Tutorials/Creating a village

Villagers are very useful passive mobs. Since 1.3, players can get items that are normally hard to obtain (like melons) or downright impossible (Bottle o' Enchanting) via trading with villagers using emeralds as currency. However, finding a village can sometimes be hard or tedious work, but there's a simple solution - just make your own village.

Spawner trap
In survival, it is not possible in any way to create a villager spawn egg. However, there are zombie spawners that can be found in the Overworld, and zombies spawned have a 5% chance that to spawn as a zombie villager. Zombie villagers can then be cured and turned into normal villagers, with whom you can start making a village.

Materials


 * A pickaxe (preferably iron or better)
 * 1 nearby infinite water source
 * 1-3 Bucket(s)

Procedure


 * 1) Secure the zombie spawner. Place at least 3 torches on the top and sides.
 * 2) Get rid of all of the cobblestone and moss stone.
 * 3) Make a 11×11×11 area below the spawner, then 9×9, 7×7, all the way down to a 1×1×1 (1 block) hole.
 * 4) Fill up the pit with water.
 * 5) Dig at least 2 blocks below the hole, then make a way of entry.
 * 6) Place some cobblestone in front of the hole. On the other end of it, place a hopper.
 * 7) Get rid of the stone and place a chest instead.
 * 8) Brew 2 splash potions of weakness and get 2 normal golden apples.
 * 9) Whenever a zombie villager comes out, quickly seal it off, then cure them by first throwing them the potion and then feeding them the apple. Wait for 2-5 minutes, then it will come out as a normal Villager. Repeat this step at least once.
 * 10) After you have the villagers, make a house for them to start breeding (see Housing below).
 * 11) After you have the villagers make a room and place a lot of doors everywhere and they will breed.

Housing
A villager will need a house to stay on and be secured. Below are a few houses that you can make for them. Please note that as of now, villagers consider a door with a block above it to be a house.

Bare Minimum
This is for those who want the villagers to start breeding, or are just low on supplies.

Materials


 * 1 wooden door
 * 1 torch
 * 1 block

Procedure


 * 1) Place a door.
 * 2) Place a block up to 3 blocks away from the door.
 * 3) Place a torch between the door and the block or on the block.
 * 4) That's it!

Hut
Materials


 * 59 wood planks
 * 4 glass blocks or panes
 * 1 wooden door
 * 20 wood
 * Torches or glowstone

Procedure


 * 1) Dig out a 5×5 area and fill it in with planks.
 * 2) Chop out the corners and replace them with wood.
 * 3) Pillar jump 4 times on each corner.
 * 4) Fill in the walls with planks, then replace the block in the middle with the glass.
 * 5) Get rid of the middle and lower blocks. Place the door from the outside.
 * 6) Finish the roof.
 * 7) Light up the inside and outside with torches or glowstone.

See also Village Blueprints for replicating buildings that spawn in naturally generated villages. The page gives you a layer-by-layer instruction page for each building, such as butcher shops and churches.

Breeding Huts
An easy to make buildings that can make your villagers multiply quite a lot. They do, however, look sort of unsightly, but you can easily fix that by sprucing it up a little.

Procedure


 * 1) Make a 5×5×5 cube out of your building material.
 * 2) Hollow out the center of the cube.
 * 3) Make some holes for windows, and add a 2-block high hole to fit in a door.
 * 4) Decorate the building if desired.

Another way to do this in the PC and Xbox 360 versions is as follows:


 * 1) Make a 5×5 square, with walls, out of your building material.
 * 2) Place 1 door, then a line of cobblestone, then another door for the entrance.
 * 3) Transform two zombie villagers back into villagers.
 * 4) At night, the villagers will go inside and begin breeding.

Expansion
If one wants to get more villagers (and get a blacksmith), one can repeatedly add in more houses to let the villagers breed more and make more villagers. Also, if the village gets big enough, an iron golem can spawn, which can be an aid in defense or a source of iron.

Please note that the larger your village is, the more prone it is to a Zombie Siege. In order for a zombie siege to occur, there must be at least 10 doors or 20 villagers, and the player must be present in the village.

Tips

 * Try to recreate natural village buildings as much as possible.
 * Villagers tend to be suicidal. In any case, they will fall off from high places, dance on cacti, and even "swim" in lava pools. Restrict them from such areas as much as possible by placing fences or any other kind of barricade (other than cacti, fire, or lava).
 * You can add fountains, trees, parks, and the like to beautify the village.
 * When night falls, villagers fail to scatter around so that they all go into a different house. This bug makes them cramp around one house (usually the smallest one possible), meaning that most of them would probably will fail to get into the safety of their houses. To prevent this, one can make a big house with more than one door. However, another way of protecting them is to simply sleep before hostile mobs spawn.
 * Create lamp posts. This will reduce the amount of mobs that spawn. A village lamp post is usually 2 fences and a block of black wool on top, with torches on the sides of the wool. Another design could consist of 2 fences and glowstone on top of each other, with trapdoors covering its sides.