Clans are an essential part of PvP, as I explained in my last blog, ( http://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/clans-how-to-join-one-and-how-to-lead-one/). This leads to another question. OK, I have started a clan, have some members that I trust, and now want to build a base. How do I build a base? Most people really screw this up. I have. In this blog I'll outline how best to find a good base location, build a good base, and how to defend your base.
The MOST important rule of building a clan base is to build one at LEAST 10000 blocks away from spawn. This will NOT guarantee your base's safety, but it'll protect you from casual raiders & griefers. After the passing the 10000 block mark, keep going until you find a location with,

• Lots of trees, as people need wood, meaning that if you're in a forest biome, and there are barely any trees, there is probably someones base nearby.
  
• Natural caves and ores in those caves. If there are no ores in caves or exposed areas of stone, there are probably someone's base nearby
  
• NO obvious player landmarks, i.e nether portals, dirt 1 square towers, etc. etc.
  
• If you're gonna build a Floating Fortress, water
  

After finding such a location, you're going to have to decide on what style your base is going to be. I think there are 3 styles of bases. These are: Floating Fortress, Cave Bunker, and Tunneled Town. Those are just what I call them, for easy memory.
A Floating Fortress is a structure in the sky, with no support beams. For an entrance, you can build a piston waterfall. Nerd pole up 100 blocks, then build a small platform. Set you home, or, if your server doesn't have that plugin (most do), You'll be forced to use your clan home command. If so, choose a location wisely, as you can only set it once. Destroy the the blocks, and then TP back up. At this point, you should be able to jump down into water. This is very important. Until you get a pistons, the only way up is the TP. My guild's base is up around 175 blocks, and never has been griefed or raided. My co-guildmaster and I built it around 20000-30000 blocks from spawn. The big problem with these is that it is always in sight, at some servers have these banned.
A cave bunker is a base built into a natural cave. You dig a tunnel from the cave and there make a base. This is a fairly good base strategy, but there are some issues. The 1st is that you wont be able to easily leave your base. As such, the smartest move is to take mushrooms, seeds, pumpkin seeds, sugar cane, saplings, carrots and potatoes. Build a large garden, and tend it. FIND melons. This is very important. The 2nd issue is, if your're base isn't well protected, it is easy to be stumbled on by a miner. Build a piston door using SMOOTH stone. If you don't, you'll be griefed bad. I've made the mistake. Your piston door should have a lever on the inside, and a delayed button on the outside. Hide the button in an easy to remember, but hard to find spot. A cave bunker is much harder than it's fairly similar brother, the tunneled town.
A tunneled town is by far, the most popular form of hiding your base. You build a downwards tunnel, and leave it open. You build out an area, then build a piston door (see last paragraph), at the entrance. People like this more because it allows animals to be brought into your base,(including your captured enemies) and people, like your friends, who you want to show your new interior design. However, on the other hand, animals like creepers, zombies, and your vengeful rivals, can also easily get into your base. I think this is the easiest base to grief.
I've explained the basics of base building, so now I'll explain easy defensive base tactics. Fairly simply, booby trap tons. The first thing to do is set up a fake "treasure room" Put Iron Doors in front, and signs that say treasure room. Put chests in, but don't put anything in them. Now, wire up redstone repeaters that delay a circuit by ten seconds. After that, wire the redstone from the lever up to 6 pistons. Flip the redstone's inverse, cut a 2 block deep hole under the piston floor. Put Lava in two block deep holes, then place that open them. The pistons should have a circuit cut (where a piston is used to later cut the circuit, making it so that the piston opens, burns the poor guy alive, then leaves his stuff for you. If you have trouble doing this, just make a TNT trap. To protect your stuff, make hidden piston door to your clan's treasury (and your own personal clan leader's treasury). This should get those griefers wondering.
Note: I'll be uploading instructions on how to make the various redstone contraptions mentioned here as part of my ongoing project series, Redstone Contraptions
Hope this article helps you!
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Sadert302