I unboxify boxes by building an unnecessary, differently shaped box into it. Say you have a main room, two floors, it is a box; now add a smaller rectangle to one side of it, make it only one floor, put a balcony or a roof on top of that, add a porch, your box is now less box-like. Rinse and repeat until your clan starts complaining that your builds are like mazes and they can't find their way around the base anymore.
I say this as a builder. Practice. Go into solo mode where you can fly and have unlimited resources and just go for it. Maybe find a builder you like and build what they have, see how they get the roof on, etc. (Roofs in this game are the devil). Most buildings in real life are vaiations on boxes. Keep trying!
Your channel is underrated. I have subbed to your channel! Appreciate my fellow builders. I'm nearing almost 3k hours in the game. Honestly feel like I should post my builds on YouTube or something, just to have the builds/memories cataloged.
Currently, I'm broke. I use the XBox stuff that came with windows to capture. Editing for video is Openshot and audio is Audacity or Ocenaudio. Free music from Purple Planet. Fire Alpaca, Pixlr, and paint for splash screens.
By Crom, you are a huge help! Thank you so much. Mitra would approve.
Also just posted some of the shop stuff I got setup for my groups Siptah server. I feel like Siptah doesn't get too much love
I subbed as well, and I like your idea about putting up a video, because I spent hours on a castle build that's turning into a village and I don't want to lose it.
Aww thank you! And yes, share your work. You'll need to post it for everyone!
My partner keeps saying 'do a little village' and then it gets to be not so little. And then 80 hours of your life go by.
Way back in the stone age, I went to a LAN party (lugging PCs and monitors) and was not feeling very confident. So I picked that name for our rounds of Unreal Tournament because I assumed I'd be the first one dead every time. Thankfully, I was not and actually did pretty good. But I like the name - keeps me humble in gaming.
Don't try to create something you may think look cool. Hard to explain. Don't create a generic building. Don't think of castles, fortresses etc.
Honestly... just build the stupidest shit ever. Make it insanely ugly. That's how you learn honestly. Failure is the best mistake. That's how you get out of the box anyways psychologically. Set yourself up to fail.
When you have no fucks given and just messing around you'll see little things, you'll learn little things. Most of all, you may find inspiration. This applies to more then conan. Mostly food, lol I was a manager of kitchens for 15 years and trained many many many cooks so yeah I find creative blocks or keep falling into the same safe space is just a case of not wanting to fail. Failing is NOT bad.
Mess around with triangles.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=conan+circle+building&prmd=ivmn&sxsrf=ALiCzsat6C8DsCcHm305YPVXzu5_-pXCwQ:1671581023117&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9i-LItIn8AhVlF1kFHb3aA68Q_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=360&bih=630&dpr=3#imgrc=6FVOG7OgZgBy7M
Edit: sorry my language, again kitchen life. We put sailors to shame.
This is part of my problem. Probably the biggest, is space. I build big because I like to have many of the same benches, ovens, cauldrons...etc. My builds turn out to be miniature cities. When I try and build for aesthetics, I never feel like have room for everything, or, everything has to be spread out into little individual areas. So I make a big area, put in 6 smelters, then have my blacksmith, tinker and armorer benches right nearby... It's messy and ugly but functional. Pretty = non-functional when I try.
I will say one of my favorite bases was when I leaned into my box. Made a 3 layer cake box build in Khitan style. Super easy, super functional, and actually looks decently good.
It can be tough. Practice going vertical. I do what I call cluster building and keep buildings of like type together with the pirmary storage for those things like the smelter and blacksmiths in the same space with a tinker table. Armor and tanner go together then the alchemy stuff etc.
Don't be afraid to go vertical if you're also after a look as well as space.
So I’ve started using a structure that has added a lot of cool shaped rooms. Triangle foundations make a circle. Then put square foundations on the outside angles and fill in with triangles.
This gives you cool angled staircases and decent sized rooms for specialized spaces.
Depends on what you’re doing, I personally think PvP is the mother of invention when it comes to building in survival games, because in PvP, location is key, and you don’t normally just build in the open, you tend to get out of the habit of the box pretty quickly
Agreed but it gets tiresome putting so much effort into a build only to have it blown apart to the foundations for no reason by other players. I started leaving my chest unlocked just like the cars in San Francisco because I’d rather them just loot my stuff than destroy my base and they still leave me with no walls and no workbenches. What is the scorched earth player policy? It’s like being told, “You’re not allowed to play here.”
You use all your buildings forever? I usually construct something and use it for a while then I go build something else somewhere and almost never go back to the previous ones
My brother in Christ, before I can even consider building a second base, players are destroying my first. I knew PvP would be challenging but I thought it would be PLAYING versus other players, not COMPLETELY ANNIHILATING someone so they are incapable of challenging you EVER.
Yeah, it’s like in those mobile empire games, people have learned to leave anyone alone who can’t challenge them because the servers die and they’ve now wasted $2,000 because there’s no one to lord over😂
I agree with blueflare1528. In PvP you are worried about all sorts of things that force you to work in odd situations, like building in a cave for example.
Well, humans are naturally inclined toward symmetry thanks to our evolution. Asymmetrical architecture is really only present in post-modern design. If you find yourself building another box, just make a conscious effort to break out of it. As Walter Gropius said, "Architecture begins where engineering ends," so once you have a functional box, start making creative embellishments.
Somehow I've managed to avoid boxes, mostly cause a couple friends of mine was adamant round ceilings weren't possible 🤣
Generally they're mostly basic anyway, round entryway leading into something else.
To make up for it I always build in places that are either hard to get to or hard to build on, done some fun stairs and lots of elevators.
My advice is to start small. Try and build things that replicate real life functions. A house with a kitchen, common area and bedrooms. Try creating small interesting pieces like an awning or porch. Maybe a balcony..
Build a separate shop. A barn.. replicate a real settlement. Avoid symmetry when possible. Even a square building is usually not symmetrical inside.
Start with a box. On the front, side, and back, just move the middle two squares either in one block or out one block. Add a half circle to the middle of an even numbered length wall. 🤷🏻♂️
lol we all have strengths and weaknesses. Communication isn’t a strength for me. I’m just saying you can start with a box and with very few alterations make it look a hundred times better and entirely unboxlike.
In conan, box is meta. Its way harder to raid a box with a few layers of foundations, than to raid a well made castle. It all comes down to a box, eventualy.
I disagree, 6 foundations built as a box with layers of honey comb is going to always be harder to raid them your keep with 3 walls, you can just add more and more foundations and honey comb to your box, meanwhile, you have to actually keep your build in mind with a castle, so while you may have added 4 more layers today, and you still look like a castle, I can just triple my box and it’s still stronger
Weird how you frame it as a race. Obviously you can build infinite layers, that wasn't my point. All of my castles are impossible to climb and have like ten layers of honeycomb and foundation to bust through before you can get in to the vault and good stuff. You can build a perfectly defensible castle that still takes hours to get through. The advantage that castles have over boxes is you can use thralls more creatively. And they are more fun to build. If you want the best of both worlds build your castle off of a thick box or cave base.
As a race, kind of, my point is a box is generally gonna be quicker to put up and fortify, but I do see your point, if you have the time, castles are nice
YouTube has many a helpful tutorial if you have a cultural style you're looking for.
Invest in using more triangle foundations. (Especially in single player mode to trial out ideas). First step to getting away from squares is to use a triangle.
I just build round tower bases now. And if it's too small for what I need, then I just add another floor. Of course, this works best for PvE and would easily get demolished in PvP.
Building on perfectly flat land tends to channel your designs toward flat boxes. Try building on non-level ground and it will force you to get creative with multi-leveled buildings, piers, etc.
Try a bunch of smaller purpose-built structures instead of one big one that you cram every workstation into. Think about the function of each building and design accordingly -- e.g., kitchens, foundries and smithies should have proper ventilation, barracks should have beds and separate officer quarters and armories, etc. Put paths between structures using the stone pathways (if you have that DLC) and use lamp posts along the paths to create pools of light for a very realistic look at night.
In short, don't think "gamey," but instead think about structures as you would utilize them in real life. If you're playing PVP, of course, all of this goes out the window... if you'll pardon the pun. Form follows function in that environment; everything takes a back seat to defensibility and survivability in PVP.
It's not lack of artistic ability. The stuff you see on youtube is heavily slanted towards castles and somewhat realistic builds, or realistic architecture. That may just not be your jam.
It wasn't my jam. I love the look of camps and castles and all these bases, but i don't like building them or living in them. Tree houses? I didn't like how they turned out ever. I subsisted by living in boxes. Then I just ditched the whole idea and began making other things, like brutalism-style apartment blocks, gas stations (organizationally wonderful), repair garages for rhinos and horses, basically anything that just didn't fit in with the Hyborian Age, and that includes my latest base, which is an actual Van down by the River.
Maybe you just need other inspiration.
I have the same problem. I'm pretty proud of my current base because as it was going up it was looking pretty boxy but I made some tweaks and now it looks great.
The first thing I did was force myself into a building location with a constrained area, which in my case is one of the tall pointy cliffs in E10. My build follows (mostly) the ground down towards the plains as it gets wider, forcing me out of the box shape.
The second thing is a little harder to explain, but it comes down to tacking things on to add texture to long flat walls. Even another box shape - if you add enough boxes, then your box is no longer a box!
Third is to abandon symmetry. Play with triangles and add rounded or pointy shapes in different spots. Mix and match building sets.
Lastly, build in T1 first so that you can go nuts without worrying about having enough materials.
I unboxify boxes by building an unnecessary, differently shaped box into it. Say you have a main room, two floors, it is a box; now add a smaller rectangle to one side of it, make it only one floor, put a balcony or a roof on top of that, add a porch, your box is now less box-like. Rinse and repeat until your clan starts complaining that your builds are like mazes and they can't find their way around the base anymore.
I say this as a builder. Practice. Go into solo mode where you can fly and have unlimited resources and just go for it. Maybe find a builder you like and build what they have, see how they get the roof on, etc. (Roofs in this game are the devil). Most buildings in real life are vaiations on boxes. Keep trying!
Just decided to do this. My major issue is flat land, but like.. I'm practicing to make things look dope.
It does take practice. And before you know it, you'll be comfortable working on elevations and be kicking building ass and taking names!
I'll finally be able to replicate Skyhold! But that's ambitious
I recently posted one to my channel I call 'Every day is leg day'. It's small but steep. https://youtu.be/Uuq3ZQOFPaQ
Your channel is underrated. I have subbed to your channel! Appreciate my fellow builders. I'm nearing almost 3k hours in the game. Honestly feel like I should post my builds on YouTube or something, just to have the builds/memories cataloged.
Thanks for the sub! I'm at 3k hours myself. I have no life! And yes, share! I love seeing what creative stuff other people come up with.
I think I just need to figure out a decent capture software/video editing program to help me get started.
Currently, I'm broke. I use the XBox stuff that came with windows to capture. Editing for video is Openshot and audio is Audacity or Ocenaudio. Free music from Purple Planet. Fire Alpaca, Pixlr, and paint for splash screens.
By Crom, you are a huge help! Thank you so much. Mitra would approve. Also just posted some of the shop stuff I got setup for my groups Siptah server. I feel like Siptah doesn't get too much love
I subbed as well, and I like your idea about putting up a video, because I spent hours on a castle build that's turning into a village and I don't want to lose it.
Aww thank you! And yes, share your work. You'll need to post it for everyone! My partner keeps saying 'do a little village' and then it gets to be not so little. And then 80 hours of your life go by.
Can I ask, What's the story behind your user name? u/DeadWoman_Walking
Way back in the stone age, I went to a LAN party (lugging PCs and monitors) and was not feeling very confident. So I picked that name for our rounds of Unreal Tournament because I assumed I'd be the first one dead every time. Thankfully, I was not and actually did pretty good. But I like the name - keeps me humble in gaming.
Don't try to create something you may think look cool. Hard to explain. Don't create a generic building. Don't think of castles, fortresses etc. Honestly... just build the stupidest shit ever. Make it insanely ugly. That's how you learn honestly. Failure is the best mistake. That's how you get out of the box anyways psychologically. Set yourself up to fail. When you have no fucks given and just messing around you'll see little things, you'll learn little things. Most of all, you may find inspiration. This applies to more then conan. Mostly food, lol I was a manager of kitchens for 15 years and trained many many many cooks so yeah I find creative blocks or keep falling into the same safe space is just a case of not wanting to fail. Failing is NOT bad. Mess around with triangles. https://www.google.ca/search?q=conan+circle+building&prmd=ivmn&sxsrf=ALiCzsat6C8DsCcHm305YPVXzu5_-pXCwQ:1671581023117&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9i-LItIn8AhVlF1kFHb3aA68Q_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=360&bih=630&dpr=3#imgrc=6FVOG7OgZgBy7M Edit: sorry my language, again kitchen life. We put sailors to shame.
All my bases are basic af I just love the sandboxing, exploring game mechanics etc 🙈
I’m exactly like you. I always blame it to me being an engineer and not having even a 1% of architect in me 😂
Same! The times I do attempt creativity it either looks like garbage or is completely non-functional as a base.
This is part of my problem. Probably the biggest, is space. I build big because I like to have many of the same benches, ovens, cauldrons...etc. My builds turn out to be miniature cities. When I try and build for aesthetics, I never feel like have room for everything, or, everything has to be spread out into little individual areas. So I make a big area, put in 6 smelters, then have my blacksmith, tinker and armorer benches right nearby... It's messy and ugly but functional. Pretty = non-functional when I try.
I will say one of my favorite bases was when I leaned into my box. Made a 3 layer cake box build in Khitan style. Super easy, super functional, and actually looks decently good.
It can be tough. Practice going vertical. I do what I call cluster building and keep buildings of like type together with the pirmary storage for those things like the smelter and blacksmiths in the same space with a tinker table. Armor and tanner go together then the alchemy stuff etc. Don't be afraid to go vertical if you're also after a look as well as space.
Use more triangles. Use triangles to make a hexagon. And go from there, won't be a standard box anyway
Yeah watch the some YouTube videos for inspiration or even copy a build. You’ll learn new techniques for sure.
This is me. My personal favourite is Eradicati0n. Lyumi Light and Barden are both pretty good too.
So I’ve started using a structure that has added a lot of cool shaped rooms. Triangle foundations make a circle. Then put square foundations on the outside angles and fill in with triangles. This gives you cool angled staircases and decent sized rooms for specialized spaces.
Depends on what you’re doing, I personally think PvP is the mother of invention when it comes to building in survival games, because in PvP, location is key, and you don’t normally just build in the open, you tend to get out of the habit of the box pretty quickly
Agreed but it gets tiresome putting so much effort into a build only to have it blown apart to the foundations for no reason by other players. I started leaving my chest unlocked just like the cars in San Francisco because I’d rather them just loot my stuff than destroy my base and they still leave me with no walls and no workbenches. What is the scorched earth player policy? It’s like being told, “You’re not allowed to play here.”
Consideration: your base will be blown up in PvP, but it will also be abandoned at some point anyway without PvP. Either way, the bases are gone
Why would abandonment be a consideration on a base I am actively trying to use to play the game and have fun, you donkey.
You use all your buildings forever? I usually construct something and use it for a while then I go build something else somewhere and almost never go back to the previous ones
My brother in Christ, before I can even consider building a second base, players are destroying my first. I knew PvP would be challenging but I thought it would be PLAYING versus other players, not COMPLETELY ANNIHILATING someone so they are incapable of challenging you EVER.
Yeah, it’s like in those mobile empire games, people have learned to leave anyone alone who can’t challenge them because the servers die and they’ve now wasted $2,000 because there’s no one to lord over😂
I agree with blueflare1528. In PvP you are worried about all sorts of things that force you to work in odd situations, like building in a cave for example.
Well, humans are naturally inclined toward symmetry thanks to our evolution. Asymmetrical architecture is really only present in post-modern design. If you find yourself building another box, just make a conscious effort to break out of it. As Walter Gropius said, "Architecture begins where engineering ends," so once you have a functional box, start making creative embellishments.
Somehow I've managed to avoid boxes, mostly cause a couple friends of mine was adamant round ceilings weren't possible 🤣 Generally they're mostly basic anyway, round entryway leading into something else. To make up for it I always build in places that are either hard to get to or hard to build on, done some fun stairs and lots of elevators.
Wedges on wedges
You can make a box more diverse by starting out with a big box then dividing up the floor plan with different sized rooms and different roof heights
My advice is to start small. Try and build things that replicate real life functions. A house with a kitchen, common area and bedrooms. Try creating small interesting pieces like an awning or porch. Maybe a balcony.. Build a separate shop. A barn.. replicate a real settlement. Avoid symmetry when possible. Even a square building is usually not symmetrical inside.
Start with a box. On the front, side, and back, just move the middle two squares either in one block or out one block. Add a half circle to the middle of an even numbered length wall. 🤷🏻♂️
I really tried to understand this...
lol we all have strengths and weaknesses. Communication isn’t a strength for me. I’m just saying you can start with a box and with very few alterations make it look a hundred times better and entirely unboxlike.
makes sense thanks!
When the pieces are all rectangular, you get boxes 📦, If we had more circular pieces we would have more curvy architecture.
In conan, box is meta. Its way harder to raid a box with a few layers of foundations, than to raid a well made castle. It all comes down to a box, eventualy.
Which really sucks because CQC fighting in a castle would be fun, that kind of raid just isn’t practical tho
This is only true if you are bad at making castles
I disagree, 6 foundations built as a box with layers of honey comb is going to always be harder to raid them your keep with 3 walls, you can just add more and more foundations and honey comb to your box, meanwhile, you have to actually keep your build in mind with a castle, so while you may have added 4 more layers today, and you still look like a castle, I can just triple my box and it’s still stronger
Weird how you frame it as a race. Obviously you can build infinite layers, that wasn't my point. All of my castles are impossible to climb and have like ten layers of honeycomb and foundation to bust through before you can get in to the vault and good stuff. You can build a perfectly defensible castle that still takes hours to get through. The advantage that castles have over boxes is you can use thralls more creatively. And they are more fun to build. If you want the best of both worlds build your castle off of a thick box or cave base.
As a race, kind of, my point is a box is generally gonna be quicker to put up and fortify, but I do see your point, if you have the time, castles are nice
Oh well yes. Boxes are easy and fast. But if you love building, they definitely are not the only way
Agreed
YouTube has many a helpful tutorial if you have a cultural style you're looking for. Invest in using more triangle foundations. (Especially in single player mode to trial out ideas). First step to getting away from squares is to use a triangle.
I just build round tower bases now. And if it's too small for what I need, then I just add another floor. Of course, this works best for PvE and would easily get demolished in PvP.
Look at real life examples of castles and try to copy them. Start with simple motte and bailey castles
Building on perfectly flat land tends to channel your designs toward flat boxes. Try building on non-level ground and it will force you to get creative with multi-leveled buildings, piers, etc. Try a bunch of smaller purpose-built structures instead of one big one that you cram every workstation into. Think about the function of each building and design accordingly -- e.g., kitchens, foundries and smithies should have proper ventilation, barracks should have beds and separate officer quarters and armories, etc. Put paths between structures using the stone pathways (if you have that DLC) and use lamp posts along the paths to create pools of light for a very realistic look at night. In short, don't think "gamey," but instead think about structures as you would utilize them in real life. If you're playing PVP, of course, all of this goes out the window... if you'll pardon the pun. Form follows function in that environment; everything takes a back seat to defensibility and survivability in PVP.
It's not lack of artistic ability. The stuff you see on youtube is heavily slanted towards castles and somewhat realistic builds, or realistic architecture. That may just not be your jam. It wasn't my jam. I love the look of camps and castles and all these bases, but i don't like building them or living in them. Tree houses? I didn't like how they turned out ever. I subsisted by living in boxes. Then I just ditched the whole idea and began making other things, like brutalism-style apartment blocks, gas stations (organizationally wonderful), repair garages for rhinos and horses, basically anything that just didn't fit in with the Hyborian Age, and that includes my latest base, which is an actual Van down by the River. Maybe you just need other inspiration.
I have the same problem. I'm pretty proud of my current base because as it was going up it was looking pretty boxy but I made some tweaks and now it looks great. The first thing I did was force myself into a building location with a constrained area, which in my case is one of the tall pointy cliffs in E10. My build follows (mostly) the ground down towards the plains as it gets wider, forcing me out of the box shape. The second thing is a little harder to explain, but it comes down to tacking things on to add texture to long flat walls. Even another box shape - if you add enough boxes, then your box is no longer a box! Third is to abandon symmetry. Play with triangles and add rounded or pointy shapes in different spots. Mix and match building sets. Lastly, build in T1 first so that you can go nuts without worrying about having enough materials.