Army camps
Build the camp of an army as it was set up in different cultures: the medieval camp of wedge tents around a large pavilion, the Mongol camp of white gers with a pen for the horses, the Viking winter camp behind a palisade and the camp from the time of Napoleon with wooden huts in streets and a row of cannons. Choose the size, the number of rows and the colour of the tents. At the bottom you can read how everything is calculated.
Point at a block for the explanation. Click a block to mark it as placed. The side view shows the section at the chosen column, Layer shows the chosen layer from above.
Build plan
Per layer
| Layer | Parts | Blocks |
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A number is the count of blocks of that part in that layer, in the colour of the part. Click a layer to see it from above.
Build tips
- Put crafts together as they were: in a town, smiths, bakers and weavers often had their own street. Think of Smith Lane or Tanners’ Row.
- Every villager profession in Minecraft has its own workstation. A building with the right workstations does double duty when villagers live in it.
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the army camp as a schematic file and paste it with WorldEdit, or build it with a hologram in Litematica.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
The medieval camp and the Mongol camp
A medieval army slept in tents of linen or wool, with the lord’s pavilion in the middle. In 1520 hundreds of tents stood at Guînes and Ardres in northern France for the meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I, the Field of the Cloth of Gold; the tents of cloth of gold gave the place its name. The Mongols slept in gers, round tents of felt over a wooden frame, and each rider had several horses that grazed in a pen by the camp.
Vikings and Napoleon
In 873 the Viking Great Heathen Army wintered at Repton in England; they pulled their ships ashore and enclosed the camp with a ditch and an earth bank. The camp of Boulogne on the Channel (1803 to 1805) was the training ground of Napoleon’s invasion army: the soldiers lived not in tents but in regular streets of wooden huts with clay, and each regiment laid out its own little garden.
Did you know?
- A Mongol ger is called a yurt in Russian; the word ger simply means ‘home’.
- In the camp of Boulogne the streets were named after victories and places.
- The Vikings at Repton pulled their ships ashore and built a D-shaped camp around them.
Sources and further reading
Read more about the history here. The links go to museums, archives and heritage organisations outside this site.
- Field of the Cloth of Gold (opens in a new tab) Wikipedia
The 1520 meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I with its tent camp. - Repton (opens in a new tab) Wikipedia
The village in Derbyshire where the Great Heathen Army wintered in 873. - Camp de Boulogne (opens in a new tab) Wikipedia
The camp of Napoleon’s invasion army on the Channel, 1803 to 1805.
About this tool
With this planner you build an army camp in Minecraft, in the style of the culture you choose. The camp has a command tent or pavilion in the middle, tents or huts in rows, fires and weapon racks and, if you want, a palisade.
You see the build plan layer by layer, a 3D preview and the block list, and you can download the camp as a schematic for WorldEdit or Litematica.
Frequently asked questions
How do I build an army camp in Minecraft?
Choose a culture, set the size and choose the number of rows and the colour of the tents. Build the site and the pavilion in the middle first, then the tents in rows with the fires between them.
Why are there huts in the Napoleonic camp?
At Boulogne the army stayed two years in the same place and therefore built huts of wood and clay in streets, with artillery at the front. This is why this type has small gabled houses and cannons instead of tents.
How do I make a Roman camp?
Use the separate planner for Roman army camps. It has the fixed layout of a castra with four gates, rampart and ditch, and buildings such as the principia and horreum.