Minotaur Faction : The Era Of Strife

Lim_Arcadia · Post by **Lim_Arcadia** » January 18th, 2008, 9:11 pm

Age -- 32
Homeland -- Athens
Occupation -- king

The parentage of Theseus is confused. He was thought to be either an illegitimate son of Aegeus, a king of Athens, or a son of Poseidon. Raised by his mother, he faced many adversaries and quests while attempting to return to Athens to be reunited with his father. He was then selected to be part of a group of young men and women to be sacrificed to the Minotaur on Crete, as part of the compensation for a long war. On Crete, Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and helped him defeat the Minotaur within the labyrinth. He returned to Athens but failed to signal his success to his father correctly, and Aegeus drowned himself in despair. The sea thereafter took its name from Theseus' father, the Aegean Sea. Theseus foiled an assassination attempt and became king, but lost popularity late in life and was exiled.

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Scientific name -- Homo taurus
Size -- about 9' tall
Diet -- humans, especially maidens

King Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull as a sign he was fit to rule Crete. He promised to sacrifice the animal, but when it appeared, he kept it for his own. In retribution, Poseidon caused Minos' wife to fall in love with the bull. Their offspring was the Minotaur, a beast with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Minos had a huge labyrinth constructed under Crete where the Minotaur could be kept. Each year seven boys and seven girls were sent into the maze to be eaten by the beast. Eventually the Minotaur was slain by Theseus who unraveled a ball of twine as he moved into the labyrinth so he could find his way out.

The legend of the minotaur may have originated because of the important of the bull in Minoan ritual. Minoan buildings were adorned with bull horns, and their hourglass shields covered with bull hide. Early frescoes show Minoan youths leaping over the horns of bulls as a form of sport.

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cretin · Post by **cretin** » January 18th, 2008, 9:19 pm

from what i can find is there are several stories as to why Thesius (correct?) went into the labrynth. one he was randomly chosen, one minos (king) chose him, one he chose himself. he used the magic twine to find his way to the minotaur. again there are several variations of how he killed it (club, sword, fists) but it died anyways. he got back out. its a pretty complicated story. love interest, evil king, sigh...

ah seems Lim_Arcadia beat me to it

diekil · Post by **diekil** » January 18th, 2008, 9:54 pm

You see all the greek mythologie is used so many times in the past, first by the romans and so on. That the original stories are hard to find.

Thx for the information I googled the same today:p

It's a combo of the two stories and the origin of theseus is vauge. The king drowning himself I forgot I thought it was from another story. The sign was black or white sail black meant dead white meant prevealed. But on the way theseus settled with ariadne on an island and forgot to inform his dad:p.

Grtz,

Diekil

JW · Post by JW » January 18th, 2008, 11:23 pm

Lim_Arcadia wrote:This gives me an Idea... Perhaps a Mythological era, with different factions for different mythologies... Like Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, and such... I'd be happy to do the coding for it, I've praticaly mastered WML that has to do with eras...

Perhaps you could call it an Era of Myths?

cretin · Post by **cretin** » January 18th, 2008, 11:24 pm

lol about the island part i saw 2 variations. one he left her there, two she fell asleep during a storm and the boats were pushed away. so many different versions of one story

Post by **Quietus** » January 18th, 2008, 11:31 pm

JW wrote:
Lim_Arcadia wrote:This gives me an Idea... Perhaps a Mythological era, with different factions for different mythologies... Like Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, and such... I'd be happy to do the coding for it, I've praticaly mastered WML that has to do with eras...
Perhaps you could call it an Era of Myths?

Oh JW you jest far too much lol.

I dont think the exact story will affect the faction in any particular way. Its all myth therefore nothing is set in stone, its just stories past down through generations.

Aethaeryn (User Page) · Post by **Aethaeryn** » January 18th, 2008, 11:36 pm

This would be good in EoM, though. The graphics is the hardest part to a faction and you're doing quite well.

Post by **Quietus** » January 19th, 2008, 12:19 am

Aethaeryn wrote:This would be good in EoM, though. The graphics is the hardest part to a faction and you're doing quite well.

Maybe, though i'll enquire about eras when more graphics are done. We need to know which era will accept theses monsterous beings, as they will need balancing with the curent factions in the era.

Moving onto the updated Tree.

This includes the new minotaur king sprite. Its not finnished, im still tweaking bits here and there, and some of the shadow doesnt fit in the hex, though i dont think that will be too much problem.

New units include some of the Centaurs evolved forms. I fell some of the names could do with some more imagination though (no disregard to diekil, just something like Forest Raider for the light calvary version, would seem a bit more unique than the current one of Centaur Ride. but names will be done in the next installment. The gnoll is not exactly a minotaur. hes still a humanoid but he's half dog half human. He will be armed with a short bow and is the armies archer, as Minotaurs are too butch and buff to use short bows.

But alas it is time for me to hit the sack. I didnt get any sleep last night due to coursework XD lol.

Please keep the unit ideas coming, more sprites are being done, though i am only one man, and perfectionist at that, so sprites will take a while.

Thanks everyone

EDIT: table removed - see first page

Aethaeryn (User Page) · Post by **Aethaeryn** » January 19th, 2008, 1:34 am

So many centaur branches makes it too centaur-focused. I'd recommend removing one of those. And as I said in your other thread, you need a flier or water unit (the vast majority of factions have a unit that can go in and is decent in water and it's a major weakness to have neither). Perhaps give the centaur ranged from the start if it doesn't already since you need some ranged since ranged attacks will be this faction's greatest weakness (I'm seeing this played like a faction of overgrown orcish grunts or trolls).

Lim_Arcadia · Post by **Lim_Arcadia** » January 19th, 2008, 2:54 am

JW wrote:
Lim_Arcadia wrote:This gives me an Idea... Perhaps a Mythological era, with different factions for different mythologies... Like Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, and such... I'd be happy to do the coding for it, I've praticaly mastered WML that has to do with eras...
Perhaps you could call it an Era of Myths?

Sorry JW, wasn't thinking clearly when I posted that.

Anyway, I would think this would fit well with the EoM. And does anyone know anything about balancing units?

kesnar · Post by **kesnar** » January 19th, 2008, 9:12 am

Well as a Greek I can help about Theseus and Minotaurus:

Theseus:

Well, the son of Minos, king of Crete, named Androgeos, won the Panathenean and the citizens of Athens murdered him.So Minos prayed to his father, Zeus(He had a lot of kids(I mean a lot(':shock:')), to throw(I don't know if this is the right verb) an illness to Athens.So the citizens of Athens had to send 7 young people every 9 years at Crete(inside the Labyrinth) to not get ill again.So a day Theseus went to Crete, as a person of the 7, to kill Minotaurus.When he got there the daughter of Minos, Ariadni, helped him kill Minotaurus.

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Minotaur:

He was son of the wife of Minos and a bull.Poseidon punish Minos, because he hadn't made a sacrifice, by making Pasifae, wife of Minos, fell mad in love with a bull.After this some other things happened and there was the Minotaur.(We have rules so I can't get in precisions)

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edit:
@Cretin:
Well about the island part.The myth says that Dionyseus, god of wine and happiness, loved Ariadne and wanted her for him.So he told Theseus to let her there or he would punish Theseus.So Theseus let her there but he was very sad so he forgot to change the ship's flag and his father, Aegeus, commited a suicide at the sea now known as Aegean sea(you can see the why).

cretin · Post by **cretin** » January 19th, 2008, 10:58 am

yeah i read that version too (the island). buut i thought Theseus was the son of someone else? jesus the internet is so unreliable in finding correct sources.

Post by **Quietus** » January 19th, 2008, 11:10 am

Aethaeryn wrote:So many centaur branches makes it too centaur-focused. I'd recommend removing one of those. And as I said in your other thread, you need a flier or water unit (the vast majority of factions have a unit that can go in and is decent in water and it's a major weakness to have neither).

Hmm i think giving the first centaur a bow and spear, then when he levels only going to either a heavy centaur (with no bow but a beafier weopon and armour) or going for the Forest Raider(light centuar, with archer defence a better move and the skirmish ability, but reduced attack and HP.) its something we need to play around with.

Aethaeryn wrote:Perhaps give the centaur ranged from the start if it doesn't already since you need some ranged since ranged attacks will be this faction's greatest weakness (I'm seeing this played like a faction of overgrown orcish grunts or trolls).

Yes he will ahve ranged to at lvl one with an aptional replacement (as mentioned above). The gnoll is the basic archer. He's not a minotaur but will have a small bow, firing lots of weak damaging shots e.g. 4-3, a bit like a poacher in a way.

Lim_Arcadia wrote:Anyway, I would think this would fit well with the EoM. And does anyone know anything about balancing units?

Yes we need some people to hel with balancing. Is there anyone in this specialty? if not i think its safe jsut to go ahaead and make the units based on what we think looks right, then play test, modifying as we go, based on the success or failure in situations.

Lim_Arcadia wrote:cretin
yeah i read that version too (the island). buut i thought Theseus was the son of someone else? jesus the internet is so unreliable in finding correct sources

yes though it would be the same with any myth. No one is exactly sure of what happened.

Post by **Noyga** » January 19th, 2008, 11:17 am

One potential problem is it think a few sprites are way too big to fit in the hex (the 2 kings, i'm not sure, through).

Post by **Quietus** » January 19th, 2008, 11:27 am

Noyga wrote:One potential problem is it think a few sprites are way too big to fit in the hex (the 2 kings, i'm not sure, through).

Nope both fit..just lol. The Behemoth king fits rather nicely. And the Minotaur king has a bit of shadow over lapping. So ill have to edit that accordingly. But the sprites themselves were made so that they would fit.