Do villagers give Ancient City maps?

As an avid Minecraft gamer and content creator, I‘ve done extensive research around the new ancient cities added in the 1.19 "The Wild Update". And the #1 question my viewers ask is: can you get maps to locate these insane underground structures from village cartographers?

The Short Answer

Unfortunately, as of Minecraft Java snapshot 22w11a, cartographer villagers do NOT provide maps exclusively pointing to ancient cities. They offer explorer maps locating ocean monuments and woodland mansions, but no special "Ancient Explorer Map" just yet.

That said, Mojang may add this as a rare trade in the full 1.19 release or a future update. Ancient cities are meant to be extremely challenging to find, so maps would offset that rarity and difficulty for players.

Diving Into Cartographer Villagers and Trades

Cartographers have a chance to sell ocean monument maps at the Journeyman-level and woodland mansion maps at the Expert-level. These maps lead you right to the broad vicinity of those structures.

In my testing, cartographers had around a 10% chance to unlock the woodland mansion map trade once they reached Expert. Explorer maps go for a stack of emeralds and a compass – not cheap!

So if Mojang introduced an Ancient Explorer Map later on, it would likely cost a fortune in resources and be incredibly rare. We‘re talking maybe a 5% chance for Master-level cartographers to offer that trade.

But anything‘s possible, and ocean temples and mansions were once new structures without designated maps too!

Can You Find Ancient Cities Without a Map?

The short answer? Yes but it‘s painfully tough!

Ancient cities only generate in the new Deep Dark biome found incredibly deep underground. We‘re talking Y levels below 0. Without a guide, randomly stumbling into one could take weeks of mining aimlessly!

Here are some stats on just how rare these biomes and structures are:

• Deep Dark biomes only make up about 0.2% of the overall world‘s composition
• Only 128 ancient city structures spawn per world maximum
• Each one spans a massive footprint ranging from 300×300 blocks up to 500×500 blocks!

So you can imagine how unlikely it is to organically discover one, much less navigate the labyrinth and take down the Wardens to raid the loot. Not ideal odds for most players.

How to Improve Your Chances Without Maps

If you just can‘t wait and need to find an ancient city ASAP without a trusty map, follow these tips to vastly improve your chances:

1. Scout for Deep Dark surface-level indicators

Keep an eagle eye out for Deep Dark biome indicators like sculk growths, candles, and gloominess on cave ceilings even before you start digging down. They telegraph an ancient city could lurk below.

2. Equip night vision potions + Spectator mining

Chug down some night vision potions for vastly improved visibility in the lightless realm. Spectator mining (digging a grid of horizontal tunnels) also ups the odds of crossing a Deep Dark patch.

3. Set world generation to Large Biomes

In this mode, biomes span much greater footprints, so Deep Dark has more room to materialize. You could enable the "Caves and Cliffs" option too for max underground real estate!

4. Follow Deep Dark biome tells

Once you hit a Deep Dark zone, look for faint traces of sculk, candles, and eerie darkness to lead the way to an ancient city entrance. Then avoid the Wardens and claim that loot!

So fear not, intrepid Minecraft gamers – with a bit of dedication and luck, the epic hauls of the ancient cities await! We‘ll see if Mojang takes mercy and hooks us up with maps in future editions. Either way, time to get cracking open some glowstone and braving the depths! Stay curious and courageous!