How to Install and Use Towny on a Minecraft Server

Overview

Building a shared base on a Minecraft server is great until someone decides your storage room would look better as a crater. On public SMP servers, griefing, raids, and rival groups can quickly turn a peaceful world into a political problem with pickaxes.

Towny Advanced solves that by letting players create protected towns, form nations, claim land, manage residents, and build alliances or rivalries. It adds structure to survival servers without removing the player-driven chaos that makes them interesting.

This guide explains how to download Towny, install it on your Minecraft server, and start using the main commands for towns, nations, maps, chat, permissions, and configuration.

Downloading Towny Advanced

1. Open the Towny Advanced page on Spigot and click the Download button near the top right.

1. On the next page, scroll until you find the Towny.Advanced zip file, then download it.

1. Save the file somewhere easy to find, such as your desktop or downloads folder.

1. Extract the zip file before uploading anything to the server. Tools such as WinRAR or 7-Zip work well for this.

The extracted folder should contain the plugin `.jar` files. Do not upload only the original zip file, since Minecraft will not load Towny from that format.

Installing Towny on the Server

Towny requires a plugin-capable server type. Before uploading the files, make sure your Minecraft server is running Spigot, Paper, or another compatible Bukkit-based version. Also confirm that the selected Minecraft version matches the Towny build you downloaded.

1. Open your server panel and go to FTP or the file manager.

1. Enter your password, then press Login.

1. Open the `plugins` directory.

1. Click Upload, then drag the extracted Towny plugin files into the upload area.

1. Wait until the upload reaches 100 percent.

1. Return to the main server panel and restart the server.

After the restart, Towny should generate its folders and configuration files automatically.

First Steps In Game

When players join after Towny is installed, they may see new chat formatting or plugin messages. The fastest way to learn available commands is:

`/town help`

Towny can connect with an economy plugin, which is useful because creating and maintaining towns or nations can require money. Vault with EssentialsX is a common setup for this, though Towny can still be tested without a full economy.

Most Towny behavior is configurable, so server owners can tune costs, claims, permissions, chat formatting, war settings, and more.

Creating a Town or Nation

Choose a location first. This could be an existing base, a village, or a fresh area where players want to build. Once standing in the desired chunk, use one of these commands:

`/town new [name]`

`/nation new [name]`

Towny claims land by chunks, which can be confusing if players are not used to chunk borders. To make the boundaries easier to see, use:

`/resident toggle constantplotborder`

If the server uses an economy, players may need enough money to create a town, create a nation, or keep it maintained over time. That cost system helps prevent every player from founding a one-person empire next to spawn, which is probably for the best.

Viewing Claims With the Towny Map

On larger servers, it can be difficult to know where towns, nations, enemy claims, and open wilderness begin or end. Towny includes a map command that displays nearby claim information:

`/towny map`

This shows surrounding chunks and helps players understand which areas are claimed, unclaimed, allied, or hostile. It is especially useful for new players who need a safe place to build without accidentally settling inside someone else's borders.

Enemies, Outlaws, and Allies

Towny is not only about land protection. It also lets towns and nations define political relationships.

To mark a player as an outlaw in a town, use:

`/town outlaw add [player]`

To mark another nation as an enemy, use:

`/nation enemy add [name]`

These settings can lead to conflicts, raids, and server-wide tension depending on how the server is configured. Players should prepare before declaring everyone hostile. Diamond armor is cheaper than regret, usually.

Alliances work in the opposite direction. Towns and nations can cooperate with trusted groups using commands such as:

`/town trusttown add [name]`

`/nation ally add [name]`

Allies can make shared building, trading, defense, and diplomacy much easier. For servers built around long-term survival, alliances often matter as much as gear.

Towny Chat Channels

Towny can change the way chat appears by showing details such as a player's town, nation, or world. This may look busy at first, but the format can be edited in the configuration files.

Towny also adds chat channels. The global channel is usually used for general server chat, while town and nation channels give players private spaces for coordination.

Use this command to manage channels:

`/channel`

Depending on permissions, players can join, leave, or switch between available channels.

Permissions and Useful Addons

Towny includes many commands, and not every command is available to regular players by default. For most servers, LuckPerms is the best way to assign Towny permissions to groups such as default players, residents, mayors, moderators, and admins.

Useful starting points include permissions for:

• Creating and joining towns
• Claiming and managing plots
• Using town and nation chat
• Viewing maps and town information
• Managing trusted players or allies

The official Towny wiki is worth keeping nearby while configuring permissions. Towny also has addons that can expand wars, menus, maps, taxes, and other systems.

Editing Towny Configuration

Towny stores its settings inside the server files. Configuration changes can control chat formatting, economy costs, town rules, claim limits, nation settings, and many other features.

1. Open FTP or the file manager from the server panel and log in.

1. Go to this folder:

`/plugins/Towny/settings`

1. Find `config.yml` and click Edit.

1. Make the changes you need, then click Save.

1. Return to the main panel and restart the server.

Repeat the same process for other Towny files when needed. Be careful with YAML formatting, since a missing space or incorrect indentation can stop settings from loading properly.

Common Problems

Players cannot use Towny commands

Most likely, they do not have the correct permissions. Add the needed Towny permission nodes through LuckPerms or test with operator privileges to confirm whether permissions are the issue.

Towny does not load

Check that the server is running Spigot, Paper, or another plugin-compatible server type. Vanilla Minecraft cannot load Bukkit plugins. Also confirm that the `.jar` files were uploaded into the `plugins` folder and that the server was restarted afterward.

The plugin was uploaded as a zip file

Towny downloads as a zip archive, but the server needs the extracted `.jar` files. Extract the download on your computer first, then upload the plugin files into `/plugins`.

Configuration changes are not applying

Make sure the file was saved, then restart the server. If the setting still does not apply, check the edited YAML for incorrect capitalization, missing colons, broken indentation, or deleted formatting characters.

Useful Resources

• Towny Advanced on Spigot
• Official Towny wiki
• LuckPerms documentation
• Guide to adding plugins to a Minecraft server