Noah in the Middle

I’ve always loved building things. It doesn’t really matter what with- blocks, Legos, sticks, you name it. One of my other interests is the medieval genre. Two swordsman dueling on an open plain! None to watch; the only one who knows and appreciates his victory is also the sole survivor. The smaller battles can be just as epic as larger battles, but very rarely can they be so grand.
Such large battles need a good landscape to be interesting. No one wants to see two armies just charging each other and shooting at the mob of combatants, the archers disregarding friend or foe, as likely to hit one as the other. The most common- or at least, the most well-known and most interesting battles take place at castles.
Ah, the castle. The staple of warfare! An impenetrable fortress of doom! The home of nobles and lords and kings! The location of the great men of that time!
Well, more or less.

First, let’s look at some of the aspects of my previous castle to see what we want in this one.

This picture outlines what I want in outer walls of my castle: supports so it looks cool, and windows from the towers so my invisible guards can see the nonexistent enemy before they’re inside the castle.

Ooh, that was a problem with all my walls. Sure, when you’re inside it looks like putting the wood under supports like that will make sure it doesn’t fall out or something, but from outside it looks bad. So I want the supporting columns to be entirely of stone (except, perhaps, for a few of wood inside).

I want windows on every side of the tower.

Ugh, that was difficult. I wanted a tree inside the castle (somewhat reminiscent of Minas Tirith), but I destroyed everything within my construction site. I had to make one myself, and no matter what I did, it looked awful. There are flowers there, if you didn’t notice.

This is my dungeon/cellar. I was going to put a few jail cells in here, and maybe a storage room with TNT, but I didn’t get around to it.

This is my seeeecret escape route. It leads out pretty far, and splits into two, so as to throw off any pursuers. You can enter through the block below the tree or in the dungeon behind a staircase.

Alright. In this castle, we want:
Aesthetically agreeable walls w/ supports
Windows on every side of every tower
A tree
A dungeon w/ cells and maybe a storage room
At least one escape route

After a Google search, I find a few things I should have added to that castle:
Great hall
Chapel
Well (<-- Escape route!!!)
Baileys and wards
Gatehouses
Living quarters
Keeps

Good stuff, eh?

Now that we know what we want, let's find a spot to build. Since you can't select a new spot for your home (there is an option to save and warp home; that's also where you spawn when you open the map after downloading it), I'm going to generate several random maps until I find something I like. I make two or three, then find something nice.

I want to keep a tree or two in the middle, but I need something to guide me by- I need a border. So I start mining to place TNT, but I come upon this:

Thinking on what I know of medieval castles, I realize this is a fantastic border! There’s no way enemies could climb it. Therefore, I set off the TNT I placed behind me as it is.

There’s one of the pits I created. Tomorrow, we’ll start building something.