Originally posted by rapier1955:

Not heard of directional terrain grids, please elaborate

The ground in Valheim is a height map. There's a big grid of X and Y coordinates and at each coordinate there is a height value. Basically think of a giant sheet of graph paper with height values written in each square and you'll have the right idea.

If you follow the grid your earthen wall will look straight. If you don't it will be jagged.

You can use stone walls to clad your earthen walls and it'll look better while still providing protection (although you may need to hit them with a hammer every so often)

rising walls with hoe, flattening witrh hoe mining straight down with pickaxe always makes a perfect square that has the sides orientated towards north east south west

Thank you all for the info was most helpful

Put down markers, like a wood floor or beams and follow that. Align it to the world grid, as said above. When placing the floor, it should be straight across in front of your viking; any rotation will make the terrain doctoring more difficult.

As you raise a specific point of land, you'll quickly see that it forms a square top, always with two sides running perfectly north-south and the other two running perfectly east-west, giving you somewhat of a view of the world grid. The grid resolution is 1m between points and represent the pixels of a heightmap image, with the corners of every terrain modification being a specific point on that image. Because of this, most of your earthen wall segments will only come clean when running north-south or east-west, with other directions being a jagged collection of boxes, like building from Legos (the terrain system will sometimes clean up angles on the interior side of a corner, but not reliably).

This is also why you can't dig caves into regular dirt and instead just collapse everything from your pickaxe impact point up. It's also why every terrain modification will seem to have a 1-meter wide "buffer" slope around it.

If clean corners, good alignment, and accurate spacing are of high importance to you (and you're not opposed to using a QoL mod), then ValheimPlus[valheim.thunderstore.io] has a GridAlignment toggleable option that affects the operation of both the Hammer and the Hoe to keep everything matched up to the world grid when active. Keep in mind that it can be really finicky with the Hammer as it also constrains Hammer construction vertically - not just on the surface - so I suggest only using it for putting down reference objects (such as posts, beams, or small floorboards), toggling the option off, and then extending your main construction work from those.

Look at the minimap. The arrow shows which way you are facing. Go in a cardinal direction NSEW.

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

Look at the minimap. The arrow shows which way you are facing. Go in a cardinal direction NSEW.

Not the arrow, as that's pointing the wind direction,

What is meant is the yellow arrow head symbol.

Thorin :)

...find the grid the terrain system is using...I usually start digging straight down until I hit the level, square 'bottom' of the hole, then I start horizontal digging from one of the sides for trenches. In the reverse, I then build UP the wall to the general height I need/want and then, I always do this, I 'flatten' the area before and behind where I'm currently standing.

Find the grid! Rounded corners get janky...perpendicular digging/building gets things 'straight'.

Originally posted by rapier1955:

Not heard of directional terrain grids, please elaborate

the grid aligns to cardinal directions. there's no compass, but you can tell by sunrise/set the directions. N is top of map.
this explains a bit about the grid and sharp edges and some other stuff: https://youtu.be/GzshydsyIJg

You could of course work in reverse.

First heighten the area to the level you want it to be,
then go down and start mining out the trench around your base.
As long as you keep either the left or the right side of your character next to your base, you won't go wrong.

And if it helps you more, you can always use the wooden beams to give you a sense of direction. They do clip through the ground after you have placed them, so place for instance a log beam paralel to what you've dug out, connect it to a 2nd log beam and you got at least 4 meters you can continue mining out in a straight line.

Thorin :)

You need to follow the 4 directional grid of the terrain. You'll notice if you go at angles, it makes it messy. If you make a square, it will have all flat edges.

Squares don't look that good, so you'll have to balance between that and whatever shape you want.

Not heard of directional terrain grids, please elaborate

it is possible, if you follow the grid of the terrain

Originally posted by rapier1955:

Not heard of directional terrain grids, please elaborate

Example:

Find a small hill. Go to the top of it and use your pickaxe to dig down in the same spot 3 or 4 times. Your 4 walls of the hole are the start of your grid. Do not dig diagonal from the hole as it will create jagged walls.

Originally posted by Tiom:

Originally posted by rapier1955:

Not heard of directional terrain grids, please elaborate

Example:

Find a small hill. Go to the top of it and use your pickaxe to dig down in the same spot 3 or 4 times. Your 4 walls of the hole are the start of your grid. Do not dig diagonal from the hole as it will create jagged walls.

try the hoe with the pathen option - one might this useful
pathing will create more like square shapes and one can see what the "grid" is