How to Add Paths in Your Minecraft City - For Dummies

In Minecraft, paths are truly handy because they’re both decorative and useful. They can be small walkways or wide roads. Paths make cities and gardens look nice, but they also make it easy to find places or simply to move from Point A to Point B. Paths most commonly consist of dirt, paved road, or stone sidewalk.

If you’re using paths as roads, figure out how long and how wide the road should be.

Building a path

To build a path, follow these instructions (the steps are the same whether you’re building a road or a garden path):

1. Dig out the rows of blocks where you want the road to be.

   You can dig as deep as you want, but you only need to dig 1 block deep.

2. Gather the materials you need for the path or road.

   The type of material is up to you, but many people use cobblestone or stone brick. (The rest of this step list works with stone brick.)

3. Place 4 stone blocks on the crafting table: 1 stone block in the left bottom box; 1 in the left middle box; 1 in the middle column bottom box; and 1 in the center box.

   The crafting table changes those stones into brick.

   

4. Take the brick and place them into your inventory.

5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until you have all the bricks you need to build the path or road.

6. Take the bricks to the road, and place them in the holes you dug in Step 1.

If you’re not sure what to use for the paths and roads, think about what matches the theme of your town or city. If you have a village, keep it simple: Use sand or dirt. If you have a modern city, use black wool to resemble pavement, or obsidian. If you’re not sure how to get wool, don’t worry! All you need is a sheep and a shear.

To make a shear, you need 2 iron ingots. Place 1 iron ingot in the left row of the bottom box of the crafting table and the other in the center box. Take the shear that will appear in exchange for the iron ingots. After you make a shear, find a sheep and use the shear to cut off the sheep’s wool. This should give you 1 to 3 wools.

Though you can get real obsidian, it’s difficult and dangerous when you’re in Survival mode — that’s why you should use wool to resemble the obsidian. Obsidian is usually only used for a path when you’re in Creative Mode.

Real obsidian is gorgeous, though — it has a deep, rich color and texture. Many players think it’s worth the trouble to get the real thing. You can get obsidian in two ways: Mine it or make it.

Mining obsidian is dangerous because, under the obsidian rock, you’ll probably find lava. As you can imagine, falling into lava can be dangerous to your health. To avoid being killed by lava, mine a single obsidian block to see whether lava is underneath it. If it is, you lose the block you just mined, because it falls into the lava and is destroyed — but that’s better than dying.

You’re not interested in mining obsidian; you’re looking for lava. So, put to good use the lava you found, by carefully scooping up the lava with a bucket, carrying the bucket to the road, and then filling the hole with the lava. After you have the lava in place, fill the bucket with water and pour it on top of the lava — the mixture of lava and water makes obsidian.

If you think that the road is plain-looking, you can jazz it up with lampposts or glowstone. To make glowstone, you need 4 units of glowstone dust. You can get the dust in one of four ways:

• kill a witch — she can drop as many as 6 units of glowstone dust when she dies

• trade a villager for it

• break a glowstone — it will drop 4 units of glowstone dust

• harvest it from the Nether. (This is the easiest way to get glowstone dust.)

When you have 4 units of glowstone dust, you can easily make the glowstone. Place the 4 units of glowstone dust on the crafting table: one in the left bottom box; one in the left middle box; one in the middle lower box; and one in the center box. The craft table exchanges the glowstone dust for a lit glowstone.

Repeat that process until you have as many glowstone as you need. You can then place the glowstones at strategic places along the road.

Make paths pretty

If you’ve made a garden path, you can embellish it with an entryway, such as an arch. To create an arch doorway, follow these steps:

1. Make sure that you have 17 blocks of the same material that you used for your path.

2. Stack 5 blocks on top of each other.

   If you want to build the arch higher than you can reach, jump (press the spacebar) and right-click to place a block underneath you. You can do this as many times as you need.

3. Place 5 blocks side by side from the top of that stack.

   Don’t worry about blocks falling on your head — they hang suspended in the air while you build.

   

4. Starting at the other end of the horizontal row, build another vertical stack 5 blocks high, working from the top to the ground.

5. Place 1 block in the upper left corner of the arch’s opening.

   

6. Place 1 block in the upper right corner of the arch’s opening.

   

Congratulations! You’ve successfully made an archway.