Tutorials/Exploring an ancient city

Ancient cities are among the most dangerous and challenging structures to explore in the game. It is mostly dark throughout, and while the cities do not have any normal hostile mobs in them, they are home to wardens, which can easily slaughter players, even in full netherite armor.

Why bother?
There are several benefits in going to an ancient city:
 * To obtain sculk catalysts, which allow you to produce infinite sculk blocks, skulk veins, sculk sensors and sculk shriekers.
 * Obtaining soul-related blocks and basalt without having to go to the Nether.
 * An easy way to obtain skeleton skulls without having to work with charged creepers.
 * Only way to obtain useful Swift Sneak enchanted books, as well as other potentially useful enchanted books.
 * Only way to obtain echo shards, which can be used to craft a recovery compass.
 * Only way to obtain disc fragments, which can be used to craft the "5" music disc.
 * Contains the completely blast-resistant reinforced deepslate, although it cannot be pushed by a piston or be obtained in Survival mode without using glitches.
 * Good way to get treasure items like enchanted golden apples, "otherside" music discs, and diamond horse armor, which are more likely to appear in ancient city chests than at any other type of structure.
 * Contains highly enchanted iron leggings, diamond leggings and diamond hoes.
 * The city can be converted into a mob-proof base after all the sculk shriekers are removed, as hostile mobs cannot spawn there.
 * Mining the sculk blocks without Silk Touch is a method of obtaining large amounts of experience.
 * Obtaining the Darkness effect necessary for completing the "How Did We Get Here?" advancement.
 * Certain sculk shriekers can be kept and used to continuously spawn wardens, either for farming sculk catalysts, or for creating a mob switch.

What you need

 * The usual sword, pickaxe, and any other tools you usually take with you.
 * Multiple stacks of wool or carpets for blocks and blocking off vibrations.
 * A pair of shears to break wool quickly, and to collect the wool generated on the floor of corridors in case you run out of wool, optionally enchanted with Efficiency V to instamine wool.
 * Some iron ingots to craft more shears.
 * A hoe with Silk Touch for collecting the various sculk blocks, and to destroy the dangerous sculk shriekers.
 * A significant supply of good food, like cooked porkchops or golden carrots.
 * Some night vision potions, which allows you to see while you have the Darkness effect.
 * A bed in case you die, but do not place it too near or inside the ancient city itself.
 * Some snowballs or eggs to distract the warden in case it spawns (eggs can spawn chickens for distractions).
 * Optionally a boat to be able to row down without taking damage (exit the boat before touching the ground to avoid damage).
 * A bow (or crossbow), preferably enchanted with Infinity, to shoot arrows for distracting the warden.
 * Optionally some arrows, or just one if the bow has Infinity.
 * Optionally a few milk buckets to remove the Darkness effect. Be warned that consuming food/drink items may alert nearby sculk sensors.
 * Optionally some golden apples or enchanted golden apples to quickly heal.
 * Optionally an ender pearl or two. While player-thrown projectiles can alert nearby sculk shreikers and consequentially spawn more Wardens, an ender pearl can allow you to teleport away from a dangerous situation in a pinch.
 * Optionally a full set of netherite armor, ideally with Protection IV. This may allow you to survive a few melee hits from the Warden, but it does not offer any protection against its sonic boom attack.
 * A spyglass to check from far away if there are sculk sensors and/or sculk shriekers.
 * Optionally an ender chest to put the loot away, so you don't lose the loot if you die.
 * Optionally some Iron Blocks and a Carved Pumpkin to summon an Iron Golem, which automatically attack Wardens on sight. While a single golem doesn't last long and may be expensive to create, it may distract an angry warden for a few seconds and might buy you enough time to escape death.
 * Optionally some noise-making blocks, such as bells or note blocks, and the resources to make a redstone clock (ideally 2 observers to save inventory space), which you can use to lure wardens toward the bell and away from you.
 * Patience, as you must sneak for almost the entirety of your journey through the ancient city.
 * In Java Edition, you could also change the settings to make sneaking an on-toggle action, instead of having to continuously hold down the sneak key.
 * A safe escape route, so that you can leave as fast as possible if things go wrong.
 * You could also build a fortified and closed-off "panic room" that you can flee into and take cover inside.
 * Don't bring your valuables here unless the ancient city is secured. The warden is guaranteed to kill you even if you have full netherite armor, so your best bet is to not summon the warden at all.

Starting out
To prepare yourself for an expedition to an ancient city, there are a few things you need to do.

Finding a city
To locate an ancient city, you first need to make sure you're in the right biome. Ancient cities are found exclusively in deep dark biomes, which are more likely to occur beneath tall mountains, and never generate below aquatic biomes like oceans, rivers and swamps, so make sure not to waste your time digging underneath the wrong biomes. When you locate a mountain biome, dig down at the foot of the mountain to Y=-51, and then start tunneling horizontally towards it. This gives you the highest chance of finding a deep dark biome.

Once you find a deep dark biome, start digging parallel tunnels at Y=-51 in a zigzag pattern. Tunnels should be spaced about 200 blocks from each other; ancient cities have a massive footprint of about 220 blocks on each horizontal axis, so they cannot be missed even when tunnels are spaced that far apart.

You should approach and reach the ancient city either from the same level or from below, as if you mine into it from above, you run the risk of falling directly into it. If you survive fall damage, then death likely comes from the warden.

What not to do

 * Try not to build or destroy anything except Wool-related blocks unless you are sure there are not any sculk shriekers or sculk sensors within a 9-block radius.
 * Try not to take any damage, keep your health bar at full, just in case. While taking fall damage doesn't alert nearby sensors as long as you are sneaking, consuming food to heal your health does alert them.
 * Try your hardest to avoid alerting sculk shriekers or sculk sensors, so do not step on them, let alone go anywhere near them except to break them.
 * Fighting the warden is suicide! There are no incentives whatsoever for doing killing it besides getting a sculk catalyst. Instead, try to be as far away as possible, because it may detect your presence the closer you are to it and be able to track you down, with fatal results.
 * Don't use the ladders generated in the ancient city. Climbing a ladder causes vibration, and that might trigger sculk sensors and shriekers nearby. Instead, pillar up using wool blocks.

Exploring the city
When you explore the city, the most important thing is to sneak at all times, unless you are on the corridors with gray wool walkways. This causes slower movement unless you have Swift Sneak on your leggings, which you wouldn't have if this is your first trip to an Ancient City, as it can only be found in an ancient city. However, there is a trick to sneak faster: sneak diagonally. when pressing two directional keys (such as and ) at the same time, the player moves at a faster 1.8 m/s as opposed to 1.3 m/s. This can make it hard to see where you are going, so you can use the third-person view to get an eagle eye view of your character.

Use your potions of Night Vision to see without having to place torches (as that potentially alerts sculk sensors and shriekers). Torches, however, are useful as a last resort if you run out of Night Vision potions or are under the Darkness effect, so use your night vision to identify spots where a sculk shrieker or sculk sensor cannot detect the sound, and place torches in those places, so that you can see by their light later. There may be some areas where it is extremely difficult to get through if you have run out of night vision potions or have the darkness effect and you should simply avoid these areas. Lastly, you can throw your snowballs into an area to check how many sensors there are, or if the area is safe. Additionally, doing this at a distance allows you to stay out of range of the warden that spawns if it is your fourth time activating a shrieker within ten minutes, for the warden spawns relative to the sculk shrieker, not the player. However, this technique should still be used only when you have a good escape plan.

Destroying sculk shriekers
The most dangerous block in the ancient city by far is the sculk shrieker, as it is directly responsible for spawning in the wardens. So one of the most important things to do when exploring an ancient city, is to destroy all the sculk shriekers to stop that from happening, or place wool around them to stop vibrations. Breaking the sculk shrieker triggers nearby sculk sensors, which can in turn alert other shriekers nearby, so placing wool is the recommended choice. Breaking all sculk shriekers without spawning any wardens is a challenging task, but it is not impossible. To do so, the player needs to understand how the Sculk Shrieker works.

Mechanics
When a sculk shrieker activates, it start shrieking but it does not actually spawn a warden right away. It does so after its shrieking has finished, if you have activated a shrieker four times. The shrieking lasts for a total of 4.5 seconds, during which the player can do a couple of things to utilize the situation:
 * The player most likely cannot run out of the sculk shrieker's range. A sculk shrieker has a spherical range of 40 blocks. If the player gets outside the 40-block radius before the 4.5-second shrieking ends, then the shrieker does not inflict Darkness on the player or spawn the warden. This option is viable only if there are no other shriekers nearby to break.
 * The player can break the shrieker before its shrieking ends. A hoe is the fastest way to break shriekers, so a player with a fast hoe can quickly break multiple shriekers within a short period of time, allowing for a dangerous but faster way to raid and secure the city.
 * Be warned that if a shrieker is attempting to spawn a Warden, breaking the shrieker immediately spawns a warden, even if it hasn't finished shrieking yet.

How many shriekers?
When a player approaches a patch of sculk blocks, the first thing they want to do is to count how many sculk shriekers there are. If there is just one shrieker, this makes the task quite easy. The player simply needs to sneak up to the shrieker and break it with their hoe – even though this triggers the sculk sensors nearby, no wardens can spawn because there are no more shriekers nearby that can spawn it.

However, the presence of just one shrieker doesn't mean the player should not prepare for emergencies. It is perfectly possible for there to be another, hidden shrieker the player fails to see, or there is a hidden sculk sensor behind a pillar or wall or something that alerts another shrieker further away. This illustrates the extreme importance of scouting the area before breaking any shriekers, preferably using the third-person view to view from a higher vantage point and from different angles. Even when thoroughly prepared, the player should also prepare for the scenario below.

More than one shrieker
If a patch has more than one shrieker, or if there are multiple interconnected patches containing shriekers, the player must act strategically. They need to be mentally prepared that as soon as they break one of the shriekers, all other shriekers nearby are alerted, so you should surround the shrieker with wool. In the case you do activate one, destroy all of them to save time and further shrieks.

As such, it is of vital and imperative importance for the player to have an escape plan ready, in the form of a safe escape route with which to escape the ensuing warden.

As mentioned above, a sculk shrieker has a range of 16 blocks, and shrieks for 4.5 seconds. This gives a small amount of time to run in case a warden appears due to 2 other shriekers being activated earlier. Ideally, the player should have a safe escape route leading all the way out of the Ancient City, toward the surface, to be safe.

Looting the city's chests
Ancient Cities are full of loot chests with all sorts of valuable resources, everything from common items such as coal ores from items of high value such as various enchanted items as well as amethyst shards. Unlike some structures such as Woodland Mansions or even Strongholds, the Ancient City's mass amount of loot chests are easy to find. Not just because of sheer amount, but because if you have a potion of night vision, you can see them easily. This is partially because they aren't separated by massive walls. However, it's also because they're placed in obvious structures. Examples of these structures are shrines with lit soul sand or a small warden statue, large towers that very vaguely resemble Pillager Outposts, (these towers are made out of deepslate, don't confuse them with the domes clearly resembling Pillager Outposts, which are made of Dark Oak, are low to the ground, and have no chests) or simple but clearly unnatural clusters of blocks to mark where the chests are.

Getting loot from chests in the ancient city is tedious, because chests may be surrounded by several sculk shriekers and sculk sensors. However, something you can do is destroy the sensors first so you can safely loot the chest, but this may get difficult if there are more than 2 sensors nearby because breaking one of them may activate another sensor nearby resulting in the shriekers detecting your activity. As a result, it is best to scout out the area thoroughly before making any triggering noises. You can also block the chest completely off with wool before opening it. However, this is not entirely foolproof.

Another thing that you can do is rush to destroy everything, but this may be extremely dangerous because the constant noise gets you quickly targeted by the warden if he emerges.

If the warden decides to despawn, you can quickly rush to destroy all sensors and shriekers while he is burrowing into the ground to ensure a safe environment. Be sure to check if there are no more shriekers nearby.

Strategies
There are a few strategies with breaking sculk shriekers:
 * Always break the shrieker closest to the escape route first. Because other shriekers are farther from you when you start running, you get out of their range sooner and this allows you to get to safety as fast as possible, to wait out the commotion.
 * If there is no flat ground to run away to nearby, try to find a cliff side at least 9 blocks away from the nearest sculk sensor, and dig into it, to create a small tunnel going some distance. This way the player can create their own escape route.
 * You may use the wool-covered corridors to your advantage. The wool provides a safe pathway to sprint-jump away from the sculk shriekers, without the danger of triggering any sculk sensors nearby.
 * (This strategy is risky and requires a good hoe) If there are only 2 or 3 sculk shriekers next to each other, and the player has a fast hoe, they can stand in the middle of these shriekers, break one, and quickly break the others before any of them gets a vibration. This strategy is riskier because if a warden manages to spawn, it does so within close range of the player, and it is much harder to get away from.
 * (This is a high-risk, high-reward and efficient strategy) If there is a group of multiple sculk shriekers close to each other, you can simply place some glowstone or strong light sources quickly around the 11x11 proximity of the shriekers. The shriekers still shrieks, but due to a high light level, a warden cannot spawn. Notice that, due to shrieking mechanics, if the player failed to disable any shriekers, a warden definitely spawns at this point.

Evading the warden
Even the above strategies are not entirely foolproof, and it is still possible for something to go wrong and for the warden to spawn sometime during your explorations. When you hear a loud rumbling and growling noise, you can see the warden rising up out of the ground when it spawns. If this happens, you can still somewhat easily evade the warden without dying. When the warden spawns you have 7 seconds to get as far away as possible before it finishes its spawning animation and begins to track nearby vibrations/smells. During its spawning animation, you can sprint away from the warden without any consequences. However, this comes at the risk of alerting even more shriekers, which can spawn a second warden if the first warden is at a far enough distance. It may be tempting to sprint away after the animation finishes, but this creates noise that the warden can hear, increasing the likelihood of it giving chase (and likely killing you in the process). You must keep sneaking and slowly move away, unless the warden has already begun chasing you.

If you can't seem to get away from the warden because it keeps sniffing your location, then Arrows, Eggs, or Snowballs can be used to distract it. However, if you choose to distract the warden then there are four things to bear in mind:


 * First, don't shoot the warden by accident. If your projectile hits the warden, it instantly notices you and begins chasing you.
 * Second, try to make sure there is a reasonable distance between the warden and the block your projectile lands on. If the projectile lands within 5 blocks of the warden, it begins to catch on to what you are doing and become more likely to see through your distraction.  No seriously, wardens are smart.
 * Third, the warden notices if multiple projectiles are being fired in rapid succession. If a second projectile lands within 5 seconds of the first projectile, then the warden immediately recognizes that you are creating a distraction and quickly targets you if said behavior continues.
 * Fourth, if you are too close to the warden, it might hear you throwing the projectile.
 * And finally, always stay away from the warden if doing so. If you are too close to the warden for too long, your distractions become useless and take away from time you could use escaping.

Avoid creating too much noise if possible. The warden is blind and instead operates by sound, using noise to pinpoint whatever it was that awakened it. If it cannot hear anything, then it just roams around randomly, sniffing the air, waiting for any noise to happen, though it can still detect an entity if they get too close to the warden or bump into it. Over time, standing too close to the Warden (within 20 blocks) causes it to begin pinpointing the player's location by scent, so keeping a fair distance and escaping is important. If the warden hears too much noise, something gets too close to it, or sniffs you too many times, it roars and begins chasing its target.

Unfortunately, if the warden does decide to chase you, its fast movement speed, ludicrous melee damage, and its armor and enchantment-piercing sonic boom attack makes escape incredibly difficult. However, it is still possible, especially if you have prepared for such an emergency beforehand. One escape method is to sprint to somewhere the warden cannot follow, such as though a two block high gap (wardens are just as tall as Endermen) and then try to get further away from there. Be warned that if you didn't create a hole about 30 blocks long before, the warden can still attack and kill you with its sonic boom attack.

Another strategy is to pillar-jump upward by placing blocks underneath your feet until you are higher than the warden. You need to be much higher because the warden can melee attack up to 5 blocks above itself, and 30 blocks with its ranged sonic boom attack, which it can use 10 seconds after it has started chasing you. Once you are a couple blocks up, continue upward (if possible) until you can reach the cave ceiling, then dig into it to create a small cavity and wait there for things to calm down. If you cannot see the warden, then listen to its heartbeat: the warden's heartbeat slows down when it is no longer angry, and even further if it can't find you for a while. Alternatively, if you're patient enough, you can wait at the ceiling until the warden despawns entirely.

If you sprint through a corridor with wool on the floor, you run silently provided you stay on the wool. While this doesn't slow down the warden, the lack of noise vibrations may allow you to lose the warden's aggression sooner. These corridors are rather large and span throughout the center of the city, so they aren't too hard to find.

Should you die to a warden, don't panic. Instead, the best way is to wait patiently at a distance for the warden to despawn. If the warden fails to detect any vibrations or smell nearby entities for 60 seconds, then it burrows back into the ground and disappears. Meanwhile, your items stay on the ground for up to 5 minutes (300 seconds) before disappearing, giving you plenty of time to pick them up once the warden despawns. However, if the warden is able to hear/smell you or another mob, then its 60-second despawn timer resets, giving you less time to retrieve your items.

Using the warden's strong point against it
Wardens are attracted to noise. At first, this may seem annoying, however if you use a block that makes noise, like a bell or note block, and link it to a redstone clock, the warden is attracted to it. This is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, so use at your own risk. However, this doesn't consider some elements. If this is built before the warden has spawned, the noise alerts a sculk shrieker or sensor, which spawns a warden, and this takes some time to build, therefore it is difficult to build after the warden has spawned. The warden also has a sense of smell, so if you stay too close for too long or the warden is aggro on you, then using distractions is not an option.

Brute forcing it (with patience)
By taking advantage of the above strategies, it is theoretically possible to simply brute-force your way into and through the Ancient city, if you have the patience for it. This is extremely tedious to say the least, but it could allow you to eventually reach the loot in the city and clear it out without having to face the warden at all. You must, however, be aware of where the exit is and be ready at all times to turn around and immediately make your way back to and through that exit to safety and then wait for things to calm down and return later to continue on.

Simply put; make sure that you have a safe escape route ready and available, ideally one that leads all the way back to the surface. After that, make your way into the city (by sneaking) and then simply start breaking every Sculk Catalyst, Sculk Sensor and Sculk Shrieker you can find. This causes an absolute cacophony of noise and surely causes the warden to spawn in short order. In that case, you simply need to turn around and quickly begin making you way toward the exit mentioned earlier, distracting the warden away from you as needed, and once far enough away, leave the ancient city and wait for about 60 seconds to allow the warden to despawn (ideally you should wait a bit longer to account for potential delays). Once the warden has despawned, you may safely return back and start breaking Sculk Sensors and Sculk Shriekers again, and leave once again when the warden appears and returning once more when the warden has despawned again. By repeating this cycle continuously, then as long as a sculk catalyst does not generate any new sculk sensors or sculk shriekers, the ancient city eventually runs out of them in the long run as the player gradually breaks them all one by one.

Also, the alert levels of shriekers go down over time, making it so you can just wait 30 minutes to do one large go and leave to finish it another time.

Using (some of) the Warden's Loot Against It
Ancient Cities don't just have insane loot, but being so deep underground heavily increases the chance of valuable ores such as Diamonds and Gold. As a result, if you have an Iron Pickaxe, you can mine these ores to get yourself a diamond sword - just avoid summoning a warden in before you're ready though. Once you've done so, what happens next somewhat relies on luck and generation. Once you have your diamond gear, get an anvil and look in all of the loot chests. Often, Ancient Cities have Enchanted Apples and some sort of Sharpness book in some of the chests. Use the sharpness books to enchant your sword, and gather as many golden apples as you possibly can. Then you're going to need a tunnel, at least 20 blocks long (it must be 16 blocks long to escape the warden's sonic boom, but you can make it 20 blocks to be safe). Make sure at least the entrance to this tunnel is 2 blocks tall. Here's where the loot takes its toll: without coming out of the tunnel, get close to the warden and use your sword- which you should've enchanted with the books possibly found here- to spam attack the warden. If it sonic booms you, eat your enchanted apples to heal rapidly. Be careful though- your amount of enchanted apples may be limited. Also, don't get too confident. Stay at least 1 block away from the entrance, otherwise the warden can melee attack you, in which case not even the enchanted apple can save you.

Straight Up Looting
As already stated, wool is your best friend in ancient cities (aside from night vision potions and pickaxes for mining escape routes), because it suppresses your sound even if you aren't sneaking. This is incredibly useful for this strategy. Don't even bother trying to break the sensors or shriekers. Just surround any sensors, shriekers, or chest with wool. Of course, you'll need to scout the area well before opening the chest to avoid making a mistake. But once you've done so, open the chest and grab all the loot you like. Repeat this process for every single loot chest, and once you're satisfied with your gatherings, you can head back up to the surface and store your treasures back home. And once again, feel free to mine some ores while you're down there, as they're much more common deep underground.

Getting into the redstone lab
There is a redstone lab under the centre of every ancient city. You can find the city center easily because it has a massive structure made of reinforced deepslate on top. The secret door to the lab can be opened only by a specific method, which is random each time. First, you must find the chest in front of the "warden face" and open it. Then grab the golden carrot inside the chest and go down to the bridge opposite to the chest (don’t eat the carrot yet). Finally, go under the center: the two recessed deepslate walls are the doors. To open the door, go to the door that has a chiseled deepslate block on it and eat the golden carrot. This activates the sculk sensor behind the door and open it. If there is a golden apple, then eat it while on the tiled deepslate to open the door. When there is two walls, walk between them to open the door. If there's nothing, then walk on tiles to the left of the door where you would normally find the chest to open it. At the moment, the lab does not contain any noteworthy loot, apart a lot of redstone blocks, which are not particularly rare, but it has educational purpose for new players, as it teaches them about how sculk sensors can be used for wireless redstone. It could also be a secret base after you remove the stuff inside and fully secure the ancient city.

教程/探索深暗之域和远古城市 Руководства/Исследование древнего города