Village mechanics

This page describes mechanics relating to villages and villagers.

Java
Villages do not have separate existence with a defined "center" or "radius", it's all based on closeness to any "village center" subchunk.

Any subchunk (a 16-block-high section of a chunk) containing a claimed bed, bell, or job site is considered to be a "village center", and any of the 26 subchunks in a 3×3×3 cube around such a subchunk are also considered part of a village.

Larger cubes of subchunks out to 17×17×17 define decreasing degrees of closeness to a village.

Mob AI uses these definitions in various cases. For example, when a villager is not in a village and needs to return to one, it sets out in the direction of increasing closeness. When an iron golem patrols the village, it frequently looks for a village center subchunk in a 5×5×5 cube around itself to walk to.

Population of a "village" is never measured. Villager breeding succeeds if the birthing parent can path to an unclaimed bed with at least two empty blocks over its head. Iron golem spawning happens if enough villagers haven't seen a golem recently, when gathered near a bell or panicked by zombies. Cats spawn around players in or near villages if enough beds (and few enough cats) are nearby.

Gathering site
The village gathering site is a gathering point of a village's occupants, even if it is not located in the middle of the village. It is defined by claimed bells. When a bell is claimed, green particles appear above the bell and the bell is registered as a gathering site. Gathering sites are where villagers spend their mingling time during the day.

During a raid, a villager goes to gathering sites and rings the bell to warn other villagers.

Adding a bell establishes a new potential gathering site, even if the village already has one. A villager remembers its specific gathering site and pathfinds toward it during mingling time, even if another gathering site is closer.

If the player is within 48 blocks of a bell (claimed or not) when a wandering trader is being spawned, the trader will spawn near (within 48 blocks of) the bell rather than near the player.

Bedrock
A village is defined through several mechanics: the village gathering sites, village radius, number of job sites, number of houses, population size (number of villagers), population cap (maximum number of villagers that can live in the village based on available housing and beds), cat population, and Iron Golem population. Players can use these mechanics to build artificial villages.

House
A village needs at least one house and one villager to be considered a "village". A "house" is marked by a bed. A village utilizes villager breeding to try to maintain a 100% population level, so long as there are at least two villagers occupying it.

Gathering site
The village gathering site is a gathering point of a village's occupants, even if it is not located in the middle of the village. It is defined by claimed bells near claimed beds. When a bell is claimed, green particles appear above the bell and the bell is registered as a gathering site. Gathering sites are where villagers spend their mingling time during the day. If a player is in a village, a wandering trader can spawn from a claimed bell.

The bell must be within the village boundary to be considered a centerpoint of the village, therefore it needs to be located nearby to at least 1 villager and 1 bed. If villagers and a bell are present but without beds, the villagers search for unclaimed beds rather than mingle.

During a raid, the bell rings automatically.

Adding a bell at a location near claimed beds establishes a new gathering site, even if the village already has one. Villagers organize themselves into different mingling groups, one for each gathering site. A villager remembers its specific gathering site and pathfinds toward it during mingling time, even if another gathering site is closer.

Size
The village size is always geometrically defined as a rectangle. The borders are 32 blocks from the village center (two chunks), or 32 blocks from any village points of interest (a point of interest is any bed, bell, or job site block). The village center is typically the northwest corner of the village bell or one of the claimed beds.

Housing
A "house" is defined as a claimed bed. If the bed is obstructed by a solid block, villagers cannot pathfind to the bed and therefore cannot claim the bed. This causes anger particles to emit from the villager's head and from on top of the bed. If a villager succeeds in sleeping in an obstructed bed, the villager suffocates and dies without player intervention, leaving the bed unclaimed.

Once a villager has claimed a bed, that bed is registered as a house in the village. The villager remembers the position of the claimed bed, even when underground. In the evening, villagers return to their houses (beds). However, if a villager cannot reach their bed and then loses ownership of it, other villagers can claim it. In this case the previous bed owner forgets the house location and searches for another unclaimed bed.

Job site
Naturally spawned villagers spawn either as unemployed or ($$) as a nitwit. The unemployed can then change their profession by seeking and claiming an unclaimed job site block.

Naturally generated villages consist of two main types of buildings: a house (any building with beds) and a job site (a building with job site blocks). No villagers spawn in the job site buildings. Therefore if a naturally generated village consists of only job site buildings, no villagers can spawn and ($$) the structures are never registered as a village.

Employed villagers spend their time working at their job site block, starting in the morning. Unemployed villagers, nitwits, and baby villagers have no job site and do not work. Just like claimed beds, once a villager chooses a job site block, the villager remembers its position. They work in the morning and in the afternoon after having mingled at the gathering site.

Breeding and population cap
Villagers can sometimes breed without player intervention, but there must be at least two adult villagers who can reach one another.

Villagers go into love mode (indicated by red heart particles above both their heads) if they have enough food to make themselves and their partner willing. They enter love mode based on their amount of food, not the population cap (based on the number of beds), but can produce a baby only if they have their own beds plus an available bed for the baby, and the beds have two empty blocks above them (there needs to be room for the baby to jump on the bed). If the population cap is met, or the beds are obstructed, this prevents them from mating, and angry particles appear above their heads (along with the heart particles). Much like with farm animals, when two villagers are in love mode and can see each other, they pathfind toward the other and stare for a few seconds, after which a baby villager spawns next to them. Breeding villagers does not drop experience. This new villager wears clothing dependent on the biome the village is in (with a small chance to inherit one of its parents' outfits, if different). It acquires a job after it has grown up and there is a valid, unclaimed job site.

Willingness
Villagers must be "willing" in order to breed.

Villagers can become willing by having 12 "food" in their inventory. Bread counts as 4 food, while carrots, potatoes, and beetroots count as only 1. Farmer villagers occasionally throw harvested crops at villagers, allowing them to pick them up to obtain enough food to become willing.

Breeding consumes 12 "food".

Villagers do not accept food or farm food themselves if gamerule "mobgriefing" is set to false. This makes villager breeding only possible with 'mobgriefing' set to true, as villagers cannot become fully "willing" without food.

$$, villagers can become willing if the player trades with them. Willingness is granted the first time a new offer is traded, or at a one-in-five chance on subsequent trades. This does not cause them to immediately seek out a mate, however.

Curing zombie villagers
Players can cure Zombie Villagers by a golden apple on them while they are affected by weakness. Players can usually apply weakness by brewing potions. In Nether-disabled servers, a witch and a zombie villager, or weakness tipped arrows from a master fletcher are needed. Witches sometimes throw a splash potion of weakness (if a player is within 3 meters), which they can use to their advantage.

After the player uses the splash potion of weakness and the golden apple, the zombie makes a loud sizzling sound, emits orange swirly particles, and shakes. During the conversion time (up to 5 minutes), they still behave as zombies, so they should be protected from sunlight and kept away from nearby villagers. After a few minutes, they turn into regular villagers.

5% of zombies are zombie villagers, so it shouldn't take the player too long to find two that are curable. Additionally, when a villager is attacked by a zombie (any zombie) they have a chance (50% on normal difficulty, and 100% on hard) of turning into a zombie villager instead of just being killed. Zombie villagers are a great way to start an artificial village, because unlike villagers, zombie villagers follow the player long distances. Then when they arrive at the desired location, they can be cured.

In addition, if a zombie villager is cured, it gets a permanent discount on its trades. Therefore, if on Hard mode, it may be desirable to intentionally infect one's village with zombies and cure the villagers to get very good discounts. However, this takes a lot of potions and golden apples, and the zombie villagers must be kept out of the sun, so this is only recommended for late-game players.

Popularity
A player's popularity starts at zero and ranges between −30 and 30. The following can alter a player's popularity:

A player's popularity does not reset on death, and players cannot alter other players' popularity. Popularity is stored per village; a player's popularity may be high in one village and low in another. When a player acts directly on a villager, particles around that villager indicate the change in popularity. Conversely, because popularity is stored per village, if the entire village is destroyed, any accumulated popularity, positive or negative, is also eliminated.

If a player has -15 popularity or less, the village's naturally-spawned iron golems act hostile to that player until the player's popularity is increased by trading. Golems constructed by the player, however, are always passive toward the player. Summoning golems, trading, and healing increase popularity.

Cats
$$ cats are spawned around players in or near villages. A random position is chosen near the player, and a cat is spawned if that position is within a 5×5×5 subchunk cube around a village center subchunk, and the position is within 48 blocks of at least 4 claimed beds and fewer than 5 cats are within a 97×17×97 box centered around the spawn position.

Cats spawned in this way may despawn if not tamed.

$$ the number of cats spawned in a village is based on the number of beds in that village. Cats require only one villager, and one cat can spawn for every four beds. The beds don't need to be claimed for this to happen. Up to 40 beds can be present for a max of 10 cats, and cats respawn based on the number of beds.

If there are two villages, each already with 10 cats, merging the villages into single village does not cause any cats to despawn. However, the number of cats is still capped at 10, so no new cats spawn until the number of cats is below 10.

The player can run cats out of the village, thus allowing for more cats to spawn.

Iron golems
$$, iron golems are spawned when villagers are talking. Their spawning requirements are:


 * 1) The villager must be gossiping with another villager or panicking
 * 2) The villager has not seen an iron golem recently
 * 3) The villager has slept in the past day
 * 4) 5 villagers (3 if panicking) within 10 blocks meet those requirements (other than #1)
 * 5) The random location chosen for the Iron Golem isn't air or liquid that blocks light.

Random location choosing is attempted 10 times within 16 blocks of the villager, and is attempted once from 6 blocks above the chosen x and z, to 6 blocks below it.

$$, iron golems are spawned in villages meeting these requirements:


 * 1) The village has at least 20 beds and at least 10 villagers within a 16×6×16 volume around the village center
 * 2) 75% of the villagers must have worked in the past day
 * 3) All of the villagers must be linked to a bed
 * 4) A player must be within 80 blocks of the village horizontally and within 44 blocks vertically

A spawn is attempted on average once every 35 seconds and an iron golem can spawn when the 2×4×2 volume above the spawn point contains only non-solid blocks and the spawn block is solid.

Zombie sieges
At midnight, there is a 10% chance that a zombie siege might occur. This is when a large number of zombies spawn in or near a village, attacking what villagers they can reach, crowding around and pounding on the doors of those they can't. On hard or hardcore mode, they can actually break down the wooden doors (this is true of all zombies, not just during sieges). They'll attempt to beat them down on other difficulties, but not succeed.

Zombies in sieges ignore the 24-block minimum distance from the player, but other than that, behave absolutely normally (i.e., they do not spawn on glowstone or any other transparent or half block, need a 2×1×1 minimum space, etc.). Houses can be zombie-proofed by taking out one ground block from directly in front of the door, and if necessary, rehanging the door such that the outside is flush with the outside wall. This is because zombies can break only the top half of a door, and if they have to jump, they cannot get through. In addition, players can fill the hole with two layers of carpet to achieve the same effect as zombies cannot pathfind into the door.

Raids
When a player with the 'Bad Omen' debuff enters a village, the Bad Omen effect disappears and a raid occurs. Raids are groups of illagers (pillagers, vindicators, evokers, ravagers, and witches) attacking the village with the intent of killing villagers. They can remove the 'Bad Omen' debuff by drinking milk before entering a village to prevent raids; however, the player can also defend a village from a raid, at which point the player gains the 'Hero of the Village' buff. This causes villagers to give the player steep discounts during trading, as well as bestow various gifts upon the player.

チュートリアル/村の仕組み Постройка домов для деревенских жителей 教程/村庄机制