9 things to know before starting Minecraft Legends

There’s a lot going on in the world of Minecraft Legends at any given point, and even with a suite of tutorials easing you into the RTS game, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Splitting your time wisely between hunting Piglins, gathering resources, and defending hapless villagers is key to saving the blocky realms. These Minecraft Legends tips covering building, troop management, and important settings make the process easier and more enjoyable.

Build a varied army

Image: Mojang/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon

Golems are great, but they can only do so much. You unlock more golem types, plus the option to recruit classic Minecraft critters, a little ways into Minecraft Legends, and it’s well worth experimenting with different combinations to make battles easier.

• Stone golems are excellent for taking down enemy structures, but they won’t help much during an invasion.
• Creepers and skeletons can’t destroy fortresses and walls easily, but they are more effective at dealing with enemy mobs than your wooden golems. Creepers explode after a short time, while skeletons can fire arrows over walls.

Plunk down your spawn points on the edge of your next battleground, and try a mixed army composed of different unit types to see what suits your style and needs best.

Always farm resources

You have a strict cap on how many resources you can gather during the initial tutorial. Once that phase ends, though, you’re free to harvest as much wood, stone, and, eventually, iron and other resources as you can hold — and you should max it out whenever you can. Building defensive fortifications and other in-field structures costs quite a few resources, and the last thing you want is finding yourself short when it counts the most.

As soon as you arrive in a village or set out on a new journey, take a few seconds to place harvesting tools in resource-rich areas. In most cases, you wind up with a few hundred of whatever resource you’re gathering just from one round of harvesting. Make these gathering methods a habit, and you’ll never lack for materials to build strong defenses.

Build at every village

Image: Mojang/Xbox Game Studios

You’ll spend as much time repelling Piglins from villages as you will dismantling Nether Portals. Fortifying each village as you come to it makes defending against enemy hordes much easier when the time comes. Once you arrive in a new village, take some time to build walls, watchtowers, and other fortifications around the entire perimeter.

Get creative, too. Your basic square perimeter is effective, sure, but you could build a section of V-shaped walls that funnel Piglins into a corner overlooked by several watchtowers or a bridge that drops them into an enclosure.

Just make sure to leave room for at least one gate, so you can enter and exit the village.

Watchtowers are key

Speaking of watchtowers, this particular fortification is your most useful defensive tool. They cover a broad area, deal heavy damage to Piglins, and equally as important, distract enemies from tearing down walls or attacking villagers. You don’t even need a wall to build a watchtower. Plunk several down in a row, and your village is as good as defended.

Sacrifices must be made

That said, you can’t be everywhere all at once. The world of Minecraft Legends moves at its own pace, so while you’re destroying a fortress or defending one village, another is probably falling to the Piglin army. It’s impractical to drop what you’re doing to save every village that comes under attack, so you’ll occassionally need to just let them fall.

Good defensive fortifications can help villages last longer, but if Piglins do overrun them, you only need to defeat every pig in a village’s boundaries to liberate it again. There’s no time limit either, so you’re free to put it off until you’ve got time — or just ignore it completely.

Don’t hesitate to jump in the fray yourself

Image: Mojang/Xbox Game Studios

Creepers might send mobs fleeing in fear, but you yourself are the most effective force against enemy mobs. Your basic sword attack makes short work of basic Piglins and stronger foes, and your attacks can distract enemies from your own mobs, giving them more freedom to quickly tear down Piglin structures.

If you get hurt, just run around for a few seconds and wait for your health to replenish. If you’re lucky, you might even be able to lure Piglins into lava by crossing a bridge or leaping over a lava pool with an enemy mob in tow.

Use advanced banner controls

Your basic banner controls let you send all your followers to a certain point at once, but it’s often wiser to use the advanced controls and select just a portion of your army to charge forth. You learn how to use these during the initial onslaught against three Piglin fortresses and should make good use of them from then on. Advanced controls give you greater control over your mobs. You can rally a select few soldiers and send them charging off toward one direction, before rallying a Creeper squad to send into the middle of a Piglin mob, and then send a group of golems to deal with a nearby structure. It’s generally just a more efficient way to manage your army.

Check your settings

Image: Mojang/Xbox Game Studios

You automatically begin with your build settings toggled to hold, which forces you to hold the build button down while you set up your structure. It’s not the most convenient default, and if often makes building while moving more difficult than it should be. If you’re struggling, head to the controller or keyboard section of the menu to fix the issue.

Build wells

You learn how to build wells during your first foray against a Nether Portal, and you should make it a point to build them regularly across the map. Wells are useful rest areas, but more importantly, they’re also fast travel points. Normally, you can only fast travel to a liberated village. Placing wells across the map cuts down on traveling times and even makes it easier to defend villages.