Some great ideas there Siren, Good to see some interest in this thread and the future of the history forum.

Keep those ideas flowing guys.

Since Sirens is putting forth contest ideas, I will cautiously do so too.

The Heroica Contest

Do excuse the amazingly original name.

Category 1 The Pantheon Challenge

Create a temple or building associated with any of the Heroica deities. Include a backstory.

Category 2 Raising the Ante

The powerful houses of Eubric are clashing horns! Make a war/seige machine representing a powerful house.

Category 3 Call to Arms

Make a 4-6 hero squad based on basic or made up advanced classes. Be realistic and explain why you have chosen the classes. MUST BE PURIST.

Thats my other not-so-good idea.

It just came to my mind that if a map were made of Lego historic kingdoms, this could end in a physical map and profit to me made that could be used for contests or other useful projects.

If someone designed a map that looks professional and does not change more often than say every six months, it would be beautiful to print it professionally and sell it for cheap to euribricks members. The money raised could be used for contests or given partly to the designer of the map, who could in turn redo it every few months.

I am sure many AFOLS would love a physical map to show where their faction lives etc.

I am thinking of maps in a style like this:

In a related matter, I am not sure about a grand narrative about the factions living on the map. I imagine it kind of hard to reach consent about such a story. Also it would limit the ever-changing character of lego historic kingdoms. As in real life, I would prefer a map in which fragments of histories,counter-histories, myths, single events etc. could be placed instead of one binding history.

Edited October 27, 201113 yr by Wardancer

  On 10/27/2011 at 3:05 PM, Wardancer said:

...

In a related matter, I am not sure about a grand narrative about the factions living on the map. I imagine it kind of hard to reach consent about such a story. Also it would limit the ever-changing character of lego historic kingdoms. As in real life, I would prefer a map in which fragments of histories,counter-histories, myths, single events etc. could be placed instead of one binding history.

I agree with that 100%, unless we decide to create a Eurobricks version of a fantasy fiction Universe, it would be very difficult to agree on history that fits everyone's preferences and collection. The major division there would be between people who prefer human vs. human conflict and don't like fantasy and those who do. On a general map they can chose to ignore the fantasy locales and factions, so a generalized world map would be best as everyone would be happy!

  On 10/27/2011 at 11:38 AM, Sirens-Of-Titan said:

After as good night's sleep I thought of another idea that rather appeals to me; here it is:

2) The Historic Themes Innovators Guild (Contest)

Premise: "Are you an innovator? Have you seen one too many bley castle walls and wished there was something new and exciting about them? Then this is the contest for you!

Taking the form of a contest with several building categories, the Historic Themes Innovator Guild will be a challenge posed to all Eurobricks members who want to give a creative take on some standardized castle building and historic building techniques by letting them focus on specific parts of a MOC as opposed to building a whole MOC.

Sample categories include:

1) The Strategist's Gate: Build a drawbridge and gate with an original design that is unique in it's form and function.

2) Looking Outward: Build a revolutionary set of windows including one stained glass, one from a cottage and one that might belong to a mighty fortress.

3) Nature Builder's dream: Build a unique river design, unique tree design, and an original rock formation, a waterfall and a plowed field.

4) For the customizer's out there: Build a brand new faction; make a brand new coat of arms and proudly display it on a shield and make a sample of soldier/noble/knight figures, not limiting yourself to purely human factions.

5) The Grey Wall Syndrome Cure: Show us how you would innovate and build a large scale castle wall that doesn't rely on 5000+ bley bricks.

etc.

Each category gets its own entry thread and people post until a deadline after which a public vote is done on the criteria of 1) Innovation 2) Aesthetics 3)Presentation

People can enter 1 or multiple categories and the prize for winning in each is a small gift card to the Lego Shop and a special tag along the lines of (Historic Innovator Guild)

To seal the deal, I will offer to pitch in for the prizes!

Sounds good! I've just spent the last few months working on brand new designs for both houses and castle, complicated, bit if I can pull the final test versions off, its gonna flip the castle world on it's head! Unfortunately it's costly, but I will probably add it to the guide anyway. As for offering to pay for some prizes, I going to message you later, need to discuss 1or 2 things

How about these beauties!

Ouhh, I feel the elven shield would be a great stimulus to me

So many great ideas, I hope to see some in the future!

Orc shield...

I'm just making a small Orc clan, with shaman, berserker etc. It's not going to be big, but oh well.

Edited October 27, 201113 yr by Scorpiox

I am all for a castle build and I myself am working on a fantasy style town so more help with building and sourcing parts for huts and homes would be awesome.

I am also working on a brick wars game to use with that fantasy town and will be posting soon to get ideas for that.

The idea of a 'faction themed' community build is really growing on me, but, I do think that having many factions might complicate and dilute the project. For example with lets say ten factions, the project could be to dispersed, after the initial excitement dies down it could be left unfinished as it peters out.

I think that three or four factions would be more achievable, and also personally I would prefer quite 'ambiguous' factions (not Lego factions, but ones we devise here). So potentially we might have something like 'Fantasy' (Orcs, Dwarfs, Dragons, Minotaurs? etc.), 'Peasants', and one (or maybe two) sort of militarised faction. The general minifig design and style of the factions are discussed and agreed on by the teams building them.

Also some great ideas for contests being suggested so far, I like the way that both ideas are quite open and not to constrictive, I'm sure either one would have good potential.

  On 10/27/2011 at 11:38 AM, Sirens-Of-Titan said:

After as good night's sleep I thought of another idea that rather appeals to me; here it is:

2) The Historic Themes Innovators Guild (Contest)

Premise: "Are you an innovator? Have you seen one too many bley castle walls and wished there was something new and exciting about them? Then this is the contest for you!

Taking the form of a contest with several building categories, the Historic Themes Innovator Guild will be a challenge posed to all Eurobricks members who want to give a creative take on some standardized castle building and historic building techniques by letting them focus on specific parts of a MOC as opposed to building a whole MOC.

Very good idea indeed! I would add another category: the best non-rectangular building.

Excellent idea to start this thread - I've seen some great ideas!

Might be a little out of left field, but i would love to see an "imagined archaeology" community build - you know, what would happen if archeologists really did discover ancient hobbit holes or delve too deeply, etc... Perhaps this encroaches a little on the action forum's turf, but i've always thought that such topics belonged just as much in the history forum.

A lot of interesting stories. I'm not reading all of them, but I can't wait to see what the result of this will be!

My idea is just very short.

Pirates are also historical, so what about some kind of competition or cooperation between the History forum and the Pirates forum?

I can't think of more details, but perhaps a community build in which the History forum makes land MOCs and the Pirates forum makes harbor/ship MOCs?

Just an idea Perhaps I'm looking too much from a piratical perspective..

Those are some great tags

I know I don't post much in historical, but I do read it a lot. Castle and Western are my top themes.

I'm currently working on a MOC that I think will be something new (and hopefully interesting/thought provoking) for this forum. It should be ready by next weekend and then I will post it.

Wish I had some skills to write about in a tutorial!

Edited October 28, 201113 yr by darkdragon

I really like the tags

I plan on looking at all the sets of castle

I have done, classic,crusader, falcon and forestmen so far and I plan to keep going, I don't know if this is somehting you need or what, but a place for all castle articles would be good as mine could go there.

Again, this might all be useless for what you have in mind, so for that I apoligise.

Cheers all

  On 10/29/2011 at 12:21 PM, SirSven7 said:

I really like the tags

I plan on looking at all the sets of castle

I have done, classic,crusader, falcon and forestmen so far and I plan to keep going, I don't know if this is somehting you need or what, but a place for all castle articles would be good as mine could go there.

Again, this might all be useless for what you have in mind, so for that I apoligise.

Cheers all

I think you have been doing a great job! Its always good to be able to have a closer look at older sets and ones you never had. Keep it up

Great idea. And everyone loves Tags - Prizes come and go, but Tags live on forever!

After reading through the thread and doing a bit of digestion here's a couple of thoughts -

I like the map idea - even better is if we can create some or of interactive map - which links to stories and mocs and such.

I loving the idea of joining 'Guilds' and working on collaborations is great. We can get to gather to build a unifying theme or style for each faction/guild - we could start by setting up as a contest to help figure some of the uniqueness of each guild.

THEN have each guild build their 'capital' - thus a contest between Guilds - with prizes/tags/titles/huge bragging rights to the winning Guild.

We might also possibly consider using a Mirco scale to start things off or for the first major 'collaborative' builds - reason being it would actually be small enough and feasible to ship everyone's contributions so that it can be actually put together and photographed.

My other idea - while not Historically centric - is maybe have someone put up a Photography guide or FAQ (There might be one out there, but I haven't seen it)? or even a place for people to ask photography questions. In some of my MOC threads which were either really large or low light I've had people ask questions on how this and that was done - it might make sense if there's a centralized location - we have so many great builders on the forum - and it's a shame if people aren't shooting the best possible pictures.

Though I suspect with CCC coming up this forum would become fairly busy pretty soon ;)

Not sure about the rest of you (SI Mocs is the exception) but I think actually making a microscale map, rather than drawing or using graphics would be more appealing in terms of laying out the kingdoms, and easy to add too in future as well. I have created the first poll question in this topic. If other ideas interest you in regards to poll questions then let me know.

While a 'Coffe' stained map might be cool - it'll be too static and frankly not as cool as a micro one.

Benefits of a Micro map is that a) it's LEGO! b) it can be ever changing c) actually brought to conventions! and such

Though there's nothing to be said about building a Micro map *THEN* photo processing it into a more traditional fantasy book 'Coffe' style map.

  On 10/29/2011 at 9:04 PM, SI-mocs said:

While a 'Coffe' stained map might be cool - it'll be too static and frankly not as cool as a micro one.

Benefits of a Micro map is that a) it's LEGO! b) it can be ever changing c) actually brought to conventions! and such

Though there's nothing to be said about building a Micro map *THEN* photo processing it into a more traditional fantasy book 'Coffe' style map.

Well we do definitely need a map, and micro is a great idea in my opinion. I have added another question on areas/regions to be included. Please add more to your posts if I missed anything.

I think It would be cool for a super RCB on ldd to make most of a kingdom.

Also, It would be nice for people to make some Modular pieces for building a castle, or some maps of real castles to give people ideas.

  On 10/29/2011 at 9:20 PM, I Scream Clone said:

Well we do definitely need a map, and micro is a great idea in my opinion. I have added another question on areas/regions to be included. Please add more to your posts if I missed anything.

I love the idea of the microscale map. It could form part of the first collaborative build event.

I am a recent reader of the historical themes forum, so having some kind of illustrative reference to factions would be useful (maybe it already exists, but I have not come across it). So have a picture of their shield which you can click to link you to MOCs that include that faction.

I also think a timeline build might be fun, have us moving through history and encouraging builds from different periods of time. (Maybe a competition every few months focusing on a different time period).

Microscale map sounds great and I like the idea of guilds too, you could go obvious

Warriors Guild

Mage Guild

Theives Guild

or you could go more Lego Like

Falcon's Guild

Forestmens Guild

Lion's Guild

Im sure you get the idea

  On 10/29/2011 at 10:29 PM, SirSven7 said:

Microscale map sounds great and I like the idea of guilds too, you could go obvious

Warriors Guild

Mage Guild

Theives Guild

or you could go more Lego Like

Falcon's Guild

Forestmens Guild

Lion's Guild

Im sure you get the idea

I personally think existing Factions are better than Guilds except for the Guild of Invision as its in Heroica, maybe Heroica Factions, deities and Guilds could also be included?

  On 10/29/2011 at 9:20 PM, I Scream Clone said:

Well we do definitely need a map, and micro is a great idea in my opinion. I have added another question on areas/regions to be included. Please add more to your posts if I missed anything.

How about a desert region?