Ending Summer with Hytale Practice in Minecraft: LunaticTactician & BoltOLightnin

DISCLAIMER: All Hytale-related statements, unless otherwise specified, are speculative and based on pre-release information and Minecraft. They're not to be taken seriously; they're just for fun.

I do not plan on making this a series. School has started, and BoltOLightnin may get bored.

Seeing as how school (and brain torture) were coming, I wanted to end my summer vacation with a bang and keep my morale and mental strength high for whatever the professors want to throw at my face.

I reread and was proud of my Hytale play style part 2, but I still felt guilty about having an authoritarian leadership plan. Besides, it was individual liberty that made the United States and the Philippines great; people can start and grow their own businesses with minimal interference from the government. Authoritarian states, like present-day Venezuela, are usually poor.
I wanted to spare myself of that guilt by further studying BoltOLightnin's play style (YoSquid is too busy with random family activities) in preparation for Hytale, so, on a whim, I invited him to a vanilla Minecraft 1.8.9 playthrough.
I'm surprised BoltOLightnin accepted the invitation. I know he's bored of the games I like to play (plus, I always beat him in chess and Pokémon Showdown), but he explained later that he wanted to get back into Minecraft.

Cave Carnage

We first spawned in a hilly forest with lots of cave entrances.

I screwed up and forgot to set the time to 0 when both of us were in the server, so nighttime struck before I even got a stone tool; I only had a wooden pickaxe. I didn't want to be out in the open, so I hid in one of the cave entrances, and BoltOLightnin followed me inside. We didn't have wood logs to make charcoal and it was too dangerous to go back outside, so we roamed aimlessly around the cave looking for coal.
We fought off a small wave of zombies coming from two sides. I had no proper weapon (I forgot to craft a stone sword), so I punched the zombie on my side to death. I found coal shortly afterwards by turning up my monitor's brightness to the max temporarily.

BoltOLightnin continued exploring, with him mostly taking the lead. It's not really part of my plan, but this is our first co-op Minecraft playthrough in several months and is intended to be Hytale practice, so I let it slide in case there's a happy ending out of it.

Mob sounds filled the entire cave, even though we lit our way with torches. There were twists and turns all over the place, so mobs could pop out when we're not looking...and they did. While BoltOLightnin was sneak-attacked by zombies while mining, I tried to help, but another zombie fell from a higher cave chamber and bit me on the back. (So much for not taking damage.)

I got paranoid, so I separated from BoltOLightnin to put torches around the cave to stop the overwhelming mob spawns. BoltOLightnin kept on mining, but every now and then, he got attacked by groups of mobs.
I honestly got lazy to help and figured that he can take care of himself, so I just did my own thing. Besides, my main purpose for staying in that cave is to hide from the mobs in the surface; it's easier to attack mobs coming from two sides rather than 360° around me.
But I screwed up; he eventually died.

I recovered his stuff since I was close to him when he died. Meanwhile, BoltOLightnin went into the cave to look for me. However, I was in a very deep cave chamber, and since BoltOLightnin moved so fast while exploring before, I lost track of where the exit is, and I struggled to get back up, especially considering that my health and hunger bars are almost empty, lots of cave chambers remain dark, and mob sounds continued to fill the air. I eventually got shot dead by a skeleton.
In a frustrated voice, I told BoltOLightnin, "Screw it, I wanna restart the world. Dying leaves a bad taste in my mouth." (I should have told him that there's no point looking for our stuff if we don't know where it is, causing it to eventually despawn.) He implied no, saying he wants to get our stuff back.

BoltOLightnin recovered our stuff, but I think he got surrounded by mobs, so he covered himself with cobblestone. However, he was still killed by a zombie despite completely protecting himself; either the zombie glitched through, or BoltOLightnin lagged slightly.

I was already in the cave trying to go along with his plan of getting our stuff back, and my continuous pressure to be allowed to restart the world isn't working, so I kept going through the insidious cave. As expected, I struggled to navigate the cursed place; it took me more than 5 minutes to find the cobblestone "cage". I found the cage, which was protected by a zombie that held a stone sword; I punched the zombie to death again. However, when we broke the cage, all the other stuff was gone.
I asked to restart the world one last time since I don't want to waste time starting over again in a world where we've wasted several nonrenewable ores just for them to despawn. I think BoltOLightnin finally said yes, but I can't remember what exactly he said; I think, in his mind, he still wanted to keep going.

Why did I ask to restart the server multiple times, even though I'm the server host and I have the full authority to do so?
Because, as much as I don't like it or think it's tactically unfeasible, I (sometimes) respect the opinions and freedom (and therefore the loyalty) of my soldiers.
I expressed my desire to restart the server as if it were a suggestion, not a command.
Then again, BoltOLightnin said my leadership is "good" because I give freedom to my soldiers.
how long will it take until i remove all my leftist traits (intentional bad grammar)

A Plainly Good Start

I generated a new random world, which let us spawn on a large and very flat plains biome with the ocean nearby.

Aw, you're so kind, Minecraft!

The world file is found here.

Problem is, there were no forests nearby. BoltOLightnin spotted a roofed forest past the ocean, though, so, after some boring swimming, we started gathering wood.

BoltOLightnin went back to the plains after a while, while I kept gathering wood until sunset, which is when I ordered a mini shelter to be built on the plains. He did, and it was a simple 5x3x6 (in the x, y, and z directions, respectively) box house made of dark oak wood.

When I got to our new home, I was surprised to see that BoltOLightnin had already built a farm by intersecting the ocean with rows of dirt. (Normally, I'd take that farm initiative because of my focus on survival, but I can't remember why he set up that farm.)

Since we haven't made any torches or beds yet, it's no surprise that mobs are all over the place. Seeing them so close to the house made me paranoid, so I killed some of them. BoltOLightnin joined in too.

The world was set to Hard difficulty (because I'm preparing for Hytale to be difficult similar to how ThirtyVirus wants it), so zombies spawned in hordes each time I attacked one. I was able to survive the night despite my low hunger bar thanks to their rotten flesh.

also, i accidentally killed BoltOLightnin while killing zombies at our door, and i made him run a long distance from the spawn point to our house (intentional bad grammar)

We did some random stuff from that point on; I can't remember what happened in what order, but here are the significant events.

I needed coal and iron, but there were no caves nearby (just a ravine that I didn't explore because I'm too lazy to climb back up), so I made a staircase mine. In addition to coal and iron, I quickly found 8 diamonds and made a diamond pickaxe.

BoltOLightnin primarily focused on mining elsewhere throughout the rest of the playthrough; I usually didn't see him in the base, and when I did, he was usually crafting or smelting.

Besides those, he improved the appearance of his mini shelter, adding a pyramid roof and cobblestone on the corners. The inside got filled mostly with chests.

The inside is too cramped to put a bed in.

BoltOLightnin and I described this as more similar to a "storage shed" than a house.

Speaking of house-building, I worked on my own house near BoltOLightnin's house.

At first, BoltOLightnin was confused when I built a 15x15 floor one block higher than the ground, so he built around the sides of the floor as if making walls. I told him not to help with my house since I had my own not-so-simple design planned.

I took round trips between the base and the roofed forest to get wood and wool (there were sheep in there, which I left untouched until we got shears).

I admit, I only know how to make Minecraft village-style houses, so in the end, the house is made mostly of birch wood with oak logs for corners and oak fences for windows (I don't like smelting sand because it's nonrenewable). The dark oak wood floor that I started with also formed an elevated terrace. The first floor is a living room, dining room, kitchen, and enchanting room all in one, despite not having a furnace (I got lazy to get cobblestone). The next day in real life, I worked on the second floor, which is a bedroom, storage room, and balcony access. It has a "master bed" which I tried to give an "elaborate" design.

It's still incomplete at this point, but it's a viable shelter.
Hopefully Void Eyes and dragons won't attack until the roof is complete.

A house shouldn't just be tactically viable; it should also be comfortable.
Even in gaming, adventurers need to relax after tiring traveling and battling.

The second floor.
A big window gives a clear view of the surroundings.

A closer look at the master's bed.

We had an enchantment table ready, but we consider it near-useless without bookshelves, so BoltOLightnin set out further through the plains to look for cows. However, the sun has set, and huge hordes of mobs were scattered almost everywhere I looked while BoltOLightnin was deep into an unexplored area of the plains with mobs attacking him left and right while he was slowly bringing chickens to our base. (No cows were found yet, but we needed feathers for arrows.) I defended the perimeter of my own house and obliterated more groups of zombies; leaving the house would expose me to mob attacks, and I thought BoltOLightnin could take care of himself since he survived about 2 minutes while baiting the chickens...until BoltOLightnin got blown up by a creeper.

I probably should have given him a spare bed.

Did I tell him to retreat to base and ignore the chickens? I don't remember, but I should've said that. Still, for me, it's a dumb idea to do non-mining field work at night. (By field work, I mean work far away from the base.) Fighting while working can distract the brain; it frequently happens to me when I'm playing action games in real life and a customer asks for a complicated order. The only work worth doing at night is fighting.

BoltOLightnin died at sunrise, and the mobs were burning up, so I went out of my base to recover his stuff and find the chickens again. He joined up with me eventually, and we found both the stuff and the chickens. Additionally, BoltOLightnin's younger brother (who BoltOLightnin claims to have had more Minecraft practice) pointed out two cows that we didn't see. I baited the chickens, while BoltOLightnin baited the cows. He then made two holes for each animal; it's easier to put animals inside that way, rather than using fences and fence gates on the surface, because we can just punch animals inside and they can't escape.

Sizes can be deceiving.
But we actually have more cows than chickens.
(This screenshot was taken after some breeding, not at the moment we got our first animals)

At one point, I felt like helping BoltOLightnin mine; we haven't gotten many significant ores since I found those diamonds. I met up with him at my strip mine, where we mined further through while I supplied ourselves with additional pickaxes since I brought 32 oak planks. BoltOLightnin took the lead again, but I messed around by overtaking him each time he found ores...and they were mostly iron and gold.

We ran into what we eventually realized was a lava stream, not just a lava lake. BoltOLightnin continued to take the lead while I lit the way with torches; I wanted to stand back so he has enough space to focus and accurately douse the lava with water. We mined upwards and saw that the lava stream was quite long, so we followed it around and saw a cave chamber upwards. I didn't advance with him; I got lazy to do so and I ran out of wood. He didn't find anything significant through there, so we just went back to base.

I then reminded BoltOLightnin of his idea of building a new, better personal base (since I was proud of my own house and was excited to see how BoltOLightnin puts his own touch into a Survival base) which he suggested before mining. He told me he wanted to build a castle surrounded by a trench filled with lava (I forgot the other details). We collected about 10 stacks of cobblestone from our last mining trip, so we were ready to build without realizing it. BoltOLightnin started with the trench, which was 2 blocks deep. There was a ravine in the way, so he ordered me to cover it with dirt, and I think I covered about 50%.

Night fell again as we worked, and it's a good thing that we were near our base. I ordered BoltOLightnin to go to bed as soon as I saw the sky turn orange to indicate sunset, while I immediately went to my own house so the mobs don't beat me to the punch.

I looked out the window, and to my shock, BoltOLightnin was still working on his trench, oblivious to the mobs creeping towards him, to which I shouted, "Behind you!" He got cornered by the horde of mobs, so I rushed to help by first killing the skeletons because of their ranged attacks being difficult to evade. In a few seconds, I got cornered as well, with two creepers blowing up close to me, and skeletons shooting me in every direction while spiders pounced towards me as I panicked. I locked myself in my own house, but BoltOLightnin still got cornered and died to a zombie. That's when he decided to leave the game.

I gave him a half-hearted "reprimand". I can't remember what I said, but I think I advised to never do work outside unless he's ready to fight.

I'm still frustrated about how this playthrough ended, especially since school is around the corner. I messaged YoSquid and asked him to protect BoltOLightnin since both of them have aggressive play styles. He said yes.

Oh well, until the next Hytale practice.

Moral lessons for myself?

Sometimes I hate moral lessons. Just saying.

• Practice fighting against large groups of different mobs. Afterwards, practice rescuing a custom NPC from a group of mobs.
• Work cooperatively if possible. Mobs can appear around any corner, and working together allows the team to carry more things.
• Command with an iron fist if a soldier fails to follow orders too many times.
• Make backup plans in case a soldier doesn't follow orders.
• Adapt to the officers' desires and tactics. BoltOLightnin prefers mining over many other activities: a trait expressed in our Bytesize playthrough. (i keep forgetting to do this (intentional bad grammar))

Other Combat-related Moments

• In our second world (the one with the big plains), I have 0 deaths. I've had some close calls, though, which were easily solved by running to a shelter.
• When I alert BoltOLightnin to the presence of a mob, I often say, "I'll deal with it" so he can continue working. He usually deals the final blow anyway. Oh well, at least this isn't competitive multiplayer.
• I often dictate our moves while fighting. When fighting creepers, for example, I avoid pincer attacks and go for their front or side while sprint-attacking to buy us time to escape their explosion attack.
• BoltOLightnin advised me to use the classic mob-baiting strategy where he runs from mobs and I kill them from the side.
• BoltOLightnin stated that he "just won't quit" (even with overwhelming odds). I need to find a situation to exploit that trait properly...