Towny Minecraft Plugin

in Plugins

By Nathan Young

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube

Overview

Playing on your Vanilla Minecraft server with friends can be tons of fun, especially when building a large town together. However, if others come along and grief or raid your structures, then it may cause frustration. This commonly happens on public SMP servers, eventually leading to battles between teams. Fortunately, there’s a plugin to allow everyone to establish their own town or build a nation in-game. This is known as Towny Advanced, providing players opportunities to protect their structures, loot, and anything else in the world. Whether you get in a feud with other nations or become an outlaw in a town, there’s plenty of entertaining features with this plugin. Setting it up to enjoy with friends is quickly done on our panel, but may confuse newcomers to the hosting scene. With this in mind, we’ve created this Apex Hosting tutorial to show you how to install and use Towny on your Minecraft server.
 

How to Download

1. Navigate to Towny Advanced on Spigot, then click the Download button at the top right.
   
2. On the next page, scroll down and click Towny.Advanced zip file to begin downloading.
   
3. Save this somewhere easily accessible on your computer, then extract its contents.
   Note: This can be done with the WinRAR or 7zip programs.

Server Installation

Before installing Towny on your Minecraft server, ensure that Spigot or Paper has been selected in the Game File area of your main panel. This is needed to support any plugins in-game, making it absolutely necessary. Additionally, make sure you’ve chosen the correct version of Minecraft for this process. After you’re finished, follow along below to begin installing the plugin on your server.

1. Head towards your Apex server panel, then click FTP File Access near the top left.
   
2. Type your Password in the text box and press the Login button.
   
3. Locate and enter the plugins directory, then click Upload at the top left corner.
4. Proceed to drag and drop the downloaded files into the respective area.
   
5. Wait for this to reach 100%, then Restart the server from the main panel.

Getting Started

Upon joining the server, players may notice new chat messages regarding the Towny plugin. Anyone can begin using its features by running specific commands, but we encourage executing /town help to learn more about them. This plugin hooks into economies, as building a town or nation requires some money beforehand. Installing Vault combined with EssentialsX will give you the best results, but isn’t necessary to get started. Besides this, we’ll show you how to begin your new journey with Towny in the subsections below. Keep in mind that the vast majority of features from this plugin are configurable, meaning you can personalize your server.
 

Creating Towns

One of the first activities you’ll want to do is finding a suitable location for your new town or nation. Whether you’re already in an existing base or found a random village, the choice is yours to make. Once you’ve settled down in a spot, run the /town new [name] or /nation new [name] command(s) to get everything started. It’ll claim the chunk you’re currently inside, which may confuse some players.

 
Due to this, using /resident toggle constantplotborder will help you by showing a border around each one. Remember, users may have to pay in-game money to establish a town or nation depending on if you’ve enabled an economy on the server. This also applies to maintaining your establishments, meaning you have to save up costs to always be secured.
 

Using the Map

There can be lots of towns and nations in the world, possibly becoming overwhelming to keep track of in-game. Luckily, there’s an easy command to use that’ll reveal all their nearby chunks. Simply execute /towny map to start seeing them, which also provides additional information such as unclaimed or enemy territories. This tool may come in handy when exploring other towns and nations, especially if you’re unfamiliar with them.

Alternatively, new players can use this to help them understand where they can build.
 

Becoming Enemies

In some cases, players may decide you or others are enemies of the state. This involves either making the target an outlaw in a town or considered a hostile user against a nation. Using the following commands can do that: /town outlaw add [player] and /nation enemy add [name]. This could turn into a full on war between countries, depending on certain in-game events and interactions. Make sure you’re well equipped before taking on any enemies in your server.

Creating Allies

Instead of making enemies, treat others with respect and become allies. This is done by using either the /town trusttown add [name] or /nation ally add [name] command(s). Being friendly with other establishments is incredibly helpful and important, as teamwork tends to be the best. However, if you’re wanting to cause mayhem and chaos, then make everyone your enemy.

 
Otherwise, do your best to create allies and relationships with others to build an even more powerful empire.
 

Towny Chat

Some players may notice the chat is formatted differently compared to vanilla, which is intentionally done by Towny. This may appear long at first, but can be customized in the settings. For example, you can have the world’s name appear or what towns/nations a player is active in, making it known for everyone to see. There’s also many unique chat channels, with “general” being the global one for all.

 
Using the /channel command allows you to switch between, join, or leave them. There’s even special ones for towns and nations, allowing a secure way to communicate.
 

Tips and Tricks

There’s a lot of commands, permissions, and features from the Towny plugin. This can quickly confuse players, so learning some tips and tricks will help you. Firstly, we strongly recommend reviewing the official wiki since that’ll reveal the most information. Additionally, there are many addons for Towny that can completely enhance your gameplay experience. Besides this, assigning permissions to your players and groups is an extremely important activity, as it allows them to use commands. This can be done by using the LuckPerms plugin, a managing tool for this process. We’ve compiled the best permission nodes to provide players with the most essential tools for Towny, viewable down below.

Configuration

If you’re wanting to customize the chat’s format, toggling specific features for towns or nations, then editing the plugin’s settings is required. This is done by accessing the FTP panel to make your changes, but it’s located in a specific directory. Follow along below to understand how to edit Towny’s configuration files and apply them on the server.

1. Navigate to the FTP File Access area and login with your password.
2. Afterward, enter the following pathway: …/plugins/Towny/settings
   
3. Once there, locate and press Edit on the config.yml file.
   
4. While in the editor, make your desired changes and click Save at the top.
   
5. Return to the main panel and Restart the server to apply the edits.
6. Do this same process for any file from Towny you want to tweak.

Common Issues

Remember, only some commands are granted to default players. If they’re trying to enjoy other features from Towny, then make sure you assign their corresponding permissions on their account or group. This is done by the LuckPerms manager plugin, but can also be bypassed with operator privileges. We suggest adding the permissions from the “Tips and Tricks” section, as they’ll provide the player with almost everything to get started. However, there could be an underlying problem if the situation persists.

In cases where the plugin isn’t working on your Minecraft server, make sure you’ve selected Spigot or Paper in the Game File area of your panel. Remember, this is required for Towny and its addons to work properly. Once you’ve done this, simply restart the server and try again. However, double check you’ve uploaded the files in the plugins directory via the FTP panel. This cannot be done with its default .zip format, as the .jar kinds are stored within it. Due to this, you’ll need to use WinRAR or 7zip to extract the downloaded plugin, then proceed to transfer them into the server.

Occasionally, you may be unable to apply any configuration changes to the server. This can happen for a wide variety of reasons, with either failing to restart afterward or incorrectly entering values being the common causes. Ensure you’re not making any mistakes while in the file editor, such as capitalizing wrongly or deleting important formatting characters. Once you’re finished, press the Save button at the top and Restart from the main panel to see if that helped.
 

Useful Links

Towny Advanced on Spigot
The Official Wiki for Towny
Installing and Using LuckPerms
How to Add Plugins to a Minecraft Server