A Slow Valheim Playthrough

The Mountain Village

I’ve wanted to build on the mountains for a while and came close a couple of times. But inconvenient locations and the challenge of the slopes always kept me back. This time, since I didn’t care how long it’d take me (and it’s taken me a solid 2+ months), I decided to give it a try. And the Moder mountain this time was flanked by two sizeable plains biomes with a cozy meadow by the shore. Perfect.

Stage one of the build was just clearing space. I cut down a huge swath of trees leading from the shore to the mountain. And I wanted it wide enough to fit a lot of stuff, not just a footpath. After clearing it, I built an elevated wood road. That used a LOT of wood. And all it was was a road. On stilts. Short stilts, for the most part, at least.

Stage two was the main stairs up the mountainside. Here, I swapped to stone for a more grand appearance (it also won’t degrade in the weather). The trick with the stairs was figuring out the angles and where the good spots were for building. Luckily, there were huge boulders in the way, so they provided all of the initial stones for building. It took a while to plan it all out; I wanted to have at least 80% of the layout in place with the initial foundation so I wouldn’t have to break a ton of stuff down later if I needed to make adjustments.

Stage three was getting the skeletons of the buildings into place. They didn’t need to be pretty, just get things spaced and aligned where I wanted them. I made a few adjustments during this stage to make sure things were large enough. The hearths always make for a challenge. Getting the finer elements of the building to look nice was also a challenge. I had to revise a couple of areas multiple times before settling on something.

Stage four was making the finishing touches and getting the interiors put together so I could move in. There weren’t too many changes to make at this stage, just a few adjustments for some storage to fit nicer. However, late into building the restaurant (the kitchen), I thought I might need more space and decided to just redo half the building then before I got carried away with decorations that’d all have to come down. Redoing it was the right call. The restaurant is one of my favorite parts of the village.

Stage five was finally building the docks. Since the wood “road” went up to the beach, the docks just needed to add a landing for the ships, so it wasn’t a huge build, but I’ll probably expand it later. I also decided to add some houses along the road just for looks.

Lastly, I went around adding some exterior lighting. I ran low on some materials, so it’s not completely finished, but the places that need it have good lighting. There’s no telling how much wood and stone went into this build. I’m playing with normal settings, so I had to go gather all of these materials; I’m not in build mode. There’s an island across the waters from my previous house where I’ve cut down a huge section of the black forest to meet my core wood needs. I’ve also smashed a lot of the rocks there for extra stone.

Here it is…

I wasn’t originally sure what to do with the “road”, but decided to just sprinkle in some houses. Most of them are little shacks, just for looks, and far too small to use. One of the larger ones also doubles as storage for the lower village. They also hide extra workbenches to prevent nearby spawns. I’m still considering what else to do with the lower village. I’ll probably go back and add more to the exteriors to give it a more “lived-in” feel.

Since it’s currently Christmas time, the main village has been appropriately decorated. The lower village doesn’t get decorations (too much work and I don’t have the pine cones to spare; these things are rare!). These warehouses to store multiple carts are something I’ll probably be doing more of in future playthroughs. The storage for raw materials is amazing, and if built in the right spot with good pathways, it’s very convenient for moving large quantities of materials to where they’re needed.

On the second level, I wanted some sort of pit-stop before the main level but wasn’t totally settled on what to put there. Since the space wasn’t going to be too large, I decided on a trophy room. Aren’t too many trophies that work on the horizontal displays, however. I had to get a bit creative. I could still use more displays here, though.

I really like how the layout turned out. One issue I did end up coming across is that the pine trees can’t grow on the mountain, so they had to be planted on the lower slopes that were technically still meadow. And I had two great spots saved for pine trees on the upper slopes too. I ended up building a secondary staircase where one of the trees was supposed to go. The spaces were just too close to buildings for the fir trees.

Third level is the main level with all the good stuff. I haven’t totally finished furnishing the main house. I’m probably going to expand the front area to fit one of the huge stained wood tables. For the bedroom, I also need to put in the decorative partitions that came with the stained wood; those will separate the hearth from the bedroom.

The workshop has three levels. Level one is the main floor with the work stations and storage. The second floor has additional work stations and the spinning wheel. The third floor has a nice view out the front, connects the main house with the restaurant, and has a service door that connects to the back of the bath for reloading the fire.

While the restaurant came out great, the sheer amount of ingredients for cooking has become an issue. I might have to break out the back wall and expand the area behind the bar. But at least the front and entrance won’t need any changes.

In terms of progress, I’m mostly finished with the plains, just looking for the boss. I expect this playthrough will probably be another two or three months at least. But I’ve been enjoying the slower pace. I’ve even taken time to tame all the tameable animals.

The boars were actually very helpful. Wolves are nearly useless as tamed animals; you’ll have plenty of their resources without taming them, and they’re not that useful as combat pets (they die too easily). I’ve only recently tamed a couple of lox, so we’ll see. The issue with mounts is that there’s no way to move them between islands, so you have to tame new ones on a new island (presuming the biome is large enough to warrant the time it takes). At least the askvin are in ashlands which is massive and won’t need sailing to new islands. Not so for the lox.

But the mountain village has definitely been my favorite build. It’ll be a while before it’s properly finished: still some adjustments to make, final touches, new roofing, a proper back door, and defensive walls. Haven’t thought much about if I’ll make another full base, but I might do outposts for mistlands and ashlands.

Until then!