Ancient City in Minecraft : everything you need to know

An Ancient City is a palatial structure that can be found in the Deep Dark biome. The Ancient City contains chests with items that can’t be found anywhere else that can help you avoid the Warden as well as sculk blocks.

Ancient Cities always appear at depth level -52.

Generation of Ancient Cities

An Ancient City is the equivalent of a very large palace in a Deep Dark biome. The palace consists of long corridors with gray wool floors (to avoid vibrations and thus attract the Warden), as well as some smaller ruins on the corners of the main corridors, which contain between one and two Looting chests. It is in these chests that you will find the Swift Sneak enchantment as well as disc fragments to make the 5 music disc.

The center of the Ancient City features a frame resembling a Warden’s head, where you’ll find blocks reinforced with Deep Dark slate, a material not found in Survival Mode. Other unique blocks such as Soul Lanterns and Candles and various forms of Deep Dark Slate can be found here.

Redstone Circuits in Ancient Cities

Underneath the frame in the center of the city is a series of hidden rooms with naturally generated redstone circuits, such as piston doors and logic doors. The secret entrance is located at the base of the structure, in front of the frame. It can be opened by solving a puzzle that involves triggering a sculk sensor from above, or the player can simply mine through the blocks to bypass the puzzle. Each variant of the town center uses a different redstone circuit to hide the entrance, which requires a slightly different strategy to open the door :

• If there’s nothing in front of the frame, the player must create a vibration just above the chiseled slate on the floor to the left, then enter the door before it closes.
• If there is a chest in front of the frame, the player must create a vibration of 8 (like eating an object or throwing a projectile) to the left of the chest, then enter the door before it closes.
• If there is a set of walls in front of the frame, the player must create any vibration to the left of the slate chiseled between the walls, then enter the door without triggering the sculk sensor again.