You can build anywhere in Valheim. Flat floors, over the water, in caves, up in the trees. Some folks are insanely creative. Now whether it’s practical or not is a different matter. I wouldn’t build in the swamps if you paid me, and the mountains require some crazy engineering feats to make it all work. Looks amazing all the same.
For practical reasons you’re going to build either in the meadows or the plains. The meadows has the simplest enemies, nearly every food grows there, and it’s often quite flat. The plains are great too (2 key things only work here), yet you have to deal with some rather deadly natural enemies, and sloping terrain. But just building in a biome isn’t helpful. You want to be near the ocean for your ship, and hopefully close to a few biomes for some more farming. Swamps in particular – however much iron you think you need, triple it.
With that in mind, my original homestead had served it’s purpose. I was forced to take long trips to mine, and wasn’t really well situated in terms of shoreline. In my travels to find the vendor, I happened upon a nice piece of coast, with a nearby stream, and right next to all the biomes. Time to get prepped to move!
Limits!
Portals are great. More than great, they are true lifesavers. But they don’t let you bring metals, meaning you need a ship to make the trip. Good news first – the longship has 18 slots and metal stacks to 30 each. That’s 540 pieces I can move! The bad news was that I had 40 stacks to transport – and had no interest of making 2 trips.
I’d have to dig again, but I found a blog that had the neat idea to put a cart on a ship. Heck, they had put 2. Since carts have 18 slots, that was more than enough to bring all my metal in a single trip.
Build It First
Here’s a lesson I learned quickly. Don’t move stuff before you have a place to put it. I sailed all the way over, figured I could build something quick, and then get going. Nope! The spot I selected had a Draugr camp, and was a stone’s through from a Fuling tower, a herd of Lox, and obviously Deathsquitoes. And as poor habits have me, I tend to sail without food on the ship. Sure enough, I land at night and get my butt handed to me. At least it was after I put down my portal!
I took my time to clear it all out and then took my time laying out a spot to make camp. My prior “practical” abode was a simple box to hold all my stuff. This time, I really wanted to take advantage of the space to try some stuff out. I knew I wanted more comfort (to increase rested time), more than enough space for crafting kiosk + upgrades, and enough room for some fortified chests (18 slots!), a decent sized farm, and a portal room. I needed to think stuff through!
Taking it Slow
I started with my hoe to level out the terrain, then laid out some 2×2 flooring to get a decent base. I wanted something more akin to a natural house, or an A-frame. Building in Valheim requires thinking, since items need to be connected to the ground by other items. You see this through the colors of items connected together – green is good, red is bad. It took way more time than I want to admit to get even a basic roof going. Had to remember to put in a running chimney up top for the fire inside.
With the walls up, I was able to transport all my junk stuff in batches through the portal. I had so much resin it felt like Jurassic Park. A bunch of fortified chests and I was good enough to put a bed and call it a day. More like 4 in-game days.
Oh, and while I was building, I had 4, yes 4, troll attacks. 2 of those attacks I lost everything.
Adding As I Go
The beauty here is that it’s easy to add to existing buildings or correct mistakes. The main reason I dislike survival games is that you can’t make mistakes – put something in the wrong spot and you lose the materials. Valheim is awesome since it let’s you experiment for no real cost. It’s great in that you just keep progressing forward.
With that in mind, I wanted to change my entryway, and redecorate inside.
Next Steps
I’ve cleared a few plains camps now and have some things that only work in the plains. And I’m seriously short on iron and chains (ugh, these thing are a pain to find – Wraiths at night are best). So while I have a decent abode here, I’ve come to realize that I’m going to have to move again. It won’t be far mind you, not much more than 5 full power shots from my bow. Enough to be on the plains, yet still close to the Meadow/Black Forest biomes.
I’ll use the lessons learned from this build to really make a solid final base, and this time, with moat. Trolls won’t cross that!
Leo's Life 
The game is designed in such a way that you have multiple bases, outposts as your need requires, and fewer main bases. Many seem to find that frustrating as they just like the idea of build something once and that be their main and only base. But the gameplay and biomes aren’t designed for that with one place being your everything. At best with some exploration and scouting, you find a good location with fairly good access to all the biomes you need to have decent access and distance to and water real close by. Someplace there can be a new Home Base of operations.
I’ll be in the Swamp another week just due to work and real-life stuff and traveling this week. Wraiths i haven’t had much fun running into in the Swamp. At best i just avoid night operation at all in the Swamp with the exception I enter a Crypt in the evening and can just mine or clear the place out regardless of time. Regardless the Swamp is still not fun either. I myself am considering building a new main base on the new island im on now just due to logistics. It has all the biomes I need on the island as I’ve circled it to know what’s there. A good location as a Meadow i have yet to find. But im considering setting up that new base close to the shore if i find that location. It will save me a long ocean voyage to my primary base. At least that’s the thought.
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I think I have a dozen outposts, very simple shacks that serve a specific purpose – mostly in the need to smelt items.
The challenge is the forge. You can get it to level 2 without metal (bellows). That’s enough to craft base items, but not improve them. And you will want improved items in the plains – no question. That means shipping the stuff to make multiple base forges, or a single awesome base that can do it all. I prefer the latter.
For the plains – you can build a garden with wood walls and a moat, so no need for any stone or metal. That’ll cover the stuff that only grows there and you can keep a main base in a safer place.
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