Two ways to play
Minecraft AI in creative and survival A castle by dinner, or a mate who chops the wood.
Some days you want the whole town standing there by the time you have finished your toast. Other days you want someone next to you in the trees, playing by the same rules you are. Cog does both, and you choose.
The same build, both ways: placed outright on the left, gathered block by block on the right.
Creative
Ask for it, watch it appear
In creative they place blocks straight down, with no gathering, no crafting and no walk there first. This is the mode for the big swing: a canyon with a waterfall down it, a town with streets between the houses, a rocket on its launch pad, a pirate galleon ninety-six blocks long. You get the finished thing without spending the weekend on it.
A ferris wheel built this way turns the moment you flip the lever, with every seat true and level over the top. A walk-in SpongeBob house, all twenty-three thousand blocks of him, goes up in about three seconds.
Survival
A mate who plays by your rules
In survival they gather, craft, mine and fight the way you do. They walk there on their own two feet rather than teleporting, chop the tree before they have any wood, and check the pickaxe suits the ore instead of destroying the block trying.
This is the mode for having company. Send Cog on a full errand (go, gather, walk back, put it in the chest, with nobody watching) and get on with something else. It is slower, and better for it: you still played the game, you just did not have to do all of it yourself.
What you actually get
They come home with it, not with a story about it
In Minecraft, breaking a block drops the item on the ground; it does not fly into your bag. Stand a few blocks back while you dig and you can break every block perfectly and come home with nothing at all. So when Cog says they got you nine iron, there is nine iron in the chest, rather than nine blocks broken somewhere underground.
That distinction is a whole blog post, if you want the long version.
A mining trip, end to end
What survival looks like underground
Send them for iron and this is the trip:
- Cut a staircase down rather than dropping into the dark
- Light it on the way, so nothing follows them up
- Mine the ore and pick up what actually fell out
- Walk home the way they came
The round trip takes a few minutes, most of it spent going down and coming back. That is exactly how long it takes you, and exactly why you sent someone else.
Choosing
Which one to reach for
Pick creative when
You want the finished thing today. A canyon, a keep, a working ferris wheel, a whole town laid out in one sitting. Going and fetching the materials is not the part you came for.
Pick survival when
You want company in the save you actually play. Cog gathers, farms, watches your back and runs errands under the same rules the rest of your world already plays by.
Read next
More on how each mode is checked
- VerificationHow Cog measures a build once it is up.
- CapabilitiesThe survival skills, and what you can ask for.
- Cog as a teammateFollow, guard, gather, and one errand end to end.
- Digging is not miningWhy pickup range decides the score.
- For puristsThe case that AI ruins Minecraft, and where we think it stops.