Better Than Village

NeoForge 1.21.1 mod that turns vanilla villages into small medieval societies. Villagers really doing their jobs, interact with environment (break and build blocks, catch and breed animals, grow trees and mine ores) and each other (trade and pay taxes, wage war and conquer each other). The player can interact with them, but never join a country.

No new blocks, items, GUIs or entities: everything goes through vanilla assets.

Started as a clean-room implementation of the Independent Villagers mod - it is still available on the  legacy branch.

What villages do

Villagers work

Lumberjacks fell trees and plant saplings in their place, miners dig a mine, farmers till, sow and harvest the fields.

The herder lures animals, breeds the ones it has penned, shears the sheep and milks the cows for the village stock.

A village is an economy

Each villager keeps a household. Farmers, miners and carpenters sell what they made. The elder collects taxes and pays wages for public work. A child is born only  when its parents can pay for its house.

Villages build themselves

Masons build new houses and walls with materials the village gathered. A village that runs out of land will found a daughter village.

The village keeps its ground in order: miners close pits and dig a way into houses nobody can walk into.

Land is property

The elder sells plots and empty houses, so a player can't build without his permission.

The village has laws

Drawn weapons, building on village land, theft, killing livestock and hitting villagers are offences, seen by witnesses and remembered. A white flag in hand stops the fighting.

Healers cure zombie villagers

Healer cures zombie villagers. Warriors fight it only when there is no healer or no cure.

Countries go to war

Countries trade by caravan, buy border land from each other, quarrel and make war. A conquered village joins the winner; long wars wear countries down until they sue for peace.

Work in progress: the fighting itself (how soldiers and defenders close in, strike and fall) is not finished yet and looks rough.

At night, countries send thieves, arsonists and assassins to their enemies. A player who grows too strong becomes a target too: neighbours form coalitions, find the player's base and raid it, even while the player is away.

The world lives on while nobody watches

Villages far from any player keep living through ledgers. When a player comes back, the village has the houses, people and walls it earned in the meantime.