MineColonies Complete Beginners Guide

Welcome to the ultimate beginner’s guide to MineColonies! This comprehensive tutorial will help you build a beautiful, thriving colony from scratch. While MineColonies is a complex mod with sophisticated AI, this guide covers all the essential tips and tricks you need to get started and have the most fun possible with your new colony.

Getting Started: Creating Your First Colony

Building a Supply Camp

The first step to starting your colony is crafting either a supply ship or a supply camp. These structures are made with basic materials like chests and boats. Once crafted, you’ll need to place it down in a suitable location.

For your colony location, you’ll need a large, flat area of approximately 8 by 8 chunks. To view chunk boundaries, press F3 and G on your keyboard to display the chunk grid. While this seems like a lot of space, you can always terraform the landscape later if needed.

Selecting Your Colony Style

Right-click on your supply camp to access the style selection menu. MineColonies offers numerous architectural styles to choose from, including:

Desert Awning

Urban Savannah

Cavern

Medieval Dark Oak

Shale Canyon

And many more

This guide is being created for version 1.21, which contains the most recent content. While older versions function similarly, there may be slight variations.

Positioning Your Supply Camp

After selecting your preferred style and pressing “Select,” you can position your supply camp using the intuitive placement tools:

Blue arrows: Move the camp forward, backward, left, and right

Middle button: Flip the camp around

Rotation arrows: Turn the camp 90 degrees

Up/Down arrows: Adjust the vertical position

Tennis racket icons: Show where the ground should be

Press the down arrow to align the camp flush with the ground, ensuring proper placement. Once you’re satisfied with the position, click the tick to confirm placement and welcome to MineColonies!

Building Your Town Hall

Getting the Town Hall from Your Supply Camp

Inside your supply camp, you’ll find a barrel containing three essential items:

Build Tool

Town Hall schematic

Paper (not needed for basic setup)

The Town Hall is your primary administrative building and serves as the central hub for colony management. While you can recreate it later using the build tool and birch planks, starting with the one from your supply camp is recommended.

Using the Build Tool to Place Your Town Hall

Right-click your Town Hall schematic to receive a prompt suggesting you use the build tool. This tool allows you to precisely adjust placement and preview how your building will look. To use it:

Right-click the build tool on your chosen location

Select the category: Agriculture, Craftmanship, Decorations, Education, or Fundamentals

Choose “Town Hall” from the Fundamentals category

Press Escape and walk backward to view the preview

Rotate and position the building as needed

Previewing Building Levels

Buildings in MineColonies have multiple levels, from Level 1 to Level 5. Each level changes the building’s appearance and functionality. You can click on the Town Hall preview to see what it will look like at different upgrade levels:

Level 1: Your starting point

Level 5: The fully upgraded, grand version

Consider the Level 5 appearance when deciding placement, as you’ll want your buildings oriented correctly for their final form.

Assigning a Builder and Founding Your Colony

Once positioned correctly, click the tick to confirm. In Survival mode, you’ll be prompted to “Assign to Builder.” In Creative mode, you can immediately construct the building.

After assignment, click on the Town Hall and give your colony a name. Then sign the covenant and found your colony. This will place construction tape around the building area and prepare it for your builder to construct.

Creating Your Builder’s Hut

Why You Need a Builder

Your Town Hall cannot be constructed until you have a Builder. A Builder is a specialized colonist who works in the Builder’s Hut (also called a Builder’s Heart). This is essential infrastructure for constructing and upgrading all buildings in your colony.

Crafting and Placing the Builder’s Hut

Using your build tool again:

Right-click the build tool

Navigate to Fundamentals

Select “Builder’s Heart”

Walk backward and choose your placement location

Confirm with the tick and assign to your first available colonist

Assigning Your First Builder

When you place the Builder’s Hut, a colonist will automatically be assigned to it. You’ll notice their clothing changes to indicate their new role. Right-clicking on them may trigger a tutorial, which you can dismiss if desired.

Supplying Your Builder with Resources

Your Builder cannot begin work until they have the necessary resources. To supply them:

Right-click on the Builder’s Hut

Navigate to “Required Resources”

Gather all listed materials (such as oak logs, cobblestone, etc.)

Click the arrow to place materials into the Builder’s Hut inventory

In Creative mode, you can instantly add these materials. In Survival mode, you’ll need to collect them manually.

Builder’s Hut Management Options

Within the Builder’s Hut interface, you have several management options:

Rename: Change the Builder’s Hut name

Assigned Worker: View and manage the assigned builder

Hiring Mode: Choose between Automatic, Manual, or Default (Automatic)

Show Employed: Toggle whether to display currently employed workers when hiring

Manage Workers: Fire or pause workers as needed

Recall Worker: Useful if a builder gets stuck during construction

Providing Your Builder with Tools

Builders require tools to work effectively. Tool requirements depend on the Builder’s Hut level:

Level 1 Builder’s Hut: Stone shovels

Level 2: Iron tools

Levels 3-4: Iron to Diamond tools

Level 5: Diamond tools

If your builder displays a warning icon (cog) above their head, right-click them to see what they need. Provide the requested tools to allow them to continue working.

Builder’s Hut Tabs and Settings

The Builder’s Hut interface contains several important tabs:

Main Tab: Overview of the current building project

Crafting Recipes: Add custom recipes for the builder to craft

Required Resources: View and supply materials needed

Settings: Configure task assignment and fill/demolish preferences

Work Orders: View the current building project

Minimum Stock: Set minimum quantities of materials to keep in inventory

Understanding Your Colonists

Colonist Health and Status

Each colonist has several status metrics you should monitor:

Health: Decreases if attacked or injured

Hunger: Affected by their residence level. Higher-level homes require more complex food

Happiness: Influenced by housing, employment, guards, and social factors

Keeping Your Colonists Healthy

A simple but crucial tip: add a carrot and potato to every colonist’s inventory. When colonists catch a cold (which happens frequently), they can self-heal using these items. This preventative measure eliminates the need for constant manual intervention and keeps your workforce healthy and productive.

Colonist Skills

Each colonist possesses various skills that improve passively as they work:

Intelligence

Knowledge

Creativity

Focus

Adaptability

Mana

Stamina

Agility

Strength

Ferocity

Athletics

Different jobs require different skills. For example, Builders benefit from high Adaptability (faster block placement) and Athletics (faster block breaking). You don’t need to manually level skills—they improve naturally through work—but matching colonists to appropriate jobs based on their current skills can optimize your colony.

Colonist Happiness Factors

Colonist happiness is affected by several factors:

Housing: Having a home increases happiness

Employment: Having a job is important

Guards: Colony security improves morale

Mourning: They mourn for 3 days after a death

Illness/Injury: Sick or injured colonists are less happy

Unemployment: Idle colonists become unhappy over time

Homelessness: Colonists without housing become increasingly unhappy

Expanding Your Colony: Essential Buildings

Colony Borders and Expansion

Your colony is contained within a specific grid area marked by a white border visible when holding the build tool near it. As you place buildings near the colony border, it automatically extends outward. This organic expansion system means you’re never trapped within the initial grid.

Building Priority: Six Essential Structures

After establishing your Town Hall and Builder’s Hut, prioritize building these six structures to create a self-sustaining colony:

1. Tavern

The Tavern is where new colonists spawn and join your colony. Key features:

Can only have one Tavern per colony

New colonists will negotiate joining for a fee (typically 45 books)

Level 1: 3 beds for 3 citizens

Level 2: 4 beds for 4 citizens

Level 3: 5 beds for 5 citizens

Build your Tavern first to provide housing and recruit additional citizens.

2. Farm

Farms produce crops essential for feeding your colonists. Features:

Use the Scarecrow to access farm settings

Right-click the Scarecrow to select seeds (wheat, carrots, etc.)

Can have up to two fields

Add seeds to the farm’s inventory and the farmer will handle planting and harvesting

Optional fertilizer requests for increased yield

3. Bakery

The Bakery processes raw crops into bread and other food items. Key elements:

Smelting Recipes: Automatically convert bread dough to bread

Crafting Recipes: Combine wheat and large water bottles to make bread dough

Large water bottles must be created beforehand (glass bottles + water)

Place large bottles in the Bakery’s inventory

Requires fuel (charcoal or coal) to operate

4. Restaurant

The Restaurant serves prepared food to your colonists. Setup includes:

Customize the menu with available food items (bread, cheese, pizza, etc.)

You must craft or source the menu items first

Requires fuel (charcoal or coal)

Colonists will eat at the Restaurant to maintain hunger levels

5. Warehouse

The Warehouse serves as a central storage hub. Benefits:

Stores food and materials for distribution throughout the colony

Works in conjunction with Couriers to transport items

Reduces manual item management

6. Courier’s Hut

Couriers automatically transport items between buildings. This is crucial for automation:

Couriers pick up wheat from the Farm

Deliver wheat to the Bakery

Transport bread from the Bakery to the Restaurant

Eliminates the need for manual item transfers

Additional Recommendations

Residences

Beyond the Tavern’s limited beds, build Residences to house additional colonists. Residences come in multiple levels:

Level 2 Residence: Basic housing

Level 3 Residence: Improved living conditions

Level 5 Residence: Grand, luxurious homes

Warning: Higher-level residences require colonists to eat more complex food items, so plan accordingly.

Compost Heap

A Compost Heap provides fertilizer for your farms, increasing crop yield naturally.

Upgrading Buildings

How to Upgrade

Upgrading buildings to higher levels is straightforward:

Enter the building and access the workstation

Select “Build Options”

Click “Build Up” or “Upgrade”

Gather and place required materials in the Builder’s Hut inventory

An available builder will begin the upgrade process

Builder’s Hut Level Restrictions

Your Builder’s Hut level determines the maximum level you can upgrade other buildings:

Level 1 Builder’s Hut: Can upgrade buildings to Level 1 only

Level 2 Builder’s Hut: Can upgrade buildings to Level 2

Level 3 Builder’s Hut: Can upgrade buildings to Level 3

Level 4 Builder’s Hut: Can upgrade buildings to Level 4

Level 5 Builder’s Hut: Can upgrade buildings to Level 5

To upgrade your Builder’s Hut itself, follow the same process with another Builder’s Hut or use the upgrade function on your existing one once it reaches a higher level.

Accessing Individual Building Guides

This comprehensive beginner guide covers the fundamentals, but MineColonies has far more depth. Individual guides for each building type are available, along with an ultimate guide for advanced strategies. These resources provide in-depth information about specialized buildings and optimization techniques beyond this introductory scope.

Conclusion

You now have everything needed to start your MineColonies journey! Begin by creating your supply camp and Town Hall, then build your Builder’s Hut. From there, construct the six essential buildings—Tavern, Farm, Bakery, Restaurant, Warehouse, and Courier’s Hut—to create a thriving, self-sustaining colony. Remember to keep your colonists healthy with carrots and potatoes, and don’t hesitate to reference this guide as you progress. Most importantly, have fun building your dream colony!

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