There are a handful of things for you to keep in mind when raiding your first Ancient City in Minecraft. This article will explain how to raid an ancient city. It will cover what equipment to bring, how to find it and other essential information.
How to find Ancient Cities
Ancient Cities only spawn underground and finding a deep dark may sound hard at first. But in reality, it is quite the opposite.
You do not have to dig yourself through caves to find an Ancient City. Instead, you can travel the surface of your world and keep an eye out for any mountain biomes that you see. Ancient Cities are most likely to generate between two mountains, or under the largest peak.
Once you find a suitable location, make sure to dig down and look out for an Ancient City. Since Ancient City floors generate at Y: -51, you will not have to dig down any further than that.
Ancient City Generation
At the city center, you will find a structure that looks like a warden shrine or a portal. There is currently no use for this structure itself. However, if you go underneath it or open the door to the basement, you will find some basic redstone circuits.
You will find chambers, ruins and barracks all around the Ancient City. These have the same loot pool and include a couple of items that are definitely making the exploration worth it.
You can find swift sneak enchantment books here and other enchanted tools and armor. But you can also find disc fragments of the disc no. 5 here.
There is also another notable structure called the Ice Box that generates with chests. Their loot pool is different from the other chests that you will find in the Ancient City.
Perfect Equipment for Raiding Ancient Cities
The equipment that you should bring to an Ancient City of course depends on your progression. If you have already beaten the Enderdragon and found an Elytra, then it is very beneficial to take that with you.
We recommend bringing the following equipment:- wool blocks or carpet to move through the ancient city
- projectiles (e.g., eggs, snowballs) to distract the warden
- a bed to set your spawn point
- a hoe and a pickaxe to get through the Ancient City easily
- a bow (ideally enchanted with Power V)
- potions of night vision
- elytra with sufficient fireworks
In addition to the potion of night vision, you can of course, also bring potions of regeneration or instant health potions. We recommend you check out our recent article. It explains how to brew all of the potions. This is helpful if you want to bring more than just night vision potions.
How to Raid Ancient Cities
If you are new to your world and don't have the necessary equipment, we suggest building a hideout. Bring a bed with you, set your spawn point and if you were to die, simply go back down again.
We also recommend bringing some spare equipment with you. When you go down to the Ancient City, make sure to use that equipment. This way, you can ensure that no valuable items get lost.
There are no hostile mobs in the deep dark biome. The only exception is the warden. It will spawn when you trigger sculk shriekers three times.
When exploring an Ancient City, make sure to sneak, use swiftness potions, or walk on carpets. This way you will not produce any sounds, which sculk sensors may pick up.
When opening chests, make sure to block them off with wool or destroy any sculk shriekers nearby. Make sure to not skip this step to avoid summoning the warden.
Keep in mind that you can destroy sculk shriekers and other deep dark blocks with hoes much faster.
Though, if you accidentally do spawn a warden, you should try to get as much distance from it as possible. Run away and use your projectiles to distract the warden.
Did you bring an elytra and fireworks? Then you can easily fly away and get enough distance from the warden in basically no time.