Thanks for the multitude of responses.
I haven't had time to thoroughly examine each one yet but I'm looking forward to doing so later tonight. Thanks again for helping me renew my interest in continuing my Valheim journey.

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Basics:
We like to have one spot for cooking which we have at our newest base, which also contains our latest 15) personal home (for storage).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2676966035

This is very similar to what I was trying to build before I stopped playing. I had created a raised plateau and exhausted my stone supplies. Nearby I have copper deposits which I would mine for both copper and stone. How did you keep the raised ground "straight" or parallel to your walls?

These are some awesome builds builds, I also really like the circle designs you've constructed, and the Tombstone styled village.
I noticed the clipping into the ground previously but I thought trolls and other mobs could climb over such low structures. This makes me reconsider my raised plateau and moat defense strategy that I do for every base of mine.

Originally posted by Happy:

Maybe check out a few guides in the forum here or watch some youtube videos to get some inspiration from. Better still, there is the build of the month thread at the top of the front page you could steal a few ideas from.

I would also strongly suggest looking at building with stone again, if you want to start building again with stone, as combined with wooden build pieces, both makes them stronger (the wood) meaning you can build larger if you wanted or build taller and looks better, in my opinion.

I suppose it depends on what you want to build in the end too.

Yeah I'll try mixing the two materials. I haven't done that yet, but I imagine that one could make a really good longhouse or manor with both. Did you hold off on building with stone until you had enough for many iron beams?

Basics:
You want to start with the most stable foundation that is colored blue. You can flatten the terrain using the hoe, just stand where you want the height of the ground and then move the hoe around (the hoe changes the ground based upon the height you are standing at). Make sure all your foundations are blue by using the hoe. This will help ensure more consistent stability.

If you want to go big, then you need to start with stone or iron poles as these give more stability and allow you to build higher. But the higher you build (lessening the stability) the smaller the room will be as it gets harder to have enough stability to roof the area.

For instance, in this screenshot, in order to cover 8 blocks horizontally (1 block being a 1x1) I could only build 10 blocks high before I ran out of stability to cover the distance with the stone arches. The very bottom piece of the pillars is just for show and clipped into the ground. And for clarity, I did run tests before I actually started building this room.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812632640

Clipping is what really allows you to get creative and it’s also extremely important on what your cursor is pointing at when you build. In this screenshot, I clipped the fence into the ground (trolls cannot walk over it) by placing wood beams and then placing my cursor under the wood beams when placing the fences (the beams on the fence are just for showing the build process).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812633058

Clipping can also be used for more stability. For my pyramid,
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2518693676
I clipped in the stone arches (seen in the middles of the four sides) as stone arches give more stability above them then a stone block when doing a Corbel arch like this. I did do a full scale test of how large I could make this inner room before I started building the pyramid.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812632723

Advanced:
If you want to get into more advanced clipping, then I would suggest starting with trying to make circles. For this type of clipping, you actually want to have your cursor looking at the ground and then the game will calculate a clipped placement. Place a 2x1 brick down, then place another, rotated once by looking at the ground next to the placed brick.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812648731

Once you know how to create a circle, then you can put the circle anywhere and build off of it. For this dome temple thingy,
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812644784
I built the circle out of stone arches (the lower outer ring of arches)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812644842
and then raised that circle to be on top of the pillars and then I kept attaching stone arches until the center was filled. The final pillars you see however are not the original pillars during building as I rotated and free placed these pillars to be in the middle of the brick.

You can also attach multiple pieces to the same point. For this water well, multiple points have 3 pieces attached.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2592205105
Just look at the attach point and rotate the piece. Here’s 12 attachments to one piece (I deleted the center support piece after it was done). 100% vanilla.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812686229

If you do want to get tricky with things, then you will probably have to free place some objects. To make this couch, I free placed the benches and the couch part by the player legs so the legs would fall down to the ground.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2592205175



As a final thought about building…for me, functionality is extremely important, otherwise the building just becomes a piece of art that I will rarely visit again after it’s done. So I’ve broken the game down into as many possible functional buildings that I can. For instance, here is our town of Tombstone.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2448968900

And here are the functional buildings.

A building for (left to right) 1)trophies, 2)oddities like boss summons drops, 3)stone, 4)workbench and relevant storage and then 5)wood.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812632793
Across the street is the 6)max resting buff room, 7)boat supplies which leads to the boat dock, 8)the forge with all the smelters behind it and relevant storage then 9)old gear.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812632851
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812633015
At the intersection is the 10)“Trading Post” where we hold gear temporarily and where we put stuff that we want to eventually move somewhere else. For instance, there is no 11) cooking in Tombstone. We also have the 12) bank for all the valuables.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812632902
And finally is the building for 13) farm supplies and then the 14) teleporter building.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812632954

We like to have one spot for cooking which we have at our newest base, which also contains our latest 15) personal home (for storage).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2676966035
I’m currently building 16) cartography room, to make it like a war room.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812673751
This base also has a 17) livestock pen and building.

I do play with friends, which maybe changes your perspective on what are useful buildings from a solo player and I do have a friend that thinks it’s too tedious to run around to all the separate locations and it can be. But, overall, I consider it a price to pay if you want to make large builds with functional areas.

Our most extreme is what we call Cliff’s. Which became so tedious to run to all the functional areas that we eventually put in teleporters.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2677034547

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812691371

Good advice in these posts, thanks everyone!

I usually like to build organically, meaning I just start and whatever I end up with is my building. I don't really plan anything out. Sometimes it's a box, sometimes a giant A-frame. Sometimes it's a beautiful longhouse. Some people like to plan carefully and know what each building will be used for. Some just find abandoned buildings and convert them for whatever suits their immediate needs. You'll find your preference.

Now after quite a few hours of playing Valheim I find that the frames and supports are important. Learn to build them properly so they support what you want to make, and it's usually a good idea to build them first. If you have a sturdy frame that isn't falling apart anywhere (or nearly falling apart - red indicates poor stability) then you can usually attach other pieces with no issues as well. Frame first can save you a lot of work because if you can't get the frame to stand up properly, or change your mind about your design, then you have only to worry about fixing or moving the frame around and not all the other pieces.

Maybe check out a few guides in the forum here or watch some youtube videos to get some inspiration from. Better still, there is the build of the month thread at the top of the front page you could steal a few ideas from.

I would also strongly suggest looking at building with stone again, if you want to start building again with stone, as combined with wooden build pieces, both makes them stronger (the wood) meaning you can build larger if you wanted or build taller and looks better, in my opinion.

I suppose it depends on what you want to build in the end too.

Like others said, ignoring terrain irregularities or even using them as advantage is a good way to start (anew).

You can also clip various building pieces into same "slot", or snapping point, and inside of each other. This way you can make some stronger fortifications or even just walls (iron cage fits inside wooden wall), though they may not protect from all potential assailants like trolls perfectly (against trolls having multiple layers of short walls is fine, they can't really step over them).

I'm on my 3rd playthrough now (first was co-op where my mate let me build everything, 2nd was Singleplayer and now again co-op, where again I am the builder).
I think by the time and with every new base one develops his own style of building. Every time I get to stone I want to build huge things with stone but then ending up just mixing stone and wood because of the natural look. I use stone for floors only and the harbour area, and this time for the kitchen area (yes farming stone is a grind, that's why I always keep the stones when mining copper, later mining up al the rocks around my base and the big rocks that you find near the surrounding shores in meadows).
Watching YouTube videos about building not to copy stuff but to get some nice impressions and little ideas. This time I've build a viking style long house, so yes I use a flat terrain for that and 1 floor only. Sure its a little bit of work to have a real flattened terrain! Other buildings in my base like portal hubs or pig pens can be in elevated or lower natural terrain though.
This time my house is that big, that for the first time I used ironwood poles to support the huge roof structure. In the beginning that house was smaller, but now it's pretty big after reaching iron age. It's much work to change existing structures. For long houses I like to use oriel windows at the side, where you can add more space/rooms later if needed. Especially in the first playthrough it can happen that your house/base is too small to add stuff while you advance through the different biomes, or your base ends up beeing cramped because all the stuff you want to have there. On further playthroughs you have an Idea of how much space you need and plan ahead from the beginning.

Also this time I've spent a lot of time in decorating, and I love the results.

Like others said, do you want to have just a safe base with only all the necessary things or do you want to have something big like a huge house with many decorations or a complete cosy village where you feel home every time when you come back from your adventures and where you can feel all the work that you have spent into.

Creative mode could be an option, if you don't want to spend much time into getting resources. As far as I know you can build up your base with all the stuff that's available ingame in a new world and then just start playing in that world normally, but I think that takes away some of the motivation to advance through the biomes/ages.

Let me see if I can provide some screenshots of my base to give you an idea of what I'm talking about!

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198086684768/screenshots/#scrollTop=0

That's a link to my profile's screenshot area, where you can find some screenshots of my base.

the game dosnt like str8 lines and flat ground lol also the build area is small like that cuz i guess the devs didnt intend u to build a city or some like that only a shed and some walls.
but then forgot to program the enemys to jump the holes and so moths kinda made walls useless.

Youtube has some amazing building tutorials. I recommend just watching 3-4 of them and immediately putting what you learn to use so you don't forget it all.

First thing you need to ask yourself is what are you building for?

Do you want to build a castle that you will only need to use a tiny corner of for actual game activities?
Do you just want to build something safe and functional?

Personally I lean toward being functional and safe and not over build.

Then you have to decide what type of house design you are used to?

Personally I enjoy houses on stilts type of look. So uneven terrain does not bother me. in fact I find it nice to look at. I prefer a varied terrain over a flat one. its just more interesting and dynamic. Probably has a lot to do with where you have lived though.

Although if you want to build enormous places for the look rather than function you might be better off modding or something. Can't even imagine harvesting all that stuff for some of the outrageous things I have seen some people build.