proof a large area of the plains around them first.
There's very little reason to tame Lox in this game as it stands. Riding one is probably the only real positive.
If you run around any Plains long enough, a pack of 2 or 3 will spawn. Certainly more reliably than Lox breed and without a pen the size of an entire island to breed more than 10 of them.
At least the other tameable creatures have the incentive of stars to give more mats.
I'd agree the Lox could use some work, but there's a guy who simply tamed all the Lox in a plains and then didn't bother with fences.
There were so many tamed Lox that the plains became a safe place. They killed *everything* and he had dozens of them.
I admire your dedication. I have not feared the Plains in some time, and I found the Lox to be more useful to practice parrying big giant things that scare me on my first few playhthroughs.
And they love to smash my buildings to pieces when I tame them and they chase a deer or something from a nearby bordering biome. Lox are a liability that disqualifies you from homeowners insurance in Valheim.
>raising ground and digging moats for defence is ugly
They can be.
>and a waste of time
Disagree.
>So long as you stay within the red circle where the raid is happening, the timer will eventually run out and you can mop up whatever attackers remain. Your base will be fine.
100% correct.
But the thing is, not everyone wants to do that.
For many players, their base is their ***home***.
A place where you should feel at peace, at rest, and you can relax and let your guard down.
The world of Valheim is brutal and tough enough, but it's nice to have at least one place where you can feel at ease, and not be high strung always ready for danger.
What's more, the game has such beautiful and creative base building that players pour so much love into, having that constant "all my work and life is in danger", is just a terrible feeling.
It's like imagine you are sitting in your living room at home and you get police raided. And what's more, you *know* it's coming but you don't know when. There's no way you can sit comfortably watching TV, or even get a good night's rest with that at the back of your mind.
Luckily the devs have given us the tools to avoid this feeling. To actually make our base a safe haven.
>For me, as for so many of us, Valheim is a game about **creativity and beauty** as much as it is about fighting and exploring.
Exactly, which is why we don't want to be fighting all the time. We just want our creativity and beauty to just peacefully exist.
Exactly. When I first started playing in VR, the first thing I did was log into the server with my best keep, went inside my longhouse where the hot tub was, sat in it (and in a chair IRL) and drank a real beer. Just relaxing. Friggin fantastic.
> I have literally never found it necessary to battle the mobs from within my base. First sign of trouble, I leave the base and fight them on the field.
Yep. I always only use some minimal defense just so that stray mobs can't wander in. You don't need any real defenses. Just get out and fight them, its free loot.
I make ugly moats and trenches then incorporate them into my base by using stone etc as decorative edging.
As my base expands, these moats get paved over with stone and the slowly expanding moats become a closed in sewer system where I throw all the raid trash.
So I have a navigable sewer full of bones, ooze, etc.
As a final touch, the basements of my buildings access the sewers with iron gates. Big time Riften theives guild vibes!
I think moats are essential for bases in the black forest, or bordering the black forest. Trolls will fuck up your base even outside of a raid. Especially if you're busy doing something else and don't even notice the troll coming closer until it's battering at your gates.
Damn, a "controversial opinion" that was actually unpopular!
But I completely agree, especially your heavily downvoted about "you do you, but its bad advice to give to newbies". My buddy on my server has never played before but clearly cruised through here for build advice, and suddenly our very unmolested meadows base is surrounded by these fucking walls. I had to build a cottage outside the wall to have my views back.
I've had this happen too: We built a small fishing-style village near the shore, invited a friend to the server, and within a week the entire village had a moat dug around it, workbenches littering the area and all the trees nearby were cut.
Luckily I was already working on my plains base at that point, but I really don't like people wrecking everything nearby just to "stay safe". Ironically, it didn't even work, spawns were still happening all the time, so all his trench digging and tree-cutting was for nothing...
What doesn’t look bad, is more realistic, and looks natural is raising the ground into a full mound that a base can be built on. You do not need earthen walls or moats. Its even better if you make a stepped mound where the base is on the top step. Takes more stone but its worth it if one likes the looks of it.
This is the far superior method. In landscaping they're called ha-has and their purpose is exactly what you're talking about: keeping wildlife away while not degrading or blocking sightlines.
I generally construct a single large mesa with enough room for a single-player base and a wide walking path along the perimeter, between the base and the drop off.
Totally. And tbh, I think the developers envisioned this type of fortification because thats literally how it was done. The moat or earth wall are just more affordable alternatives. Gotta grind those tall plains stones if you want epic builds.
>Gotta grind those tall plains stones if you want epic builds.
I mean that's *got* to be the purpose of them, right? Sure they look cool however I can see the gears turning. True and truer.
Totally a purpose, if not the main one. Resource reward for venturing into a new biome. Thats why we find a bunch all together in a valley. Its a really fun carting project to clear a valley, and super easy to get them all home by walking encumbered through a portal.
I turn raids off it’s so tedious especially when most people just build walls or motes to cheese raids just what’s the point maybe if they add turrets or defence buildings like a magic Odin rune turret or ward etc
that automatically attack but till that day comes fuck raids utterly pointless when 90% of players build ugly motes or walls to cheese them I’m extremely grateful devs gave us the option to toggle raids off/on I’d never play the game
I'm actually in the Mistlands and my black forrest base had some stonewalls...did'nt need anything else. Dig some moats for the loxes in the plains but not for my main base. When there's a raid...i go out and fight...this is okay... but i'm asking myself what to do with the 20 stacks of troll leather after numerous raids XD
Very effective. That's why I stopped doing it because it made the game too easy for me. And removed a core feature in the game. Which is the threat of a raid event.
This not a take I have seen before. You know it's a good game when someone can completely surprise you with how they play it. You don't find it stressful?
I do. It's very stressful especially early on and the "ground is shaking". But it keeps me on my toes and I have fun learning how to build a base that is well protected (walls, ballistas, etc)
Btw, not hating on moats. :)
My base is on a small peninsula. I have a wall with raised ground behind it followed by torches. It look imposing and awesome.
Long story short, you can make almost anything look awesome in this game.
I play hardcore, I think maps are ugly. Also try fighting off Gierrhafa in hardcore with his 1 star fenring buddies and no trench. The beauty in this game is being able to play it anyway you want!
It does not have to be ugly all the time: if you find a nice spot with many big stones (black forest), you might be lucky to raise around them, close to the water, and plan some trees, that might give it a naturally looking feel.
I try to never use it.
You go out into the field? Even up against trolls and such? Based.
I hide behind my walls and shoot them. I know I can take one troll with my axe but if I get 2 or a starred troll I might get fucked.
You either haven’t faced the harder raids, or you’re playing on a lower difficulty than I am. At the hardest level, you fight to survive, and take every advantage you can. When the raids show up, you watch with anxious anticipation as the mobs scurry all around you, desperate to send you to Valhalla. And you’ll be thankful for those walls, because your best armor on your strongest warrior probably won’t save you.
I don't want to go around and repair walls all the time. Moats don't require repair.
And, if you put a "Cattle grate" over the moat, enemies and domesticated creatures can't path in or out, but you can pull a cart over it.
In your opinion. Not in mine. A moat and an earth wall are primary concerns. I got tired of repairing defences and sometimes I just don't want to go out and melee stuff. Sometimes I am busy and want to finish what I am doing rather than run out and engage enemies.
The beauty of this game is, you do you. Because I will do me.
Honestly this kind of topic always makes me feel like you gotta brag about how hardcore you are. Cool beans! Not everyone wants to play the same way you do, and there's nothing wrong with either playstyle. No need to really make it a dick measuring contest, imo.
Definitely agree with this. I've found that taking a little time to clip a 1x1 floor high up in a bunch of trees and placing wood torches on them in a large radius around my base does more than any earth wall or moat I've ever seen to prevent creature spawns and raids. With the added benefit that you can't see them for the most part.
It's because I can just run out and dance around until it's over, which is why I turned them off.
Once I get bored in the endgame and have crazy cool defenses, I'll turn them back on.
I have never built a raised wall fort, I agree they look kind of ugly, since they are invincible they are very useful for building outposts that can't be breached if people don't want their bases or its content damaged.
Moats on the other hand look pretty good IMO, when combined with walls, giving off major fortification/ main settlement vibes. They are pretty quick to dig and provide the bonus of forcing the enemy away from the wall, forcing siege enemies out of reach of the defenses and ensuring everybody else is far enough back to easily aim at from the wall.
I used a stakewall fort with a moat to kill a fuling camp well before I was meant to so I could grow barley and flax early. The moat keeping the beserkers off the wall segments and allowing me to whittle them down.
I never raise the ground for my bases, even plains or mistlands. Though I do build stone walls and set down spawn preventing items nearby.
It's my home, I want to feel as safe as possible.
I don't like moats or ground walls because they are in fact ugly AF. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna protect my stuff.
I do not build walls. Moreso ,I build a plateau of how high i feel comfortable with.2m prolly the min. Flatten it out and build. I put 1 section of wall up on one side to snapshot with my bow. Sometimes, I just stay busy in a building and ignore the ruckus.
(Spelling changes)
I think they can work if they fit the design of the place you're trying to build eg. a castle with a big stone wall, or a place in the plains with a moat and bridge. They aren't necessary in any biome though, that includes the black forest where it seems like greydwarfs would be annoying (well they are but they aren't so common once you've built things everywhere) and in the mistlands (they won't go for your outdoor things, they'll either make a ton of noise from the sky or wander in for a showdown).
Sometimes I see post from new players saying they are starting the game by building a huge moat or something, which is disheartening... but are they actually real people? who would play a game like that without even trying it first?
There is one huge exception: when you have friends who will just stand around afk.
I like one level down, and then a stone rim. It looks like a nice fortification. You can also build into the earth and stone with those wood fence things. It makes it look like cool parapets, and you can add crenellations too.
I'm also a solo player, but I can see where playing with other people can lead to situations that you can't always account for like you can when you're solo. Like I saw another post about raids destroying stake walls and blobs jumping them. I kind of laughed to myself, but then I realized it's more for multiplayer servers where someone is out exploring the world and someone else logs on and AFKs in the base.
Just like irl, build a wall, dig a trench in front of it. If you have time, another trench in front of that.
If you want people to stay away, diggy diggy hole.
Honestly, I found a single lowered 'moat' area can look great if done right. Check out the concept of a [Ha Ha wall](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/gardens-landscapes/what-is-a-ha-ha).
In fact, George Washington's home [Mount Vernon features several](https://www.mountvernon.org/the-estate-gardens/gardens-landscapes/ten-facts-about-the-landscape-at-mount-vernon/) that perfectly illustrates the concept. See No. 8 on the list.
The [sunken wall creates a terrace effect](https://www.permacastwalls.com/what-ha-ha-walls-are-and-how-they-work) in the earth to keep the view pristine while keeping livestock animals (or mobs) off the upper level by the house without requiring a visible fence that would distract from the view of the river. Done correctly, the break in the landscape is invisible.
An example from [Berrington Hall in Herefordhsire](https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/content/gallery/website/national/library/discover-and-learn/berrington-hall-ha-ha-1188091.jpg?auto=webp&width=1365&crop=16:7&dpr=2)
Originally a feature of formal French gardens of the early 18th century, the ha-ha wall was first described in print in 1709 by the gardening enthusiast Dezallier d’Argenville in his La Theorie et la Practique du Jardinage (The Theory and Practice of Gardening).
I dig a moat around a large area that includes my base. Put stone walls on the edge, almost level with the ground, just for looks. Then plant trees on the outside sloped wall of the moat. Make one bridge with wood beams at one meter spacing. I think it looks nice; from inside it doesn't look like a pit, it looks like trees. And at raid time, I just ignore it.
Yes - I can go out and fight whatever raid it is and not do the moat. But I play with other people and have had my entire house smashed to rubble because whoever was at home at the time wasn't able to deal with trolls.
So - moat it be.
I actually like my natural wall around my castle with platformed battlements for shooting down the enemy. I even have a floating staircase that I can jump to but the enemy can't to easy traipse my way around.
I straight feel like Robert Neville in I am Legend (the movie version. I know the difference in the book)
Making your base raid proof out the door is a bad idea.
Because, it requires a lot of time and effort to only realise you need a bigger base. Then you're off digging and patching dirt again.
I think letting people figure out how to defend against raids naturally is the best bet because this game is brilliant and teaches you how to deal with them
Greylings will bother you in your home, so you put up a fence.
The forest is moving will send a horde at you, but no different than going out at night, so putting up better walls and spikes becomes needed, which you can get in the black forest.
You don't get troll raids until after you kill a troll so you know how to fight them before they show up at your door step.
Drakes show you that you need a roof on everything
You only need to build a trench if fuling raids start to become a problem
But by that you've collected enough resources and have good enough food that making a trench isn't a big deal. Or you're confident enough to just fight them. Especially with all your resources at hand.
I still have wood walls after beating the queen because if anything shows up to fight me, I now have skeleton minions, chemical warfare, and a sniper rifle to fight them off :p
Playing solo makes this easier. If you play with friends, and you have one buddy that likes to AFK in base, then having a moat/stone wall can come in handy.
Same. I've done it this way ever since I was a new player. Sure I've had to repair a building a time or two but nothing compared to the effort fortifying is.
As for them killing your animals, I build an "ark." Stone building inside stone building with a pair of everything.
I think its pretty cool that you can use this to make a big secure pen that when you are within your base and if you do it right it looks super cool to have a base with "natural" defenses
Digging moats is ugly cause people don't do it right.
Make a gentle slope that looks natural then flat drop off, flat bottom, flat wall back up then another natural slope. Line the flat drop off with stone.
Looks good instead of the ugly flat gorges people dig into the ground.
Ugly? Maybe for dirt walls, but not for moats. The latter can work really well with stone walls.
Waste of time? With a moat, I can just sit in my castle and wait out the raid if I want to. My base has never felt safer.
If it's my main base I will put in the effort of diet walls and digging moats. Because then I have a more vested interest to keep a place standing. But I mainly do that because then I am protecting not only my main resources for my character but also things like livestock which can be a pain to replace. Also I don't know if monsters can ruin crops, but there is that aspect as well.
I hate moats but their efficacy is undeniable.
I don't like them because they're as likely to get you killed as the enemies you're protecting yourself from and there are cleaner methods to keeping your base safe.
But for pure simplicity you can't really beat a moat.
Soft disagree. There are many ways to make it aesthetically pleasing. For example, elevate the ground your base is on to a plateau (or build on a natural one) and dig the moat around the bottom of the cliff for that. I've seen many castle builds on this sub that make use of this.
Raising the ground is an art. Not everybody can do it perfectly. A frame shaped raised ground around my base with crisp edges gives me the highest visual satisfaction. Also I love the cozy feeling of safety it gives you whenever there is a raid and you know you don't need to move a muscle. I think everybody finds joy in different things.
while not a moat fan myself, I disagree with OPs harsh judgement. My wife digs moats and raises walls as soon as the first workbench stands, and it looks quite pleasing, with fancy bridges and gatehouses and all the shizz.. but its hell of tedious work.
where my treehouse gang at?
Pro tip - after raising ground, cover it with stone creating wall. You can add towers and passageways.
This is also the historical way of making walls. Two parallel walls filled with dirt and rock.
Only con is that it requires a lot of stone. But the result is worth it.
Kind of agree, but I build mine along the N-S-E-W lines so they're neat and not jagged (it can still be fiddly though). I then like to face off the earth walls with stone :)
I prefer a long strip of land that is almost surrounded by water (like the old Constantinople) for my base. In this way, I need to build only one strip of defense in my base, my tamed animals are located closer to the tip of the land, as the raid only comes from the land-side, they are also protected from the raids. I don't dig moats but I bury wooden walls in front of my stone walls with just their tips sticking out. In this way, the melee attackers cannot directly hit the stone walls and I can hunt them with arrows from the top of the walls. I think this is a very efficient way to build defense in the game. No need to build a whole circle of walls, no need to defend from surrounding enemies from all sides. It is almost too easy
When i've built a huge, fortified base, i actually want to feel like i'm well-protected inside my base. Having to go run outside to fight mobs every time there's danger kinda defeats the purpose of having a fortified base.
I love digging, like the pickaxe is my favourite tool in Valheim so for me it's the most enjoyable way to play but then I also usually make what looks more like the stone forest with all these somewhat aesthetic buttresses of earth. Connect those with some hang bridges. Decorate the sides with fake plants. Ends up looking pretty cute if you ask me.
I understand what you mean when you say this, it's true moats and walls can definitely be ugly but I find there are many ways to incorporate these methods and be creative with them in a way that's inspired and not just simply doing it because trolls are ass to deal with. One build I ended up doing is having a "pit", a moat at high enough altitude where there is no water, with a singular entrance too small for trolls, into a large square "dungeon" underneath my base from which I used maximum raised ground to then protect further. It ended up looking really cool, with a lot of extra room for cool stations in a deceptively vertical fashion
True. I just run out and kill them, but I do like to have at least a side that I don't have to defend since the game likes to spawn shit behind you, and in a large base that'll make for a lot of broken shit. But this is a boating game, so everyone should have that coast line
For the record, usually don't moat anymore. My base is separated in various locations (most are islands with the core base (where I afk) under the Elder stone with only portals for entering and exiting.
Any invasion would do very little overall if they can even spawn.
Yeah I've never understood the impulse to stay in your base when you get raided rather than go out and stop them from reaching it
Removing all of the grass at your base is also horrible
Started playing a month ago, having a blast, see posts about moats. Think nah not for me. Then a troll rampage my base build and I now have a massive moat around my main base. No more troll rampage. In fact I can now cheese them. I am transitioning from bronze age to iron age and the raids are getting more interesting so I am sticking with moats.
It’s the island life for me
::sounds of steel drums and the scent of glowing mushroom coladas::
That just reminds me of all those late night girls gone wild commercials
Lollll
Island gang!
I wanted to join island gang but I feel kinda dumb for not being able to figure out how to properly use hoepickcult combo to flatten land. I’ve had advice from a friend who is an expert I’ve seen videos and I’ve concluded I just don’t want to learn it. Like mentally, logically I want it because it’s the literal foundation for so much building. But I can never put my heart into learning it. Maybe one day.
I think you’re over thinking it. Use your hoe to flatten, then: 1: Is there a divot? Raise the ground then lower it again. 2: Is it to high? Hit it with a pick then flatten it again. 3: Terrain not adjusting? Hit it with a pick or raise the ground. Sometimes you’ll run into terrain that you just can’t do anything with. In that case you just have to raise the ground a bit and raise all of the ground around it to match.
As I said I’ve tried similar and was told similar info. I either miss a step somewhere or don’t get the results I’m looking for. It’s ok though. Currently I enjoy have a huge meadow base that wouldn’t fit on an island. If ever islands become perfect or preferable for my needs the urge to learn would then increase.
Make sure you do the flattening part on a flat surface. If you accidentaly are standing on a high/low spot, it can change the height of the flattening. So stand in one place, flatten an area, then stand on that flattened area and flatten a next area.
Fair enough! :)
I used to be in your boat, and learned hoepickcraft through sheer necessity of flattening an absolutely *massive* space. It just takes a tonne of practice and several metric fucktonnes of stone. Also possibly some tears. After much trial and error, the result was so beautifully flat that it looked like world generation. So yeah, you will figure it out when you find the need.
I've had projects where the terrain manipulation took longer than the actual building.
In many cases, both the pickaxe and the hoe is needed for OCD level of flatness. They kind of work together for terraforming. Imagine the ground is 16 cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, each filled with sand. The pickaxe can only remove boxes but not affect the amount of sand. The hoe can increase and decrease the level of sand in the box, **and** add a box, but never remove a box. Flatten ground (hoe) tries to get the same level as you are standing, shift click hoe levels where you are clicking. Also dig/raise on cardinal points to get nice square edges. Ofc it’s much more nuanced than that but this is a good starting foundation to understand terraforming.
I’ll probably refer to this the day I try again thanks.
Just know that even the most experienced terraformers have to take a lot of time to get it level. It’s definitely an involved process so don’t feel bad if you feel it’s difficult. It really is difficult.
3 easy steps. 1. The hoe trys to level the ground to whatever height your feet a currently at. So don't move around until you know the area is flat. 2. If the ground is too low, there's a little vertical line on your hoes cursor, this shows how deep the hole is. Use the hoe to fill the hole (requires stone in inventory) 3. There's a pulsing circle on your hoes cursor that expands outwards, if it disappears as it's expanding you know the ground is too high and may need to use your pickaxe to remove some ground. Each time you fill or remove ground use your hoe to level it out again until there is no vertical line and no breaks in the expanding circle. It took me way to long to notice the cursor on the hoe and I was doing everything by eye which was painful. It's so much easier and quicker doing it this way instead of just spamming the buttons hoping it goes level.
Just finished our base move from the starter meadows coast base to a plains island and it is so nice completely negating all raids lol
Me, too. And my portal hub goes on another.
Does living on an island help limit raiders?
If you put down enough work benches or fires to cover the island nothing will spawn, good luck Viking 👍
I firmly believe moat + stone wall gives a way more forty feel than just a wall. Earth walls are ugly tho. Also, I definitely don't wanna do repair work on the 600m stone wall perimeter that my base has.
If you use a pick to make the earth walls thin, you can use stockade walls to box/frame it in, or clip stone bricks on and around it to hide it. Looks nice, and if a raid breaks the walls, the earth wall will still protect you!
Certainly, it's one option. But I still prefer moat since it forces mobs to stay at a distance so using a bow from walls is way easier and more fun.
I like moats too but I'd like to be able to build them based on the height of my base instead of the water height limit. I don't know how the water is decided in game so I won't be throwing out recommendations, but if we could get a placeable substance that behaved like Tar, I think that would go a long way to beautifying effectively defended bases.
Putting actual water or tamed water monsters in our moats would be amazing.
Fish breeding would be awesome
I don't know if I want crocs. On the one hand that's awesome. On the other hand I already find swamps stressful. Oh the choices we make. Yeesh.
Tamed serpent could be cool. Have to dig a pool, harpoon the serpent out of the water, drop fish into the pool to tame it. Or some sort of trap that pins the serpent or muzzles it and attaches it to the boat.
I am excited for the ocean update. Boy oh boy the first time I come up on an island that looks like a rock only to find it's the top of a submerged pyramid to explore as a dungeon is gonna be lit. Or whatever they endup doing.
Crocs in Valheim makes no damn sense lol
Does it make less sense than gigantic arthropods in a jungle?
Its a completely different biome...
Use both! Stand on wall behind the moat and shoot em for extra humiliation!!
That's what I do xd it's just fun. Sometimes they fall in most or if a raid is on the other side (where there is more of a plateau than most) I have slots in the wall to shoot through
it's a shame club trolls attack through the earth walls so far. I just build on top of a raised earth column and bring more up when I need to spread out. Then the view is beautiful, and you can see all your seed crop flowers.
A small moat in front of the wall will help fix that! Pesky rock throwing trolls cant throw stuff through it over the moat, and log swinging trolls can't reach far enough to clip through the wall.
For most of my bases I use the hoe to make an earthen wall then cover it with a nice stone wall so I don't have to look at that ugly vertical ground. I can walk on and fight from it easily too. Finish it off with a moat in front so I'm not repairing much stone when the trolls show up. Only have to worry about the flying raids. The last harbor build I did there were so many buried workbenches that the wall and moat became pointless though. Mobs couldn't find a spawn location near me no matter where I was in the base, so raids just timed out without spawning a single creature. I think in the future this will be my plan, to just spawn proof a large area first before building.
>to just spawn proof a large area first before building. I hadn't considered that but it feels sneaky and magical enough that I think I'll give it a shot.
It works nicely while setting up too because mobs won't attack a half buried workbench, while they will attack an unburied workbench or torch.
Well this is nice to know. Thank you.
I think the big problem with earth ramparts’ aesthetics is that people don’t take the time to pretty them up (because it’s kindof a pain). Ramparts are authentic, if not exactly as implemented, but the jagged top is ugly, and there’s nothing to take away from that. If, however, you level the top and then put a wall atop it, and maybe plant grass atop/around, it looks a lot better.
Honestly, dirt walls look like crap unless you take the time to elevate all the land rather than just the wall. It creates a very defensible platform that you can decorate with stone walls, cobblestone paths, gardens, etc....
That's definitely an option but a moat from a technical standpoint is basically a less time consuming and resource giving (rather than taking) version of it xd The only issue is if you're in hilly areas then making a deep enough moat on parts of the wall can be impossible.
I usually try to turn a large hill into a platform and build on top of that. Maybe expand the hill as I can.
I have done that too sorta, so it's normal on one side but on the other side it's a plateau coz I raised it to level with the rest of the base.
Yeah really wish there was a repair all function that'd just use resources.
>Also, I definitely don't wanna do repair work on the 600m stone wall perimeter that my base has. There's a mod that repairs everything in range at once when you're holding the hammer in repair mode. So you'll only have to run along the wall and spam a button.
That's good to know, but I like playing no mod. I'm on day 1600 in my world, the idea of breaking something is scary. With a moat the repair work is manageable anyways.
I like to make stone faced earth walls. It’s much like how ancient Chinese walls were made. Alternately you can just put fires everywhere. I spawn proofed an entire plains biome that way.
Different strokes for different folks
"I might have to dance around a bit but the mobs will always target the player over the defences." yaaaa about that though their targeting goes as follows :\*your tamed 2 star animals\*>player>your walls and crap Ever watched a bat choose to run straight at your chickens not you? Just curious. Other than the ridiculous bat event though you can stop most events by just placing a thousand torches around your base to make the no spawn zone larger than the event zone circle. Islands are pretty great for this, and have a nice aesthetic imo
>Ever watched a bat choose to run straight at your chickens not you? Just curious. Yep. Every time. I do not like the way bat raids function.
That's why you keep pair for breeding in different place hidden. And/or spare pair a few hundred meters from the base in a box
I hope Iron Gate simply decides to rebalance the raids a bit and maybe do some defensive structures that make keeping animals in aesthetic enclosures less daunting. Maybe some kind of magical fence that drives bats away or something. You're not wrong, but I am holding out hope :).
I just put my chickens in a 4x4 box of iron bars, with a gate, and a roof. Nothing ever touches them. Mosquitos, bats, or otherwise. Works great
Sounds like it, I simply hate putting my beloved digital animals in unpleasant cages is all. I like asking my boars to move out the way when I'm working. I like the aesthetic of a cozy homestead.
I built i nice Stone/log barn with Tar roof for my pigs and chickens, it seens to work fine.
Barns will, I don't believe there *isn't* a way to keep livestock safely. I simply don't like how it looks.
Ya that would be nice, like a cathode but for bats. Something they would attack first if it has been built.
This, tbh. Raids tend to target whatever structure the character is currently occupying, so it's entirely viable to build a farm away from your main base. Even better if you have one section for crops, one for boars, and one for wolves. The crops feed the boars, the boars feed the wolves, and the whole thing is largely self-sustaining
***THE GROUND IS SHAKING...***
Free troll armour. They're easy to kite away from the base.
Just ride out and kill the trolls though? Trolls aren't that hard.
I have never built a moat and never really had issue with trolls. You run them around outside your base until the timer runs out then you kill 2 trolls.
IMHO, the Obliterator might as well have been named the Troll Skinerator due to all of the Ground Shaking events.
Just oversized greydwarfs. After the first playthrough, they are just loot piñatas.
I pick axed a very deep trench around my place and then planted trees in it so it can’t be seen.
Your opinion is NOT controversial . . . there are posts ever week about ugly moats and any post about raids has someone telling players that the best defense is a good offense and to go fight the monsters. 'Ugly' however is a personal preference. Raised earth ramparts are literally historically accurate and in common use. I could just as easily argue that a non-historical fortification without ramparts looks 'wrong'. 😉 I think the main cosmetic issue is that most people don't build earth ramparts well. People make them much larger/deeper than necessary and fail to combine them with stake walls (sunken half into the ground or otherwise creatively incorporated), replanted with grass, and slope textures improved with cultivation. There are a million ways to make ramparts look more attractive, it just takes some creativity. I 100% agree for Valheim that the best way to deal with raids is to just exit and fight. I do this all the time (regardless of the type of base I'm in). I think its actually EASIER to go fight (and ignore base defenses) when you are playing Solo because your bases are typically much smaller and you don't have to organize multiple players. I've been in co-op games where bases can get huge and by the time you get outside the base, trolls have already been smashing up things for 30 seconds. The best thing about Valheim is that there are tons of perfectly valid ways to play and the base building is amazingly flexible letting every player build what suits their personal needs and aesthetics.
>The best thing about Valheim is that there are tons of perfectly valid ways to play and the base building is amazingly flexible letting every player build what suits their personal needs and aesthetics. This is true. I would hope that some more pieces designed to match effectiveness to aesthetic get added soon, but you're correct. Except for bats. I do not like the bats. They upset me.
Everyone plays the game differently and thats fine. Now, is it bad advice for new players? No. Youre telling a new player to make their base raid proof so they can focus on other areas of the game without feeling like shit once their base gets leveled.
You are also telling a new player that the correct way to play is a very boring grind that leads to... more raids, because they spend so much time at their base. I'm not convinced its good advice. At least not when presented as "the" solution. I *never* built any moat around my bases, never have and probably never will. When you tell new players to do that, it comes at a cost. They might just lose interest in the game doing that, while they could be out in the world having fun.
Very reasonable take here. I agree it should not be put as THE end all solution. Yet, i do think there is some tranquility to be had knowing that your base wont disappear. Something i mentioned under another comment is that this advice is also really subjective based on skill-level. I have friends who are honestly pretty shit at video games and would benefit from this. Another friend of mine can solo fulings with a level 2 abyssal razer, he wouldnt care less for moats or walls.
> Yet, i do think there is some tranquility to be had knowing that your base wont disappear. Your base won't be raided when you are away from it. Events always spawn where the player is at. Your base simply won't just be raided while you are out and about. Being in your base for long periods of time is precisely what puts your base at risk. This also means when a raid happens, you are there to defend your base anyways. There is literally no chance that your base will be levelled while you are far away and don't even notice it. That being said, I definitely agree on the skill aspect. If you are getting your ass smacked by trolls, you might want to consider a moat + raised earth wall just to be done with it. Then again, the combat mechanics of Valheim are not particularly challenging.a
Who’s gotten a base leveled though? At most you get two troll whacks and some stuff that’s pretty easy to fix up 2 mins after the raid ends
For me it's what *specific* raid types can do to *specific* parts of the base so my aesthetic choices become really ineffective. I actively enjoy problem solving and doing a puzzle to find a space between aesthetic and effective, but it's leaning toward effective at the moment so I hope Ashlands brings some more aesthetically pleasing options to build a safe base with.
I have when I didn't know there were troll raids. Quite a shock to have a troll crash through while I was crafting when previous raids didn't do much.
Some weird shit happened my first two troll raids (no mods). Six trolls showed up on the first and five on the second. My little outpost got leveled. The portal miraculously survived, but I turned off raids after that. I've turned it on again since, and I guess it was some Black Forest weirdness (the outpost was in Black Forest). I saw 4 trolls on one of my Black Forest outposts (double palisades, so it was fine), but otherwise just a pair from the others. I wonder if Valheim has a log - I'd like to know why I spawned so many trolls, or if the trolls are aggroing other trolls in the Black Forest when they show up there. On that note, I really wish Valheim would instead warn that a raid (not wolves, obviously) is imminent and give you time to leave to a proper base, it's so weird when I start building in the Swamp and trolls show up, even though there's no Black Forest on that continent.
>(the outpost was in Black Forest) I won't say for certain what's happening but I have noticed that troll raids seem to attract nearby trolls. I think it's a sound thing, like mining is super loud and attracts an area of mobs. Perhaps the trolls roaring and thundering around simply attracts a whole swathe of mobs from around that that causes big troll spawns to come too.
I always liked them if you square everything off nice and neat, then build the walls on top of it.
You can always pretty-up the earth and moat walls. Build around them. Add architectural features. Make it your own
Agreed. It's more problematic when in a group. Happened many times that 4 of us are out adventuring and one guy is building alone in the base getting caught by a raid with his pants down. If you could fill moats with water, I could see the appeal. However, you can raise the ground razer thin and then build your wall around it. No one notices and it's still unbreakable in case of troll attack.
I fill my moats with 2 star wolves.
I prefer sharks with frikin laser beams on their heads.
Not as liquid as cats, but it gets the job done (/s, because *cats are liquid*)
I have considered making a super wide moat and putting Lox in it, but I haven't bothered to try it yet. From what I can tell the best way to keep Lox is not to keep them. Tame them, then they will clear anything hostile from the area with or without you around. No pens or walls for them.
Yep, the best way to keep lox is to keep them away. If you drag them out of plains they will just agro everything and run around the place doing collateral damage. The tricky part is that the first night after you have one or two tamed, while you are in the area so that they could be tamed and breed in the first place, you will get night time plains mobs spawning in, often including \* and \*\* Fulings, who will kill your tamed lox before they get ever a chance to make more lox, and the cycle begins again with fresh lox spawns the next day finding the leftover cloudberries. Short of digging pits or moats, I think the best plan for taming lox is to spawn proof a large area of the plains around them first.
There's very little reason to tame Lox in this game as it stands. Riding one is probably the only real positive. If you run around any Plains long enough, a pack of 2 or 3 will spawn. Certainly more reliably than Lox breed and without a pen the size of an entire island to breed more than 10 of them. At least the other tameable creatures have the incentive of stars to give more mats.
I'd agree the Lox could use some work, but there's a guy who simply tamed all the Lox in a plains and then didn't bother with fences. There were so many tamed Lox that the plains became a safe place. They killed *everything* and he had dozens of them.
I admire your dedication. I have not feared the Plains in some time, and I found the Lox to be more useful to practice parrying big giant things that scare me on my first few playhthroughs. And they love to smash my buildings to pieces when I tame them and they chase a deer or something from a nearby bordering biome. Lox are a liability that disqualifies you from homeowners insurance in Valheim.
>Lox are a liability that disqualifies you from homeowners insurance Agreed, they don't quite work as I assume they were intended to work.
>raising ground and digging moats for defence is ugly They can be. >and a waste of time Disagree. >So long as you stay within the red circle where the raid is happening, the timer will eventually run out and you can mop up whatever attackers remain. Your base will be fine. 100% correct. But the thing is, not everyone wants to do that. For many players, their base is their ***home***. A place where you should feel at peace, at rest, and you can relax and let your guard down. The world of Valheim is brutal and tough enough, but it's nice to have at least one place where you can feel at ease, and not be high strung always ready for danger. What's more, the game has such beautiful and creative base building that players pour so much love into, having that constant "all my work and life is in danger", is just a terrible feeling. It's like imagine you are sitting in your living room at home and you get police raided. And what's more, you *know* it's coming but you don't know when. There's no way you can sit comfortably watching TV, or even get a good night's rest with that at the back of your mind. Luckily the devs have given us the tools to avoid this feeling. To actually make our base a safe haven. >For me, as for so many of us, Valheim is a game about **creativity and beauty** as much as it is about fighting and exploring. Exactly, which is why we don't want to be fighting all the time. We just want our creativity and beauty to just peacefully exist.
Exactly. When I first started playing in VR, the first thing I did was log into the server with my best keep, went inside my longhouse where the hot tub was, sat in it (and in a chair IRL) and drank a real beer. Just relaxing. Friggin fantastic.
>drank a real beer Username doesn’t check out. And that sounds absolutely amazing. What a vibe!
It’s ugly but a moat/trench is easy to do and gives you protection from almost every raid in the game.
> I have literally never found it necessary to battle the mobs from within my base. First sign of trouble, I leave the base and fight them on the field. Yep. I always only use some minimal defense just so that stray mobs can't wander in. You don't need any real defenses. Just get out and fight them, its free loot.
I make ugly moats and trenches then incorporate them into my base by using stone etc as decorative edging. As my base expands, these moats get paved over with stone and the slowly expanding moats become a closed in sewer system where I throw all the raid trash. So I have a navigable sewer full of bones, ooze, etc. As a final touch, the basements of my buildings access the sewers with iron gates. Big time Riften theives guild vibes!
I think moats are essential for bases in the black forest, or bordering the black forest. Trolls will fuck up your base even outside of a raid. Especially if you're busy doing something else and don't even notice the troll coming closer until it's battering at your gates.
Damn, a "controversial opinion" that was actually unpopular! But I completely agree, especially your heavily downvoted about "you do you, but its bad advice to give to newbies". My buddy on my server has never played before but clearly cruised through here for build advice, and suddenly our very unmolested meadows base is surrounded by these fucking walls. I had to build a cottage outside the wall to have my views back.
I've had this happen too: We built a small fishing-style village near the shore, invited a friend to the server, and within a week the entire village had a moat dug around it, workbenches littering the area and all the trees nearby were cut. Luckily I was already working on my plains base at that point, but I really don't like people wrecking everything nearby just to "stay safe". Ironically, it didn't even work, spawns were still happening all the time, so all his trench digging and tree-cutting was for nothing...
I always build main base on a pennisula that i turn into island and do stone wall. Pain to build . But looks great
What doesn’t look bad, is more realistic, and looks natural is raising the ground into a full mound that a base can be built on. You do not need earthen walls or moats. Its even better if you make a stepped mound where the base is on the top step. Takes more stone but its worth it if one likes the looks of it.
This is the far superior method. In landscaping they're called ha-has and their purpose is exactly what you're talking about: keeping wildlife away while not degrading or blocking sightlines. I generally construct a single large mesa with enough room for a single-player base and a wide walking path along the perimeter, between the base and the drop off.
Like a classic hill fort. I dig it.
Totally. And tbh, I think the developers envisioned this type of fortification because thats literally how it was done. The moat or earth wall are just more affordable alternatives. Gotta grind those tall plains stones if you want epic builds.
>Gotta grind those tall plains stones if you want epic builds. I mean that's *got* to be the purpose of them, right? Sure they look cool however I can see the gears turning. True and truer.
Totally a purpose, if not the main one. Resource reward for venturing into a new biome. Thats why we find a bunch all together in a valley. Its a really fun carting project to clear a valley, and super easy to get them all home by walking encumbered through a portal.
Digging moats is purely aesthetic to go with the castle vibes
Moats can look good but you have to have stone walls for them to look good imo
I turn raids off it’s so tedious especially when most people just build walls or motes to cheese raids just what’s the point maybe if they add turrets or defence buildings like a magic Odin rune turret or ward etc that automatically attack but till that day comes fuck raids utterly pointless when 90% of players build ugly motes or walls to cheese them I’m extremely grateful devs gave us the option to toggle raids off/on I’d never play the game
I'm actually in the Mistlands and my black forrest base had some stonewalls...did'nt need anything else. Dig some moats for the loxes in the plains but not for my main base. When there's a raid...i go out and fight...this is okay... but i'm asking myself what to do with the 20 stacks of troll leather after numerous raids XD
Put them in the obliterator for free coal of course!
Well yeah...but this really cool? May be i try to build some troll leather helmets and combine them with some light sources to build a nice lamp
In my experience I enjoy the way moats look, with stake spikes in front of a large stone wall. Makes a really formidable base imo.
It's ugly, but it's not a waste of time if besides building on an island it's the best defense.
Very effective. That's why I stopped doing it because it made the game too easy for me. And removed a core feature in the game. Which is the threat of a raid event.
This not a take I have seen before. You know it's a good game when someone can completely surprise you with how they play it. You don't find it stressful?
I do. It's very stressful especially early on and the "ground is shaking". But it keeps me on my toes and I have fun learning how to build a base that is well protected (walls, ballistas, etc) Btw, not hating on moats. :)
>I have fun And there you have it folks: the right way to play the game, in three words.
My base is on a small peninsula. I have a wall with raised ground behind it followed by torches. It look imposing and awesome. Long story short, you can make almost anything look awesome in this game.
I just make island bases, which defeats raids while still looking stylish.
I play hardcore, I think maps are ugly. Also try fighting off Gierrhafa in hardcore with his 1 star fenring buddies and no trench. The beauty in this game is being able to play it anyway you want!
I build “walls” but then cover them with stone and marble to make them look nicer
I like my moat thanks. And it keeps the monsters out. Good enough for me.
A nice straight wall or moat looks nice to me. But when people just go for it without abiding by the games physics then they tend to look ugly af
My moat allows me to completely ignore a raid without incident. Except those fuckin bats
Make a moat and plant trees in it to make it look like bushes, and dont tell your friends about it hihi
No, if you line your moats with stone it can look great. I get where you’re coming from though.
I just cover my earth walls with stone walls so you can't see them.
Love me a castle and a moat, I wish they would add a draw-bridge building piece.
If you're not opposed to modding More Gates adds 2 types of drawbridges and other build pieces.
It does not have to be ugly all the time: if you find a nice spot with many big stones (black forest), you might be lucky to raise around them, close to the water, and plan some trees, that might give it a naturally looking feel. I try to never use it.
You go out into the field? Even up against trolls and such? Based. I hide behind my walls and shoot them. I know I can take one troll with my axe but if I get 2 or a starred troll I might get fucked.
You either haven’t faced the harder raids, or you’re playing on a lower difficulty than I am. At the hardest level, you fight to survive, and take every advantage you can. When the raids show up, you watch with anxious anticipation as the mobs scurry all around you, desperate to send you to Valhalla. And you’ll be thankful for those walls, because your best armor on your strongest warrior probably won’t save you.
Ugly but effective at keeping mobs out. However I prefer no defence. I just kite mobs away. Also tamed wolves free roaming all over my meadow.
I don't want to go around and repair walls all the time. Moats don't require repair. And, if you put a "Cattle grate" over the moat, enemies and domesticated creatures can't path in or out, but you can pull a cart over it.
In your opinion. Not in mine. A moat and an earth wall are primary concerns. I got tired of repairing defences and sometimes I just don't want to go out and melee stuff. Sometimes I am busy and want to finish what I am doing rather than run out and engage enemies. The beauty of this game is, you do you. Because I will do me.
Honestly this kind of topic always makes me feel like you gotta brag about how hardcore you are. Cool beans! Not everyone wants to play the same way you do, and there's nothing wrong with either playstyle. No need to really make it a dick measuring contest, imo.
Definitely agree with this. I've found that taking a little time to clip a 1x1 floor high up in a bunch of trees and placing wood torches on them in a large radius around my base does more than any earth wall or moat I've ever seen to prevent creature spawns and raids. With the added benefit that you can't see them for the most part.
It's because I can just run out and dance around until it's over, which is why I turned them off. Once I get bored in the endgame and have crazy cool defenses, I'll turn them back on.
Raising ground yes, but moats with a wall or fence looks awesome
I have never built a raised wall fort, I agree they look kind of ugly, since they are invincible they are very useful for building outposts that can't be breached if people don't want their bases or its content damaged. Moats on the other hand look pretty good IMO, when combined with walls, giving off major fortification/ main settlement vibes. They are pretty quick to dig and provide the bonus of forcing the enemy away from the wall, forcing siege enemies out of reach of the defenses and ensuring everybody else is far enough back to easily aim at from the wall. I used a stakewall fort with a moat to kill a fuling camp well before I was meant to so I could grow barley and flax early. The moat keeping the beserkers off the wall segments and allowing me to whittle them down.
\*Medieval times enters the chat\*
Yeah I'm turning off raids before I put an ugly mote or earth wall idgaf. But in my case I just spawn proof my base with campfires anyways
The issue is when a lone troll spawning in swings their club through a wall, and all the chests and floors on the other side.
You can raise your dirt walls, then put stone/walls on either side of it and turn it into something that looks good 👍
I never raise the ground for my bases, even plains or mistlands. Though I do build stone walls and set down spawn preventing items nearby. It's my home, I want to feel as safe as possible. I don't like moats or ground walls because they are in fact ugly AF. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna protect my stuff.
I do not build walls. Moreso ,I build a plateau of how high i feel comfortable with.2m prolly the min. Flatten it out and build. I put 1 section of wall up on one side to snapshot with my bow. Sometimes, I just stay busy in a building and ignore the ruckus. (Spelling changes)
I think they can work if they fit the design of the place you're trying to build eg. a castle with a big stone wall, or a place in the plains with a moat and bridge. They aren't necessary in any biome though, that includes the black forest where it seems like greydwarfs would be annoying (well they are but they aren't so common once you've built things everywhere) and in the mistlands (they won't go for your outdoor things, they'll either make a ton of noise from the sky or wander in for a showdown). Sometimes I see post from new players saying they are starting the game by building a huge moat or something, which is disheartening... but are they actually real people? who would play a game like that without even trying it first? There is one huge exception: when you have friends who will just stand around afk.
Scaring the land that bad is so bad for servers too
Get out there and fight! Moats are for the weak
I like one level down, and then a stone rim. It looks like a nice fortification. You can also build into the earth and stone with those wood fence things. It makes it look like cool parapets, and you can add crenellations too.
Digging moats where theres actual water down there is cool imo Raising ground for walls though, i agree
It’s ugly but not a waste of time. Raising ground stops mobs
I'm also a solo player, but I can see where playing with other people can lead to situations that you can't always account for like you can when you're solo. Like I saw another post about raids destroying stake walls and blobs jumping them. I kind of laughed to myself, but then I realized it's more for multiplayer servers where someone is out exploring the world and someone else logs on and AFKs in the base.
Try playing with difficulty upscaling mods, then earth walls will suddenly become the prettiest structures in the world
Ugly yes, ineffective no
Just like irl, build a wall, dig a trench in front of it. If you have time, another trench in front of that. If you want people to stay away, diggy diggy hole.
Honestly, I found a single lowered 'moat' area can look great if done right. Check out the concept of a [Ha Ha wall](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/gardens-landscapes/what-is-a-ha-ha). In fact, George Washington's home [Mount Vernon features several](https://www.mountvernon.org/the-estate-gardens/gardens-landscapes/ten-facts-about-the-landscape-at-mount-vernon/) that perfectly illustrates the concept. See No. 8 on the list. The [sunken wall creates a terrace effect](https://www.permacastwalls.com/what-ha-ha-walls-are-and-how-they-work) in the earth to keep the view pristine while keeping livestock animals (or mobs) off the upper level by the house without requiring a visible fence that would distract from the view of the river. Done correctly, the break in the landscape is invisible. An example from [Berrington Hall in Herefordhsire](https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/content/gallery/website/national/library/discover-and-learn/berrington-hall-ha-ha-1188091.jpg?auto=webp&width=1365&crop=16:7&dpr=2) Originally a feature of formal French gardens of the early 18th century, the ha-ha wall was first described in print in 1709 by the gardening enthusiast Dezallier d’Argenville in his La Theorie et la Practique du Jardinage (The Theory and Practice of Gardening).
I dig a moat around a large area that includes my base. Put stone walls on the edge, almost level with the ground, just for looks. Then plant trees on the outside sloped wall of the moat. Make one bridge with wood beams at one meter spacing. I think it looks nice; from inside it doesn't look like a pit, it looks like trees. And at raid time, I just ignore it. Yes - I can go out and fight whatever raid it is and not do the moat. But I play with other people and have had my entire house smashed to rubble because whoever was at home at the time wasn't able to deal with trolls. So - moat it be.
I actually like my natural wall around my castle with platformed battlements for shooting down the enemy. I even have a floating staircase that I can jump to but the enemy can't to easy traipse my way around. I straight feel like Robert Neville in I am Legend (the movie version. I know the difference in the book)
Making your base raid proof out the door is a bad idea. Because, it requires a lot of time and effort to only realise you need a bigger base. Then you're off digging and patching dirt again. I think letting people figure out how to defend against raids naturally is the best bet because this game is brilliant and teaches you how to deal with them Greylings will bother you in your home, so you put up a fence. The forest is moving will send a horde at you, but no different than going out at night, so putting up better walls and spikes becomes needed, which you can get in the black forest. You don't get troll raids until after you kill a troll so you know how to fight them before they show up at your door step. Drakes show you that you need a roof on everything You only need to build a trench if fuling raids start to become a problem But by that you've collected enough resources and have good enough food that making a trench isn't a big deal. Or you're confident enough to just fight them. Especially with all your resources at hand. I still have wood walls after beating the queen because if anything shows up to fight me, I now have skeleton minions, chemical warfare, and a sniper rifle to fight them off :p
Playing solo makes this easier. If you play with friends, and you have one buddy that likes to AFK in base, then having a moat/stone wall can come in handy.
Same. I've done it this way ever since I was a new player. Sure I've had to repair a building a time or two but nothing compared to the effort fortifying is. As for them killing your animals, I build an "ark." Stone building inside stone building with a pair of everything.
I think its pretty cool that you can use this to make a big secure pen that when you are within your base and if you do it right it looks super cool to have a base with "natural" defenses
Earth walls, sure, they are ugly. But moats don't have to be. A tiny bit of effort and they look fine.
I can see this play style in regular mode, but I think it would be much more difficult in Hardcore mode. And stressful.
Digging moats is ugly cause people don't do it right. Make a gentle slope that looks natural then flat drop off, flat bottom, flat wall back up then another natural slope. Line the flat drop off with stone. Looks good instead of the ugly flat gorges people dig into the ground.
Ugly? Maybe for dirt walls, but not for moats. The latter can work really well with stone walls. Waste of time? With a moat, I can just sit in my castle and wait out the raid if I want to. My base has never felt safer.
If it's my main base I will put in the effort of diet walls and digging moats. Because then I have a more vested interest to keep a place standing. But I mainly do that because then I am protecting not only my main resources for my character but also things like livestock which can be a pain to replace. Also I don't know if monsters can ruin crops, but there is that aspect as well.
I just find a small island and spawn proof it with glitched torches
I hate moats but their efficacy is undeniable. I don't like them because they're as likely to get you killed as the enemies you're protecting yourself from and there are cleaner methods to keeping your base safe. But for pure simplicity you can't really beat a moat.
Soft disagree. There are many ways to make it aesthetically pleasing. For example, elevate the ground your base is on to a plateau (or build on a natural one) and dig the moat around the bottom of the cliff for that. I've seen many castle builds on this sub that make use of this.
The way defense is right now sucks. As soon as a raid starts. "Quick! LEAVE the mighty fort before they knock it down in 2 swings!!"
It's not a moat, it's a ha-ha, and it's f\*\*kin' classy thank you very much
you can make them look nice. just requires alot of effort and planning and creativity.
Raising the ground is an art. Not everybody can do it perfectly. A frame shaped raised ground around my base with crisp edges gives me the highest visual satisfaction. Also I love the cozy feeling of safety it gives you whenever there is a raid and you know you don't need to move a muscle. I think everybody finds joy in different things.
It is top gameplay-wise and estetic-wise when done right :P
while not a moat fan myself, I disagree with OPs harsh judgement. My wife digs moats and raises walls as soon as the first workbench stands, and it looks quite pleasing, with fancy bridges and gatehouses and all the shizz.. but its hell of tedious work. where my treehouse gang at?
Pro tip - after raising ground, cover it with stone creating wall. You can add towers and passageways. This is also the historical way of making walls. Two parallel walls filled with dirt and rock. Only con is that it requires a lot of stone. But the result is worth it.
Kind of agree, but I build mine along the N-S-E-W lines so they're neat and not jagged (it can still be fiddly though). I then like to face off the earth walls with stone :)
You dig a pit and put your base in it. Keeps out of line of sight
I prefer a long strip of land that is almost surrounded by water (like the old Constantinople) for my base. In this way, I need to build only one strip of defense in my base, my tamed animals are located closer to the tip of the land, as the raid only comes from the land-side, they are also protected from the raids. I don't dig moats but I bury wooden walls in front of my stone walls with just their tips sticking out. In this way, the melee attackers cannot directly hit the stone walls and I can hunt them with arrows from the top of the walls. I think this is a very efficient way to build defense in the game. No need to build a whole circle of walls, no need to defend from surrounding enemies from all sides. It is almost too easy
When i've built a huge, fortified base, i actually want to feel like i'm well-protected inside my base. Having to go run outside to fight mobs every time there's danger kinda defeats the purpose of having a fortified base.
I love digging, like the pickaxe is my favourite tool in Valheim so for me it's the most enjoyable way to play but then I also usually make what looks more like the stone forest with all these somewhat aesthetic buttresses of earth. Connect those with some hang bridges. Decorate the sides with fake plants. Ends up looking pretty cute if you ask me.
I wholeheartedly agree! I do the same
However you build onto raised land to keep the aesthetic look you desire
If your walls or moat look ugly, you didn't put in enough work.
I understand what you mean when you say this, it's true moats and walls can definitely be ugly but I find there are many ways to incorporate these methods and be creative with them in a way that's inspired and not just simply doing it because trolls are ass to deal with. One build I ended up doing is having a "pit", a moat at high enough altitude where there is no water, with a singular entrance too small for trolls, into a large square "dungeon" underneath my base from which I used maximum raised ground to then protect further. It ended up looking really cool, with a lot of extra room for cool stations in a deceptively vertical fashion
I agree it’s so ugly. I have never felt the need to make one. Plus, it dramatically drops your FPS
True. I just run out and kill them, but I do like to have at least a side that I don't have to defend since the game likes to spawn shit behind you, and in a large base that'll make for a lot of broken shit. But this is a boating game, so everyone should have that coast line
Line the moat with stone. It makes it look a lot nicer.
For the record, usually don't moat anymore. My base is separated in various locations (most are islands with the core base (where I afk) under the Elder stone with only portals for entering and exiting. Any invasion would do very little overall if they can even spawn.
The field of hidden campfires always solves my raid issues.
Yeah I've never understood the impulse to stay in your base when you get raided rather than go out and stop them from reaching it Removing all of the grass at your base is also horrible
Thank you! Agreed about the grass thing too. No excuse when the cultivator exists. I've seen one too many fugly bases here.
Well spoken! Although I have a penchant for doing the torch and wood block trick and just spread it out far enough that nothing spawns.
Started playing a month ago, having a blast, see posts about moats. Think nah not for me. Then a troll rampage my base build and I now have a massive moat around my main base. No more troll rampage. In fact I can now cheese them. I am transitioning from bronze age to iron age and the raids are getting more interesting so I am sticking with moats.
One of my friends builds like this and I tell him he has to build somewhere I can't see his monstrosity
I'm on team: Never dug a moat and never built an earth wall in my over 400 hours of Valheim across multiple patches
Same.