Tutorials/Building a metropolis

A metropolis is a large city with many tall buildings and people. To build one, you probably want to use creative mode. If you can create a metropolis using all the ideas listed here in survival, you are doing very well, so continue building.

Here's how to start: You will obviously want flat land to start off with. There are seeds for flat land in Default mode, but get superflat if you are too lazy to enter the seed number. Superflat is not ideal for Survival mode as there are no ores, and you'll definitely want Default if you want to open mines in your video-worthy city.

-Note-

1. When done, you should upload your world to a server, as many ideas are meant for multiplayer.

2. The wiki can only help you, not build it for you. Come up with your own ideas along with those on the page to create a truly epic city.

Getting started
Before you can start building your metropolis, you'll need to find a spot to build it! You'll need lots of flat land and wood, so the best place to build one (in survival) is in a plains biome near a forest, or a forest.. In creative, you can instead build your city in a superflat world. Once you have a place to build, the first thing to do is build a single house. Build it just like you normally would. It should contain at least 2 rooms, a bed, a door, and a window.

Interior design
Nobody wants to live in a house without furniture! In every house you build (you should end up building a lot of them) add special furniture. Use pistons or fences with pressure plates for tables, stairs and signs for chairs, and bookshelves to decorate your houses. Try making a computer with an iron block and a painting, plus redstone and a lever to be a mouse.

You can go here for more ideas.

Becoming a city
At first, you just had a house. Following these steps, one house will become an entire city.

1. Build a new house (don't add furniture)

2. Build a place for a Villager (or player!) to stand.

3. Spawn/move a Villager/Player behid it.

5. Build more shops and houses to fill the city.

6. Don't forget to build roads!

Suggestions
Here's some ideas to get you started on your city!

City Types

 * Underwater: Build your city in a giant underwater glass dome.


 * Venice: Make your city have canals of water (or lava) for roads. Add bridges as well. Boats will be used for transportation, but don't use boats in lava, or else they will burn up!


 * Sky: Build you city in the sky. Use snow or wool for roads and buildings, make floating islands, and use glass for the street. You can build the ground out of white blocks to look like clouds.


 * Underground: Should be obvious. Build your city an a cave and hang glowstone from the roof for lights.


 * Jungle Tree: Build your city in houses that wrap around the trunks of the tall trees. Use wooden bridges with wooden fences to get from building to building, or use minecarts on wooden bridges to get around the city if you want a more modern look.


 * Nether City: Build your city in the Nether, and make it out of Nether Brick.


 * Ender City: Build your city in the End, and make it out of End Stone and Obsidian.


 * Mushroom: Build your city like treetop, except use big mushrooms instead of jungle trees. Difficult to build, but worth it.


 * Castle: Build a castle in your town and surround the whole city with a big stone wall.


 * Crafty: Make your city out of different colored wool, iron blocks, diamond blocks, huge mushrooms, and other creative materials. Make the city hall of your city out of the most creative materials you can think of. If you want, you could make a Nether Portal a door for the city hall, and you can make your city hall in the Nether.


 * Atlantis: Make a city on the ocean floor with nothing separating your city from the water! However, you and all of your inhabitants will have to be on creative mode, as if they are on survival, hardcore, or adventure mode, they will drown. Make buildings out of sponges, diamond blocks, gold blocks, and/or glass blocks, and use iron doors to get in the buildings!


 * Invisible City: Make everything in your city made of glass blocks, glass panes, and/or ice, with no doors for your buildings. However, leave the ground grass, snow, or whatever block it already is. Building an invisible city is pretty risky though, as you can't use any lights, so zombies, skeletons, creepers, etc. can spawn in your city.


 * Pumpkin Town: Make roads, buildings, and "stairs" out of pumpkins, use jack 'o' lanterns for lighting, and wear pumpkins for helmets. The only farms you can have in a pumpkin city are (obviously) pumpkin farms. Have iron golems and snow golems scattered throughout your city.


 * City of Green: Make roads out of green wool, buildings out of emerald blocks, melon, cactus, and sugar cane farms, and make your whole population creepers and green-robed villagers.


 * Magic City: Make every building in your city have at least 1 brewing stand, 1 cauldron, and 1 enchantment table, and make stores in magic cities only sell potions, potion ingredients, enchantment tables, brewing stands, cauldrons, enchanted armor, bottles o' enchanting, and ender chests. Also, place ender chests instead of regular chests.


 * Town of Food: Make a city out of food! Build out of melons and pumpkins, and grow sugarcane. Cocoa plants make good stairs, and use jack o lanterns for lighting (they arent food but they are pumpkins!) Cake can be used for the floor! Easiest in creative mode.


 * Cliff: Carve your city out of a cliff, or build it hanging from an mountain overhang.


 * Hidden Volcano City: Make a volcano with a city hidden inside it. Have a hidden button witch causes an entrance to appear. Have a button that you can press to have lava drip down the sides (make sure you have a way to remove it!)


 * Steampunk: Make a flying city which is supported by giant fans, use lots of Iron Blocks and have factories with Cobwebs coming out chimneys for smoke.


 * Twin Cities: Have two cities next to each other. They could be deadly enemies, or a city where the rich live and one where the poor live.

Buildings

 * Airport Build an airport and add a runway to "fly" planes off of.


 * Arcade Build a building and make the walls out of colorful blocks and fill it with fake games.


 * Auditorium A place for people to gather and watch something, like a concert, speech, etc. It should be able to seat a lot of people. Can be placed in the Town Hall.


 * Apartments/Hotel Build a tall building out of bricks and fill it up with rooms with a single bed and small chest in each. People rent the rooms for whatever you are using as currency and can store their stuff there and sleep.


 * Bakery Have a building dedicated to selling bread, cookies, and cake! You can build a giant model of the Minecraft Cake out of colored wool and have the inside be hollow. Fill it up with "shelves" (wooden planks) with signs on them listing what is on them. At the counter, costumers can order cakes, cookies, and bread. Ship cake in from the cake factory.


 * Bank People go here to store their money. Have a trusted person work there and have vaults deep underground to store their gold and diamonds. Only let the trusted person and the owner of the vault into it. You can use piston doors on the vaults that need a special "key" (Lever)


 * Bookstore/Library Fill a shop with bookshelves. Have a librarian villager work there and have authors write in books and quills to buy/borrow. If the building is a library, fine players for not returning a book on time, or damaging it (losing it or destroying it).


 * Cake Factory Build a factory that makes cakes. You could connect it to the bakery. Have a chicken, cow, sugar, and wheat farm under it, with automated egg, sugarcane, and wheat harvesting.


 * Casino Have a big fancy building with minecart slot machines (minecart in, random items out) or pig slot machines (using random pig movements.) Make it out of gold and diamonds.


 * Cemetery Build a cemetery bulding. You could use iron bars to make a fence, and an iron door to enter. Then add graves inside. Make tombstones out of stone bricks and dig holes under them. If you have access to a world editing tool, you can place zombie or skeleton spawners under them.


 * Church Have a big building to worship the gods. Build an altar to a god from Cubeaism Minecraft religion.


 * Dance Lounge Have a multi-colored wool for a dance floor, and use redstone lamps (whatever you want to do with it). You can use obsidian for walls. You'll have a blast!


 * Department Store/Mall Make a huge building with many floors that sell different items. Have a floor for blocks, food, and mob drops for different prices. In a mall, add each store in a separate room.

Some stores to add would be:


 * Potions shop – A place where you can buy all kinds of potions.


 * Enchantments shop - A place where you pay someone to enchant your tools/weapons/armor.


 * Food market – A place where you can buy any kind of food.


 * Local shop – Sells everything but junk food (cake or cookies). May also sell tools and armor but probably nothing past iron. (may also have a higher price).


 * Clothes shop – This shop only sells armor in it.


 * Garden shop – this shop will sell flowers, saplings, bone meal, water buckets, dirt/grass blocks, sand, cactus, nether wart, seeds (all), melon, pumpkin, red and brown mushrooms, lily pad, vines, sugarcane etc.


 * Exotic shop – This shop sells items that are a little more difficult to find such like glowstone, lapis lazuli, blaze rods, ender pearls, gold nuggets, apples, golden apples and eyes of ender.


 * Forge – Charge people to craft a tool or smelt a block.


 * Building shop – This shop sells common and exotic building materials such as stone, cobblestone, brick blocks, glass, glass panes, netherbrick blocks, obsidian, wood, wood planks and bookshelves.
 * Redstone outlet - A shop which sells all things redstony. Have some examples of redstone going underground like a piston lift, a piston clock or an automatic farm/cobblestone generator.


 * Pharmacy - A shop with potions (but only good ones) and all foods except cake.


 * Scrap shop - Where players trade in beaten armor, damaged tools and blocks they have no use for, then the owner sells them to people who can't afford full grade armor.


 * Music shop- Sell rare music discs and jukeboxes for a high price.


 * Dog Pound Fill a building with wild wolves in cages and sell them to people. Give them bones until the dog is tamed. Smacking wolves is forbidden and anybody who does will be sent to jail.


 * Embassy Make other peoples' voices heard! Build offices that represents another server, a nearby city, or even mobs like testificates, creepers (build walls out of obsidian or they will blow up the rest of your city), or endermen! Also remember to build them next to your city hall.


 * Enderman Art Show Put endermen in a room of blocks they can pickup. After a set amount of days, see how they changed it! Players can bet on certain blocks being moved.


 * Farm Have wheat, melons, pumpkins, and sugar cane growing. Raise and breed cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep. Sell the food and wool you get from the farm for iron and gold. Sell animals for gold.


 * Fire Station Griefing protection is first and last, but your wood constructions need a plan B. Fill a house with water buckets, armor enchanted to fire protection, and minecarts ready to move out in maximum speed. Block 51 must die! As an extra measure, you could have a button in all of the houses to call the fire station, connected with redstone. In the fire station you could have a wall of redstone torches, corresponding to the towns buildings, so when someone presses a fire button, the corresponding torch would light up. Just an idea.


 * Garden Make a big grassy area in the center of the town full of trees, flowers, and tall grass. Use street lights along a road to keep hostiles from spawning. If you feel creative, constructed a lookout tower with a spiraling staircase up to the top, which has a view of the whole city. You could also add attractions such as caves filled with ores and charge people for a guided tour. Be creative with it.


 * Harbor Can only be built if your town is near the ocean. It will be useful if your town is spread across several islands. Craft boats and build ships


 * Hospital A place to care for injured players. Free beds and healing potions for everybody!Some players had a bad night, so they need some refreshing. Make a BIG house with a red cross on it, and fill it with beds, healing potions, surgery rooms, and that kind of thing. Hire "doctors" and get them to wear nurse and surgeon skins. You can even sleep in one of the beds there, and you will wake up there after a bad episode!


 * Ice Rink Only possible in creative mode, unless you are willing to spend lots of levels trying to get silk touch on a pickaxe. Place ice on the ground inside of a building and skate around on it. Have contests to see who can skate the fastest or spin the longest.


 * Jail When people break the rules, send them to jail! Build lots of cells inside of a big building and lock people inside. Make sure an admin changes them to Adventure Mode!

A good way to mine is to branch-mine. It's efficient, safe and gets you a lot of bling! How to start a branch mine: 1. Dig a 3×3 staircase (NOT going straight down). 2. Figure out what level you want to miners to dig at. 3. Dig A 3×3 tunnel connected to the end of your staircase, It can be off any side(s). 4. Dig 1×2 tunnels in your 3×3 tunnel for your miners to use. (Optional: Pre-mine some tunnels) 5. Continue your 3×3 tunnel for as long as you wish and add as many 1×2 tunnels as you wish. 6. Enjoy! :)
 * Mine Not much of a building than a service. Build ladders down to Layer 12 and let people have easy access to ores. They can extend it and you can block off some caves and ravines. Destroy spawners in Dungeons and operate a first come, first served policy. Remember, you cannot make any mines if you play on superflat.


 * Movie Theater A simple picture house. Can have actors or pistons and redstone moving things about. Whether comedy or romance, they still have to pay. Have a food bar selling "popcorn" (pumpkin seeds) and "cola" (milk buckets or potions). One could also separate a dark room with glass blocks or glass panes, with restone lamps for light. There could be a dark cave under the seats for monster sound effects. Great fun!


 * Museum Make a huge museum that shows every block in the game (including the different paintings!) Very difficult to do in survival.


 * Observatory Make a small sized building (maybe 5×5×5) with a ladder in the middle and fences on the roof to stop people from getting hurt by falling. Use to see the stars and the moon and the sun. Remind players to switch to far render distance there!


 * Police Station Make a building for admins and iron golems to work in. When a griefer or monster appears in town, send the admin or iron golem to bring them to jail.


 * Power Station This is pretty much a building with redstone that can turn things like: Lights, pistons and doors. Have it connected to houses and charge people. Using VoxelSniper, you can make power lines and remove the blocks under the redstone, allowing for realistic power lines.


 * Restaurant Sell water and milk for drinks and all kinds of foods for... well, food. You should be able to order meals. Build blocks above the front counter with signs on them saying the food and drink you can buy and the price. Put wooden stairs for chairs on either side of a fencepost with a pressure plate on top (for a table). A piston with a redstone torch under it is another table. There should be chests behind the counter, you can hire people to work at the restaurant behind the counter, or admins on creative could run it. Make sure to fill the chest with food and buckets of water or milk. Just in case the food runs out, there should be a room behind the counter for the kitchen with even more chests of raw food and ingredients and an infinite source of water, with a bunch of furnaces and coal to cook the food, and some crafting tables for cake and cookies and bread and such, then when food is cooked it is transferred to the chests behind the counter, there should be no regular chests, just large chests. Is you are really ambitious, you could automate everything there. Minecart chests to send food to the counter, and automatic farm where it all comes to a single collection point. The possibilities are endless!


 * School Have a school to teach players about building, mining, crafting, brewing, enchanting, fighting, and redstone.


 * Skyscraper Build an incredibly tall building out of iron blocks and have lots of windows. Add a piston elevator that allows players to choose which floor to visit.


 * Stadium Have a big stadium where players can compete in sports such as spleef and paintball. Add lots of seating for people can sit and watch.


 * Temple Though it may seem similar to a church, it isn't the same thing. You can make a humungous temple, or a little tiny shrine the size of a sandstone well. You can have an area for training in magic (if appropriate), a way to sacrifice, table, lava, bottomless pit, ect. And make sure the temple makes sense; for instance, put a god of shadows underground,and a god of time and space with things such as end stone and other mysterious things.


 * Theme Park Have a fun place with minecart roller coasters, a haunted house, and a maze.


 * TV Studio Pointless but it gives people something to do such as filming soap operas or winning gold and diamond on a game show. Hire directors, producers, actors and actresses, build TV show sets, have pretend ratings etc. This could provide a lot of fun for players on a server.


 * Zoo Try to get one of each mob in a chamber where players can look at them. Be careful with the hostiles.

More Ideas

 * Holidays Have special days to celebrate. They can be real or fictional, just have fun!


 * Games Build an area where players can play games like:


 * Target Time!' A game where a bow is used to shoot a wool target.
 * Pork Pusher!: A game that includes a big, black, hollow box with a glass pane screen representing a TV. The inside is decorated colorfully. Outside, by the screen, are 3 levers representing joysticks on video game controllers. The levers operate 3 pistons, inside the TV. The player attempts to push a pig around as many times as they can. If the player makes 20 successful pushes, they push a button that drops a cooked pork chop on them. If the player fails, they push a button that opens a pit below them, leading to their death.
 * Wolf-run!: A game where there are wolves. Hit and run and see who can survive the longest. 2+ players.
 * Graveyard: A Graveyard with Spawner's under graves.Hide chests with armor and weapons. 4+ Players.
 * Pig Hunt: Build an arena with pig spawners in the middle and a colored pit at the corners. Players get One wheat and abduct pigs. Can be done with zombies for DEATH!
 * Spleef: Mentioned above.
 * Drop Party: Players are put in a room while the admin drops items like pistons and sugar and lava and nether portal blocks (Random stuff) these can be taken home later.
 * Take 'Em All On!: A game that a player goes into a dungeon filled with traps, bunkers to sleep in, hostile mobs and an Nether Portal. Go into the Nether and wander around to find the end of the dungeon, a bunker containing a prize and a portal back to the overworld. 1+ Players. Inspired by Take Em All on in Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. An example of a dungeon is:
 * Room 1: 5 zombies


 * Room 2: 5 skeletons


 * Room 3: 5 hostile wolves


 * Room 4: 1 creeper


 * Room 5: Mini-boss: Enderman


 * Room 6: Resources and Portal


 * Nether Room 1: 5 Zombie Pigmen


 * Nether Room 2: 3 medium Magma Cubes


 * Nether Room 3: 1 large Magma Cube


 * Nether Room 4: 3 Blazes


 * Nether Room 5: Ghast Boss


 * Nether Room 6: Return portal


 * Prize Room: Reward for finishing is inside of a chest or dispenser.

During a game, no-one else can play. At the end of each game, the owner of the game switches to creative mode and rebuilds the dungeon. As an alternative, world protection tools can be used to prevent damage. Learn more at the Zelda wiki.
 * Paintball: Players are put in an arena. They are given bows and arrows then fight but remember winner takes all. They are multiple variations like Cap the Block, Domination, President and Regular.
 * President: A member of both teams is given a leather cap (the "president"), then first team to kill the others "president" wins.
 * Cap the Block: A game where a dirt block is placed in the arena then players have to retrieve the block and place it in their base.
 * Domination: Same as Cap the Block but there are multiple blocks in the arena. The first team to get the most wins.
 * Grand Theft Egg!: Put an Enderdragon egg in a big dungeon with hostile mobs and traps. If a person or team manages to get the egg and back out they win.
 * Pressure-plate Fishing: Put a 3*3 chamber with a hollow tube in the middle. Create multiple of these, and remove the middle walls. Then, put a hole in the front, middle, top section of chamber and cover the tops of the chambers. Wire the pressure plate to redstone. The player uses a fishing rod to try to hit the pressure plate.
 * Puzzle House A series of rooms that require the user to use logic in order to move on to the next room such as a hidden door behind a painting or a code written on signs needed to find the correct sequence of levers to pull. Leave it for someone to figure out. You could also charge people admission and add a time limit. Whoever gets out before the clock stops gets a prize.
 * Maze For fun you could build a giant maze, or a labyrinth filled with zombies and skeletons. Make it as dark as possible with traps and pits. Or a lovely pink one with plenty light. Maybe a hedge maze is of your taste. Possibly a neat, complex forest maze will satisfy your hunger for something to do. Or you can be cruel to your test subjects and use pistons and timed randomizers to make an ever-changing puzzle.


 *  War Minecraft has never been peaceful (unless you play peaceful) and never will. Build forts, bunkers and wage war against castles full of traps, monsters (creepers are not recommended), other player, and challenges. Build TNT cannons and build an army. Award loyal soldiers with positions like the general.


 *  Weapons License In a peaceful city, players shouldn't be running around murdering people! You can set up a system where anybody holding a weapon without a license is thrown in jail. Set a price and expiration date and only let trusted citizens own them.


 *  Training Make a massive training area that teaches the player every single trick in the book of Minecraft. From splash potion jumping, to sniping with the bow and arrow. If you think that the player is experienced (both in terms of points and actual experience) enough, then it is possible you can recruit them for a guard.


 * Nether Access Build a portal and let people get to the Nether. Even better, if it spawns you right next to a Nether fortress, then you can make a tour and block off dead ends. Or just make a netherrack mine. Build a nice nether-style building around the portal so people can easily see where it is. Cannot be made in End or Nether cities, consider "Overworld Access" there.


 * Ghastbusters Gather up some players to go to the nether and fight Ghasts and Blazes. Give them fire resistance potions and enchanted bows and watch the Ghast Tears pile up!


 * Defense Don't let the monsters take over the city! Make sure you have walls around your metropolis. Put cacti on top of the wall to keep spiders out. You can also add archer towers if you want. Just make a 3×3 square on the wall with ladders to get up to them. Add moats with lava for death of your enemies. Just be creative!


 * RacesThis would be an arena that is long and has seating on the sides(they could be going up like a slope) dig a 1+ block deep canal in the middle and have it at least 5-6 blocks wide. Fill it with water source blocks. Put some turns and obstacles in it and you can have boat races!


 * National Park Close off an area of your metropolis and leave it how it is, with forests, caves, NPC Villages, plains, deserts, taigas, tundras, oceans, rivers, temples, abandoned mineshafts, strongholds, dungeons, jungles, etc. Make a Leave No Trace rule here (e.g. if someone builds something, they have to take it down once they are done using it, they have to replace blocks they destroy with the same block, they have to use spawn eggs to replace anything they kill, etc.), and if they do not follow it, they will go to Minecraft prison (which is mentioned above). While constructing your national park, make cabins for guests to stay in, with a few bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, a balcony, etc., and use gravel roads to connect them. Also make a no mining rule. If there is a stronghold located within your national park, dig straight down until you get to the stronghold and then add ladders so people can get there. It is also advised to activate the End Portal. National parks can also be made in The Nether, with the same rules as Overworld national parks.


 * Pet Show For both cats and dogs. Have events like for the cats scaring creepers into a pit, and dog killing as many mobs as they can. WARNING: The dogs might die, so be careful! Have pets enter 1 at a time. Heal it between rounds.


 * Redstone Build weird mechanisms with redstone in your buildings or make areas full of them that makes your city look more advanced. Such as wiring all the buildings so they have electric lighting. Or make a clock tower, or track your resident's movements, or have streetlamps that turn on at night.


 * Building Contests Maybe who can build the best flying machine? Or maybe the best new building for your city? Have judge who will give the winner a prize. The one who wins will also get to keep the building,the losers will have to remove their buildings.


 * Historical District Make this part of your city more historical such as medieval buildings, Victorian buildings, any old fashioned era you can think of! Make sure there's a good few museums around here.