70 replies to this topic

[Mister Phes]

In my WORK IN PROGRESS - Governor Broadside's Mansion thread Suvie D and I were having a debate about the size of Eldorado Fortress. We were debating it at the official LEGO set scale, NOT MOCing scale - so bare in mind how big other LEGO sets are in relation to Eldorado Fortress, rather than MOCs.

Suvie D believes...

SuvieD, on Jun 28 2006, 03:13 AM, said:

Eldorado Fortress is merely that, a fort.  It is not a barracks, an inn, or anything else.  That is why it is not very large.  It is not the be all end all of protection againt Pirates.  If you want it to be the largest, simply don't make a mansion.  If you want to have a all in one fortress then eldorado is only a small island fort used as a launch point or defensive choke point, while a larger fortress built to protect a town would be made later.

While my opinion is...

Mister Phes, on Jun 28 2006, 04:11 AM, said:

I beg to differ that Eldorado Fortress isn't very large...  Its the largest blue Imperial Guard set!  Fort Sabre and Cannon Cove are the small island forts used as launch point or defensive choke point, and Elorado Fortress, is the BIG fortress!  I believe it is what the LEGO Company intended as "the ne all end all of protection against pirates".  It makes no sense to have Eldorado Fortress as the small island fort, then have even smaller forts like Sabre Island and Cannon Cove.

What is your opinion?  Do you agree with either one of us or do you have your own interpretation?

[Captain Roger]

I think Eldorado fortress is the fortress which Governor Broadside leaves...Is too little to be Governor's mansion, and then I think that set must be bigger(as big as Imperial Trading Post, for example)...I agree with Mister Phes about is the bigger Imperial soldiers set, but I think It must be bigger...and creating it so small was a lego mistake, caused because it was released with Black seas barracuda, and that ship wasn't very powerful, and Eldorado fortress could resist an attack of this ship.

BSB and EF has equality of attack and resistence

[Sean]

While I think El Dorado Fortress is a good fortress, it is definitely that of an island fort.  Sabre Island and Cannon Cove were more 'We just want to show we're around' outposts, just to show that the Imperials are in that area.  El Dorado is obviously a lot stronger than these, but it is still too small to be the kind of fort that no pirate ship would want to visit.

[ghoulrealm]

I believe both ponts are valid.   From purely official set designs this is a huge fortress, on the other hand, if you're mocing wouldn't you wan't to do something more substantial as "the ne all end all of protection against pirates".
Lego has to consider cost when designing sets.  Castles and forts at that time don't get much bigger than this set.  
My main peeve of lego designs is the lack of back walls.  It's like a movie set build.  Sure it makes playability easier, but detracts to much from the overall appearance.

[oo7]

ghoulrealm, on Jul 1 2006, 11:12 AM, said:

I believe both ponts are valid.   From purely official set designs this is a huge fortress, on the other hand, if you're mocing wouldn't you wan't to do something more substantial as "the ne all end all of protection against pirates".
Lego has to consider cost when designing sets.  Castles and forts at that time don't get much bigger than this set.

Couldn't have said it batter myself ;-) , but since I favor realism over faithfullness to traditional LEGO protocol I voted that this was a small island fort.

[Mister Phes]

I'm coming at it from the official set design perspective...  I do agree in MOCin terms it isn't very big.  As MOC Eldorado Fortress would be quite insignificant.

[Graynar]

LEGO is not normally to perspective. The pirate ships have a crew of 8 when real pirate ships have 800 (aproximate numbers)

The Eldorado fortress comes with 4 soldiers, 1 commander, and the general.  So in pretend terms it's a fortress of about 500 soldiers in relation to a pirate ship with 800. If this made sense, and we went by these facts, the fortress would be a fair size, compared to the other smaller forts.

Of course, the rowboat of two pirates included in this set, don't really fit the equation.

[Mister Phes]

Where'd you get 800  from Mr Graynar?  Blackbeard (Edward Teach) commanded the biggest pirate crew in history and he had over 300 men spread over 4 different ships.   If I'm not mistake the biggest galleon probably couldn't accomodate more than 300 to 400 men at the very most.

But the point you're making is a good one.  A large fortress would be able to accomodate upto 500 soldiers while Eldorado Fortress only comes with 6 Imperial Guard mini-figures.

[Graynar]

Quote

Where'd you get 800 from Mr Graynar

I was refering to real life ships. British man-at-arms had large crews and such. Unless you're also refering to real life ships and making me confused.

[oo7]

Graynar, on Jul 1 2006, 08:24 PM, said:

Quote

Where'd you get 800 from Mr Graynar

I was refering to real life ships. British man-at-arms had large crews and such. Unless you're also refering to real life ships and making me confused.

I think Mister Phes is also refering to real life ships and therefore problably getting you confused.

When you wrote to "British man-at-arms" it sounded like you are refering to a ship, but the only meaning of that term is a Medieval soilder (whose British) and the Eldorado Fortress along with the reat of the pirate line is set well after the Middle Ages so now I'm the one getting confused.

[Sean]

On a Lego standpoint, the only thing El Dorado lacks is a better port.  having the ship sit in front of it would block the cannon's shots at certain times.  The harbor in ITP would be great attached to the side of it, hence why it looks so cool combined.

[ghoulrealm]

oo7, on Jul 1 2006, 09:34 PM, said:

Graynar, on Jul 1 2006, 08:24 PM, said:

I was refering to real life ships. British man-at-arms had large crews and such. Unless you're also refering to real life ships and making me confused.

When you wrote to "British man-at-arms" it sounded like you are refering to a ship, but the only meaning of that term is a Medieval soilder (whose British) and the Eldorado Fortress along with the reat of the pirate line is set well after the Middle Ages so now I'm the one getting confused.

  
You Probably meant men-o-wars, although that refers to many classes of ships outfitted for combat.  

""First-rate vessels carried over 800 crew."  

Pirates would have avoided these vessles and forts, and typically seized or plundered lone merchant ships

[Mister Phes]

Graynar, on Jul 2 2006, 04:20 AM, said:

The Eldorado fortress comes with 4 soldiers, 1 commander, and the general.  So in pretend terms it's a fortress of about 500 soldiers in relation to a pirate ship with 800. If this made sense, and we went by these facts, the fortress would be a fair size, compared to the other smaller forts.

You definitely said a pirate ship with 800!

ghoulrealm, on Jul 2 2006, 02:06 PM, said:

oo7, on Jul 1 2006, 09:34 PM, said:

Graynar, on Jul 1 2006, 08:24 PM, said:

I was refering to real life ships. British man-at-arms had large crews and such. Unless you're also refering to real life ships and making me confused.

When you wrote to "British man-at-arms" it sounded like you are refering to a ship, but the only meaning of that term is a Medieval soilder (whose British) and the Eldorado Fortress along with the reat of the pirate line is set well after the Middle Ages so now I'm the one getting confused.

  
You Probably meant men-o-wars, although that refers to many classes of ships outfitted for combat.  

""First-rate vessels carried over 800 crew."  

Pirates would have avoided these vessles and forts, and typically seized or plundered lone merchant ships

Mr Ghoulsrealm seems to have answered this nicely.  Good work!

[Graynar]

Quote

The Eldorado fortress comes with 4 soldiers, 1 commander, and the general. So in pretend terms it's a fortress of about 500 soldiers in relation to a pirate ship with 800. If this made sense, and we went by these facts, the fortress would be a fair size, compared to the other smaller forts.

Quote

You definitely said a pirate ship with 800!

My bad, I meant other than pirate ships. *wacko*

Quote

You Probably meant men-o-wars, although that refers to many classes of ships outfitted for combat.

That's what I meant lol. *y*

[Dreamweb]

From a Lego set point of view, this is a huge fortress. As it was mentioned before, everything is smaller in Lego System scale, not only literally, but also relatively to the number of people (minifigs) and so on. The ships are good examples - the Imperial and Armada Flagships would be only small cutters in real life, BSB and SES would also be small ships with their crews of less than 10 each. Considering all this, I voted for 'the be all and end all of Imperial Guard Fortresses'. This is of course only in comparison to other System sets (Pirate or else), MOCing is a different story. Surely you can build a fortress which would make Eldorado look like a small meaningless navy post, or a ship which would make BSB and SES look like lifeboats. We've seen such examples in the past. That's the beauty of MOCing!

ghoulrealm, on Jul 1 2006, 03:12 PM, said:

My main peeve of lego designs is the lack of back walls.  It's like a movie set build.  Sure it makes playability easier, but detracts to much from the overall appearance.

I totally agree, however in this very case we are talking about a '3D' set, which has back walls and is a building which is 'complete'.

[ghoulrealm]

Dreamweb, on Jul 2 2006, 10:36 AM, said:

I totally agree, however in this very case we are talking about a '3D' set, which has back walls and is a building which is 'complete'.

This is fuller than most, still a bit too open for my taste, esp. behind the 3 doors.  
That being said this is one of my favorite and first large sets.   I had this long before I even got any large ship sets.

[Norro]

I went for 'be all' because on a lego scale anything on a raised baseplate with 4 sides is equivalent to the large castles that dominated my theme's realm... As I've maintained elsewhere I think the older Lego lines were designed to hint at more connected to the structure which you could then build...

            God Bless,

                    Nathan

[SuvieD]

I still think LEGO should have released a second and larger fort on one of the raised 32x48 baseplates with red coated soldiers.  Even in LEGO scale the castles of SYSTEM fame reached this size before the Pirate line ended.  Though not extremely huge it would be the largest size I think LEGO would have gone.  Much like the ITP only a fortress instead.

The main reason LEGO needed a fortress like this is there are currently no land based forts adequate enough to deal with not only pirates but a neighboring enemy that might attack from the land instead of the sea or both at the same time.  Eldorado can protect a port from the sea attacks but what will prevent the Spanish from landing away from the bay and sacking the defensless port on land?  Not to mention the islanders or rogue captians that might want to oust Broadside to gain favor with the King!

[Mister Phes]

I agree that The LEGO Company should have released an Imperial set using the raised 32x48 baseplate.  But they didn't, and as it stands Eldorado Fortress is the second biggest land based Pirate LEGO set.

I have acquired a suitable raised 32x48 baseplate and one day I might attempt to build a decent sized Imperial Fort using LEGO set scale.  One day...

[Norro]

SuvieD, on Jul 3 2006, 06:25 PM, said:

I still think LEGO should have released a second and larger fort on one of the raised 32x48 baseplates with red coated soldiers.  Even in LEGO scale the castles of SYSTEM fame reached this size before the Pirate line ended.

The pirate ships always (unfortunately) stole this price point. Also the Royal Knight Castle is not much more impressive than Eldorado...

         God Bless,

                Nathan

[Sean]

It always seemed that lego was on the edge of a very good fort but they never quite got there, doesnt it?

[Norro]

Sean, on Jul 6 2006, 04:16 PM, said:

It always seemed that lego was on the edge of a very good fort but they never quite got there, doesnt it?

That is about as good as you can get for the piece count which Lego restricted itself to... if this limit was removed the best MOC you've ever seen would still just be 'getting there'  ;-)

        God Bless,

              Nathan

[Mister Phes]

All things considering this set seems popular amongst the Pirate LEGO fans going by older threads.  Although I do recall SuvieD (or was it Count Sneffy) once wrote it was no more than an over glorfied pieces set (that's paraphrased by the way).

This was thefirst set to use a raised base plate (which gives it significantly more height) so The LEGO Company was venturing into new territory.  Although it could be argued this is the beginning of the concept known as "juniorisation".

[Norro]

Mister Phes, on Jul 6 2006, 06:22 PM, said:

All things considering this set seems popular amongst the Pirate LEGO fans going by older threads.  Although I do recall SuvieD (or was it Count Sneffy) once wrote it was no more than an over glorfied pieces set (that's paraphrased by the way).

This was thefirst set to use a raised base plate (which gives it significantly more height) so The LEGO Company was venturing into new territory.  Although it could be argued this is the beginning of the concept known as "juniorisation".

I was never against the original raised baseplate, it added height once thay had reached a max piece count which reduced the need for large burps/huge wall sections. It is what's on top that matters ;-)

          God Bless,

                  Nathan

[Sean]

Norro, on Jul 6 2006, 10:07 AM, said:

That is about as good as you can get for the piece count which Lego restricted itself to... if this limit was removed the best MOC you've ever seen would still just be 'getting there'  ;-)

True.  I guess I wouldnt want to wake up a sleeping giant that would make my ship look like a lifeboat haha.  Although, it would be interesting to see how much detail they would put in a ship with no piece limit?  Do you think theyd really go all out and blow everything away for something they were releasing in stock?

What exactly is that piece limit by the way, do you know?