Minotaur Faction : The Era Of Strife

It's not easy creating an entire faction or era. Post your work and collaborate in this forum.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Quietus
Art Contributor
Posts: 474
Joined: January 15th, 2008, 3:37 pm
Location: Worthing, UK

Minotaur Faction : The Era Of Strife

Post by Quietus »

ImageTHE MINOTAURSImage

My my it has been a while since I started this project and it has come much further than i initially anticipated. Due to the forum crash, the last 20 or so posts have been removed, so i decided to go back and completly re-do the first page. It contains the majority of the imformation which was found on those lost posts.

History
*taken from the Era of Strife

Before Strife
-Mintoaurs used to be human
-Drought and famine cause many to die
-During drought, they found a herd of bulls producing large amounts of food
-Saved by the bulls, they worship them believing them to be a deity in mammal form
-This enraged *insert new name*, the god who created the humans
-She cursed the faction deforming their appearance
-The were to be hated by all those that looked upon them as punishment for their blasphemy
-As a means of communicating with the god, she created 3 crystals, only a minotaur king and an apostle could use the crystals
-Zeal became the first apostle sacrifising his sight to be able to see his creator through the crystals

Era Of Strife - A nation devided, book 1 of the lithian codex

Image

-Minotaur Warlords split up land and contend against each other
-Civil War breaks out
-3 main families emerge, the Ranorm family in the south west (guardians of Lithia and the crystals), the Turan family in the north, and the Kimmor family in the east.
-War raged on, until Talok Ranorm, father of the Ranorm family was slain
-His son Rilend Ranorm took his fathers place as head of the Ranorm army, and in a massive expedition defeated the Kimmor's and the Turan's.
-In uniting the land, he was granted the title Rilend Ironfist and made the first king Lithia (the new minotaur capital city seen on the map in the south,where the Lithian codex is kept)

Era Of Strife - Ironfist, book 2 of the lithian codex

Image

-United under one banner, the minotaurs began to expand west
-They lacked the materials and experties to cross (Lake Aoir?) north, so east was the only option.
-There they met fierce resistance from the Eltirean
-Long, expensive campaigns cost the mintotaurs, and Rilend Ironfist was forced to leave Lithia and organise attack himself
-In Rilend's abscence, Zeal became corrupt, he was able to manipulate the crystals to change the world the mintoaurs were living.
-He could summon demons from the pits of hell
-He took over Lithia and most of the mintoaur lands
-Rilend Ironfist had to abandon the Eltirean campaign east and return home to punish the heretic Zeal
-Zeal hired in mercenaries from all over the era and Ironfist had to force his way to the capital, where he confrunted Zeal and his demons
-A long battle took place and soon after Zeal was defeated.
-Ironfist knew that the crystals couldnt be kept together as they were too powerful for one apostle.
-So he split them up dividing the region into three (coincidentally divided the same was the three families had during the civil war)
-His two sons guarded the crystals and the regions.

Images for the faction can be found here

The Mintoaurs can be found in the Era Of Strife which can be found here

Gameplay
The Minotaurs are your typical melee heavy faction. They do large amounts of damage in attack, have a good amount of HP to defend, but lack ranged retaliation with most of its troops. The faction is extremly expensive with the cheapest unit being 15 gold.
Last edited by Quietus on August 18th, 2008, 8:38 pm, edited 51 times in total.
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Post by thespaceinvader »

Nice concept, needs more units, as you say. Some form of fast scout (the centaurs would cover this, possibly with an archer variant to give pierce - centaurs are ideal horse archers...) and another minotaur line would be good - around 5 to 6 recruitable lines for a faction is a reasonable working minimum, with 20 to 25 total units in all branches.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
Weeksy
Posts: 1017
Joined: January 29th, 2007, 1:05 am
Location: Oregon

Post by Weeksy »

On certain maps (Cynisaun Battlefield or Lagoon, to name a few) having a water unit/flyer is essential, I don't think many factions could deal without that. I also wonder how minotaurs with their big horns can't deal pierce damage.
User avatar
Vendanna
Posts: 626
Joined: September 16th, 2006, 10:07 pm
Location: Spain

Post by Vendanna »

Weeksy wrote:On certain maps (Cynisaun Battlefield or Lagoon, to name a few) having a water unit/flyer is essential, I don't think many factions could deal without that. I also wonder how minotaurs with their big horns can't deal pierce damage.
You can still do decently if you have a fast unit that can still compete with the fliers, example cavalry, the centaurs I suppose will have standard cavalry movetype and high speed (7-8 movement or higher) so it "could" be enough to get the villages on a good pace.

But I think that's not something to worry until the faction is done with their stats and tested in game to see their strong/weakness in play.
"Mysteries are revealed in the light of reason."
IndieTrannie
Posts: 39
Joined: January 1st, 2008, 10:24 pm

Post by IndieTrannie »

If your going to pull from the historical context of the Minotaur legend at all, Cretian Greek, and somewhat more tenously Summerian (centered around the goddess Ishtar), mythos should provide you some good ideas. Baal-Moloch, the bull god and the source of the Ishtar connection, could also be a good way of tying together some rather dissparate unit types.
Allright! Now go out there and win one for the zipper!
diekil
Posts: 93
Joined: September 16th, 2005, 3:47 pm
Location: Belguim

Post by diekil »

We'll my vision about minotaurs is that there a brute rushing faction. Just charging forward depending on their pure strenght and destroying alot.

So within my concept they would be choas, strong attack not such good defence, the centaurs would optinally have charge and mayby a centaur with berserk.

Some unit idea's:

From overlord to rouser.

The rouser would be like a captian, bassicly somoene with a big mouth that's constanly jelling orders and making raw sounds to build up the anger.

Centaur joungster: A joung Centaur rather quick probably wielding a curved sword or a spear.

Centaur rider: advancement of the centaur joungster bigger, longer spear (possible charge)

Centaur knight: next after rider, bigger and plated

Centaur archer: 2nd line with bow :p

(possible centuar longbow...)

Shaman: healing weak poison attack (poisond claws) normal impale attack (wooden staff) mayby something like the cleric like it would give power of the wild or somthing.

Got to go was typing during class :p
User avatar
JW
Posts: 5046
Joined: November 10th, 2005, 7:06 am
Location: Chicago-ish, Illinois

Post by JW »

Weeksy wrote:On certain maps (Cynisaun Battlefield or Lagoon, to name a few) having a water unit/flyer is essential, I don't think many factions could deal without that. I also wonder how minotaurs with their big horns can't deal pierce damage.
Maybe they don't like to use their heads as weapons?
diekil
Posts: 93
Joined: September 16th, 2005, 3:47 pm
Location: Belguim

Post by diekil »

Yeah like mayby they feel like denigrated because they see themselfs as civilised and not random animals and bulls like the centuar in a lot of mythologie don't like to be reffered to as horse.



Still during classes this time another one :p
cretin
Posts: 357
Joined: June 28th, 2007, 2:57 pm
Location: Virginia

Post by cretin »

not to mention that when you try to gore someone you lose sight of your enemy. dangerous to do in battle. plus horns may get stuck in the other guy, making him look a little silly trying to get the guy off. :D
User avatar
Quietus
Art Contributor
Posts: 474
Joined: January 15th, 2008, 3:37 pm
Location: Worthing, UK

Post by Quietus »

Weeksy wrote:On certain maps (Cynisaun Battlefield or Lagoon, to name a few) having a water unit/flyer is essential, I don't think many factions could deal without that. I also wonder how minotaurs with their big horns can't deal pierce damage.
Well, the horns would only do a little damage compared to the actually force of a charging bull. I would expect the horns to do some damage, but would see a charging bull or behemoth completely crush a victim underneath their weight, and armour in some cases, before the wounds from the horns would take much effect.

About the flyer/fishy problem. I cant see minotaurs having a swimmer in the faction. It would look too out of place compared to the rest of the army. But as mentioned before i was considering the idea of a Rok as a flyer. Nothing special, just a beak attack doing piercing damage and a magical lightning attack (it wouldnt be powerful, just there to deal some magic damage and stay true to the story of the Rok which was a magical flyer, much like the pheonix). But like Vendanna says,, picking out individual maps and balancing is best left till the core of the army coding and imaging is complete.
IndieTrannie wrote: If your going to pull from the historical context of the Minotaur legend at all, Cretian Greek, and somewhat more tenously Summerian (centered around the goddess Ishtar), mythos should provide you some good ideas. Baal-Moloch, the bull god and the source of the Ishtar connection, could also be a good way of tying together some rather dissparate unit types.
Thanks, I plan on doing a fair bit of reading over the weeked to boost my knowlege on some of the more mythological aspects. I want to portray the Minotaurs as near to what they were in storys and legends as possible. Concept is the first issue, and the more i know about them the better.
diekil wrote: We'll my vision about minotaurs is that there a brute rushing faction. Just charging forward depending on their pure strenght and destroying alot.

So within my concept they would be choas, strong attack not such good defence, the centaurs would optinally have charge and mayby a centaur with berserk.

Some unit idea's:

From overlord to rouser.

The rouser would be like a captian, bassicly somoene with a big mouth that's constanly jelling orders and making raw sounds to build up the anger.

Centaur joungster: A joung Centaur rather quick probably wielding a curved sword or a spear.

Centaur rider: advancement of the centaur joungster bigger, longer spear (possible charge)

Centaur knight: next after rider, bigger and plated

Centaur archer: 2nd line with bow :p

(possible centuar longbow...)

Shaman: healing weak poison attack (poisond claws) normal impale attack (wooden staff) mayby something like the cleric like it would give power of the wild or somthing.

Got to go was typing during class :p
Wow you read my mind lo. I was thinking of the same types of things earlier today :) Though i love the name Rouser, much better than my name which was Savager lol. The centaur line will be split into 3 once a lvl 1 evolves. You'll have your light cavalry, your heavy cavalry and your archer cavalry. Each for a different purpose obviosuly, and each with a differnt form of attack.

The light cavalry version of the Centaur will be fast lightly armoured, skirmisher and armed with a spear and shield.

The heavy will be amred with armour from chest up, a big axe :D and slower with no skirmisher ability.

The archer is pretty self-explanitory.

And the shaman idea was exactly what i planned. poison spells and heal :) Possible two path evolution, one more moffensive and one more passive.
cretin wrote: not to mention that when you try to gore someone you lose sight of your enemy. dangerous to do in battle. plus horns may get stuck in the other guy, making him look a little silly trying to get the guy off.
Lol true, but then these guys wont care about that, they would burst into a rage and frenzy and hack the guy apart to get free. They arent very caring warriors lol. As im sure you may have seen a bull doesnt like to get messed around with.

keep the post coming, im working on the Minotaur king tonight :D
Lim_Arcadia
Posts: 110
Joined: March 1st, 2007, 9:12 pm
Location: Sol System: Third Planet (Earth)

Post by Lim_Arcadia »

Saw this comming ever since JW started drooling all over your sprites in the art forum. :P

And a possible idea for a swimmer could be a Hippocampus, and perhaps a Pegasus for a flyer if we have decided to use greek mythology...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocamp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus

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...
"The ability to speak does not make you intelegent." - Qui-Gon Jinn
Kestenvarn wrote:This is not a faction.
This is not even trying to be a faction.
User avatar
scienceguy8
Posts: 226
Joined: June 27th, 2007, 2:54 pm
Location: Middle of Nowhere, U.S.A.
Contact:

Post by scienceguy8 »

If you would like some help, I believe the Greek minotaur was the result of someone angering the gods. As the story goes, a princess did something to anger one of the gods, probably Zeus' wife Hera. Hera then sent Eros, known to the Romans and to us as Cupid, to make this princess fall in love with someone or something undesirable or strange. It just so happens that a bull was wandering by, and so Eros made the princess fall in love with it. The rest was history (actually, mythology, but it just doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well).

Of course, I just noticed that Wikipedia has a different version of the story, which just goes to show you how messy 5,000 year old history can be.
"You can't kill an unarmed, upside down man!"
Dr. Rodney McKay
Stargate Atlantis
Runner

Gilberti Industries
scienceguy8
Proud Member of the Marching Salukis
User avatar
Quietus
Art Contributor
Posts: 474
Joined: January 15th, 2008, 3:37 pm
Location: Worthing, UK

Post by Quietus »

Lim_Arcadia wrote:Saw this comming ever since JW started drooling all over your sprites in the art forum. :P

And a possible idea for a swimmer could be a Hippocampus, and perhaps a Pegasus for a flyer if we have decided to use greek mythology...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocamp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus

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...
lol yeah, plus after the first two sprites i just got addicted to making them. And knew that the reason most factions fail is due to lack of graphics. Hopefully this would fuel my addiction and get a reasonable faction produced to the public.

The king has arrived btw. His first draft sprite is awaiting an audience in the Art thread lol. he needs alot more work, but im happy with the basic stance of him. Its just going to be a nightmare if a bit of him doesnt fit in the hex.
Lim_Arcadia wrote:I'd be happy to do the coding for it, I've praticaly mastered WML that has to do with eras...
Ah good our first recruit. thankyou for volunteering, you will be rewarded after the main bulk of the faction has a base sprite. How good are you at balancing? because the first thing we need to do is create stats for the current units we have. I plan on making the next table probably tonight when i get back from my girlfriends, so we should also have a few more units by then. And i might start my next sprite, once i finnish JW's sprite request.

Apart from that please keep comments and suggestions coming, all are being noted and ive been playing around with some unit ideas that have come up. A few i really like, but ill put them in the new tabel when i decide.

Thanks everyone
Lim_Arcadia
Posts: 110
Joined: March 1st, 2007, 9:12 pm
Location: Sol System: Third Planet (Earth)

Post by Lim_Arcadia »

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...
I had to laugh at myself once I re-read that post. Nearly every one of those things has already been thought up. :lol:

As far as my ability at balancing goes, I really don't know that much. If there is anyone willing to offer tips, please, feel free. I'll read the wiki, but I'm not sure if there's anything on there that has to do with balancing...
"The ability to speak does not make you intelegent." - Qui-Gon Jinn
Kestenvarn wrote:This is not a faction.
This is not even trying to be a faction.
diekil
Posts: 93
Joined: September 16th, 2005, 3:47 pm
Location: Belguim

Post by diekil »

As a response to the greec mythologie thing.

What you said wasn't really accurat. In that story it was with the bull but the MINOTAUR comes from another story:

They minotaur dwelled in a maze underneath the city of knossos in crete. Mino stands for the king of that ages taur=> torros =>bull. The minotaut was offerd 7 male humans and 7 females every 9 years. He Ate these humans, they where defencles due to the power of the Minotaur and it was pinch dark down there. Once a man named Theseus (in some versions it was the kings son) was supposed to be offered. But he slain the beast (I can't recall how mayby somoene can help me out) and due to a Thread (the thread of Ariadne.) Provided to him by Ariadne he could find his way back out of the labyrinth again.

Just to correct some flaws :P :eng:

Grtz,

Diekill
Post Reply