Does Oblivion's IMPERIAL CITY have realistic defences? PART 1

Does the Imperial City from the Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion have realistic castle / medieval style defences? Well in this analysis and review we'll find out.
Medieval city Carcassonne: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcass...
Hochosterwitz Castle: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochost...
And this is how you spell machicolations ^_^

[@Djorgal]

Internal divisions are a good defense, but loading screens are extremely efficient as well. If an attacking force is split between two sides of a loading screen they're in trouble. That's why they have such a beautiful and complex architecture, that's actually defensive, it takes longer to load.

[@GophersVids]

Great, now when Skyblivion comes out I'm going to have to fix the walls and add sharks with laser beams on their heads to the water!

[@ThatIrishLass]

Gopher Holy crap, Gopher! Fangirl squee!!!

[@slenpaiwashere3599]

Gopher Richerd is that truly you

[@jmk3178]

Why is this comment so under-noticed?

[@SirAroace]

they are still working on it right? lets send then this video

[@Ubeogesh]

Why was I not expecting to see you here Gopher

[@Rebelzize]

Hopefully we can use some of these ideas in the SKYBLIVION mod :) Thanks for the interesting video.

[@shadiversity]

Man I am so excited for Skyblivion. I've been keeping an eye on its progress for a while now.

[@lawdmcchicken5635]

Shadiversity I always wanted a oblivion remastered, then on its 10th birthday, they announce sky rim remastered. Just the little things I don't like about Bethesda.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

I love you.

[@kingboomstick2601]

YES PLEASE

[@RamGilamar]

is ded

[@zain9833]

My strategy: Go through the sewers. they're all connected and nobody goes down there. Smelly but I think it would work

[@MidnightSvn]

Another key weakness of the imp city.

[@superbeltman6197]

I wouldn't even go in with some catapults you can destroy the keep

[@Echidna144]

@@Reguwudo Nothing the warwolf can't handle

[@mr.ornstein3384]

in the quest "The Ultimate Heist" it has you go through the sewers and in through the sewers there is a place called the "Old way", it leades to a series of tunnels then into a ayleid ruin that is DIRCETLY under the Palace! so when one gains entrance it will lead you into the imperial guards barracks, then you are officially in the palace, now there are 2 entrance inside the palace, then after you take the elder scroll, you are to go into the imperial battlemage's fire place, in the fire place the pit has a trap gate that drops you 50-100 ft back into the ruins, then you scamper off back through the sewers to the surface, now if an enemy country, state, or lord had gained this info you can, easily infiltrate the the palace, from the front door , and the old way, break through the front, rout them from behind from the guards barracks and from a ladder from the pit, boom palace taken

[@shu830]

Isn't that exactly what the mythic dawn did?

[@BlueLighteningGojo]

Like I said in one of your other videos....Bethesda should hire you to design their castles, it'd be interesting to see, because you seem to be the type of guy that's done his research, and I mean extensive research on castles from around the world.

[@dragonstar2387]

I concur. I would love to see Tamriel castles designed by Shad!

[@shadiversity]

Ha ha, well if they ever offered I certainly wouldn't turn them down ^_^

[@shoddycast1455]

Shadiversity been waiting for this one. but if you had to pick which Elder Scrolls City would you live in

[@TheGeekSquaredified]

Honestly not watched the video yet. But this one doesn't work as the walls and towers purposes are for something different entirely.

[@themaximus144]

sbcontt Yeah Morrowinds cities are sort of the definition of missed opportunities. Some have walls, but no gate houses; some are well positioned, but have no walls; Some have massive spires sticking out of the ocean with many choke points, but no battlements to defend them, and still others just have nothing at all XD

[@mjingarjuhurn9098]

You should rate Markarth. The Helmsdeep of Skyrim.

[@user-cl2jk2nr1d]

All the yes to that.

[@wierdalien1]

Mjingar Ju'Hurn somebody gets it

[@MaxwellTornado]

Oh hell yes! Markarth is my favourite dwarven mine in any RPG ever!

[@Nerazmus]

or Morthal

[@ruyman90]

Markarth is really good on the size of their walls but it looks like a big mine turned into a city not really a fortified city if you ask me. Once you enter the main gate you are free to wander everywhere up to the Jarl's main door

[@gilbertplays]

The reason why they don't have matriculation is because they add more polygons and the consoles can't render those.

[@briangriffin9793]

I was about to comment that as well. This isn't so much a missed opportunity as a lack of ability. I think they created the best illusion for it as they could.

[@The1stImmortal]

Gilbert Plays ☆ #1 Gaming Channel Bingo. omitting rarely seen but computationally intensive parts of the world is an optimization.

[@JackPhoenixCz]

I think the reason for lack of entrance to the top of the bridge towers is similar: Oblivion removed Levitate spells from Morrowind, player isn't supposed to see that area, so they just slapped a stone texture on top and called it a day.

[@entropyzero5588]

Eh, they still could have added a shadowy-looking darker texture to suggest that there are _supposed to be_ holes there. Those wopuldn't add much computational load… As for access to the top: Again, a texture for a closed trapdoor wouldn't hurt much and you _can_ notice srom the ground that there is no way _into_ the gatehouses and thus there can't be any way _onto_ them either.

[@linkblade0]

@@entropyzero5588 But why bother with that though. The main intention of the game is the story so the developers did what they felt would give a decent impression of decent defenses such as matriculations and gatehouses without expending the computational power to actually put them in. Adding those features does literally nothing for the game and only poses the chance to hinder it. So why bother. Not saying it wouldn't be cool for them to make realistically defensible cities and even having them larger would be welcome, I just think nitpicking on them for not texturing an area we wouldn't normally see or care about is rather redundant

[@asdasd-be5ww]

The Imperial City in Oblivion is very small. There are supposed to be millions of people that live in it. Changing the size of the city also, proportionally, changes the size of the lake around it. And also, it is a city built by a race of elves which summoned daedric lords to do their bidding and fight their battles. Building a defensible city, in real world standards, when single people are capable of destroying towns by themselves, not to mention teleport or fly, might not be the highest priority. Also, Rome didn't get a useful wall until the end of the 3rd century.

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

depends what you mean by useful, the palisade wall in the 5th century bc was useful against contemporary opponents

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

As i said before, the IC of the official lore covers the whole island with lots more housing and sections, and is alos surrounded by humid, water-logged mangrove jungle (imagine Rome-Venice in the Amazonas, that is the real IC) littered with functional forts and HQ's of the Legion and not the disney forest with picturesque ruins that we got.

[@MrMarinus18]

I think they simply made it as big as they could while still having a believable amount of detail to it. They could have made the city much larger but they would have had to make it a bunch of featureless polygons for a realistically sized city to appear on screen. They could have split it up but having 25 loadscreens in the city proper alone as well as every single building would have really frustrated players.

[@arthas640]

It also stands to reason that the elvish walls would be stronger then standard stone. The defenders also come into play, the Imperial City was the HQ for the mages guild and fighters guild and the Imperial army. Having soldiers, mercenaries, gladiators, and tons of mages defending your city would provide an edge compared to most other cities in Tamriel.

[@autokrator_]

Luzur Talos CHIM’d the jungle away, so Cyrodiil’s climate is the same as what you see in Oblivion. You’re right about the size of the IC, however. Pocketbook to the Empire mentions there being entire neighborhoods being located on only the BRIDGES across the lake.

[@tegrin853]

The Imperial City is more of an iconic capital than a military fortification. The idea of creating your capital city to look so nice stems from the reality that if said capital city at the CENTER of your CONTINENT SPANNING EMPIRE is under siege, it's already a little late to be pondering about the architecture.

[@rawovunlapin8201]

Tegrin if the idea was to flaunt your power and wealth with the capital, then why does it even have any defences?

[@tegrin853]

Rawov Un Lupin 1. The devs thought it looked cool or didn't care enough. 2. The empire didn't build it. 3. It just looks imposing.

[@user-cl2jk2nr1d]

Maybe that's why the Imperials captured it so easily... And also how the Thalmor captured it so easily... Yeah, the empire isn't too smart.

[@tegrin853]

The Not-God-Emperor Of Mankind The lore history is a little long for a comment section, but the empire didn't capture it either. It was resettled after the enslaved humans of the Heartland high elves (Aylids) revolted from within under the leadership of Alessia (and a lot of indirect support from the ancient Nords); then forming the first empire. The empire we know from the games is the third empire, started by Tiber Septim (Talos). The Imperial City is cited in many in game sources to be a marvel of eleven ingenuity and architecture. The one shown in TES: Oblivion simply doesn't do it justice. Now on the question of how the Thalmor took over the city, the answer is, they didn't. During the Battle of The Red Ring, outnumbered Imperial forces held of the Thalmor completely until the legions from Skyrim arrived and aided in the Imperial victory. The war was all but lost for the Empire but the city itself never actually ceded.

[@TyphoonSignal10]

Tegrin. Sorry but that is incorrect. The Aldmeri Dominion captured the city in 4E 174, and spent the next year sacking it, before the Empire recaptured it in 4E 175. Source: www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Great_War_(book)

[@MagnusKraken]

I find your analysis good, but I have some doubts about the two main issues you found on the defenses. First there's a factor you didn't consider about the water gaps: you analyzed the imperial city as an isolated settlement, and in doing so you seem to have missed the fact that on the shore of lake Rumare there's a ring of small forts (it is evident in Elder Scrolls online but they -and more- are present in oblivion as well) that protect the city before going to the lake. In particular in the points you highlighted as easy to cross (north-western corner, on the east by the prison district and the bridge of Weye) there are FOUR fortifications (fort Urasek, fort Caractacus, fort Empire and fort Nikel) that protect the access point. Sure, in Oblivion they are little more than ruins, but that's realistic given the 430+ years of relative peace in the region. The same thing happened to the Servian wall in Rome before Aurelian built a new one, when invasion of the city became a real possibility again. Second, I got your point of considering things realistically, but I think that in some cases you might also consider the "laws" of the world you're in, because having magic or not may influence the logic of a building (and on Nirn magic is not solely a wizard's gift -like, dunno, in Thedas or in the Middle Earth- but something anyone can use, even the dumbest barbarian). In Tamriel, the defense of the walls is usually enforced by the battlemages, that need to stay way out of the line of sight for casting from the ground but don't need to see the target for casting AOE below them. I've experienced that in ESO: the NPCs holding the fortifications are usually infantry at ground level and mages on the battlements, and the higher you are, the farther you can cast. The strategy of this building (on which I believe the lack embrasures and gates for model and texture semplifications, you you look at that most of them lack also the doors to access those battlements) is to force the invasor army through a small passage that it's easier to control for ground infantly and -most of all- spellcaster from above that can shoot wide-range spells without being exposed. Not a realistic one in our world, but I think it still makes sense on Tamriel.

[@liminalheadspace5624]

The 2 things I have learned from your castle reveiws, Shad. 1 : The names of the different parts of castles I wouldn't have known otherwise. 2 : The fact that game designers don't know squat about castles. When I (hopefully) become a game designer, I'm going to make a really good castle just to make you happy, Shad. :-)

[@amaziiin]

did you ever become a game designer?

[@have_a_good_day420]

Yes I'm curious about this too

[@NulleDulle]

Same

[@flaresolaris]

As a defensive feature of the water...let's remember that in both Oblivion and Elder Scrolls Online, that lake contains Slaughterfish.

[@boredfangerrude]

This series makes me want to design my own cities lol. But I can't draw to save my life.

[@disasterman52]

The great thing about drawing cities is all you need to do is make a top down map without detail, and for angled shots all you need is a ruler and the most important ingredient: patience. Chances are it will come out better than you think, give it a try and you just might be surprised!

[@boredfangerrude]

:) Well, I'll certainly give it a shot when I get bored.

[@electronkaleidoscope5860]

Honestly, minecraft is great for that kind of thing too. Just make a new creative world, and go nuts!

[@daddyleon]

haha same here!

[@sernoddicusthegallant6986]

you could maybe try some graphical design software

[@krein6121]

Sure, but what about dragons?!

[@flamebird2218]

There's Merhunes Dagon and the Daedra as well, and the Dominion.

[@iwillflushthegerbilliadown9966]

amazing point I thank you sir Krein

[@wetwafflestv1340]

The dragons are only native to skyrim :)

[@agastonarii]

Look out for Molag Bal, as well! Oh, wait. He already did take the city.

[@wick9181]

“Everything is made of stone, even the beds are stone” i love markarth

[@DavidbarZeus1]

On your size issue, you have to remember that apparently the entire Imperial province is only 16 square miles, so if you sized the province up to a more realistic size, then the cities you cover for Elder Scrolls would probably be closer to a proper size.

[@RKNGL]

I actually think that the city was seperated for practical proposes by the designer. It really does seem they knew what they were doing but were forced to change due to limitations or artistic reasoning. The fact that indentations were clearly in place for a portcullis and that the extended rampart seems to be set-up to have murderholes really screams that.

[@Razorclambake]

YOU DARE DEFY THE MIGHT OF THE IMPERIAL LEGION?!

[@thelordz33]

David Perl test me and I'll roast the Emperor's head on spear after kicking the entire Imperial Army's butt single handedly

[@truewalter4193]

I would help, but i got an arrow in the knee...

[@cbt7commender980]

You imperial traitors ! Ulfric si the true high King

[@Alpha1200]

It's particularly sad that there are so many just simply missed opportunities. It's just another thing that shows that a lot of artists just go by what looks good and medieval-ey and don't do their research, which is a pity.

[@mast0rrrchief]

tbh i never actually cared if the defences were realistic untill i became interested in medieval defences myself,now i'm all like THAT'S WRONG,THATS USELESS,THEFUCK IS THAT.But most of the playerbase don't really care if it just looks good like you said

[@ThorsHand11]

OneOnOne1162 another thing that the artists have to factor in is model complexity. If the model is too detailed then the performance of the game is going to suffer. Considering when this game came out the cities are well detailed but could be more detailed if made in a modern game.

[@kateapples1411]

I feel like it's also simply game design, those are useless areas anyway from the game perspective, so they simply do not take the extra time to develop such things, while In-character/setting/lore, there would be.

[@ThorsHand11]

Kate Apples agreed. Though it would have been really cool if those ares were part of the gameplay design.

[@icthulu]

To be fair to the designers, they have to balance beauty vs realism vs player annoyance. If you had to go through 4 gatehouses to unload the 500 pounds of ancient relics from the somehow never looted crypt 1000 feet away, a lot of the player base would riot. And they would all look at the holes in the battlements raising an eyebrow to comment how having holes is an unfinished wall.

[@Gormathius]

On the subject of medieval city sizes, I’ve always made a point to consider all the proportions of fantasy game worlds as atleast 10 times bigger than displayed. And I don’t just mean cities here, but also rural settlements and geometry aswell. I find that fantasy games suffer a lot from what I call miniaturism, where nearly every environmental feature is a lot smaller than it should be due to presumably technical limitations.

[@Olumin37]

How about Ba sing se from avatar? I suggested that once before. I would love to see that.

[@MrPhilsterable]

Well, he could finally say it wasn't too small to be a medieval city.

[@Olumin37]

I've always wondered how big it was actually supposed to be. And its population. Also they have trains which are powered by earth bending, like, dont they get tired or something, for how log to they have to do that, the whole day? Just think about how boring that would be. You would literally be standing in one spot and doing the same thing for hours, and you would be blamed for all the delays. They have steam engines, why dont they just use regular steam trains, and why hasn't the entire world come to the conclusion jet to develop cannons. All these questions need to be answered.

[@MrPhilsterable]

Steam engines are newly developed by the fire nation at this point. Also there are hundreds of monotonous jobs like that in the real world.

[@Olumin37]

I dont think they were supposed to be newly developed, I think the fire nation had them since decades, at least a 100 years (remember the old fire nation ship at the pole, and remember the beginning scene when the fire nation started the war, they already had steamships.) That tells us two things, first, the fire nation is incomprehensibly slow at developing new technology since in at least, how much, 150 years of steam technology they didn't even discover electricity, and secondly, by that time the earth kingdom would have already copied that technology. Also have they already developed steam trains, and fast ones at that. Also I remember seeing factory's in Ba sing se, which looked like they would put steam engines to work.

[@taylortierney6542]

Ba Sing Se could probably be better built, but most of the military forces guarding it are earth wizards (benders) who can just rebuild it at their leisure.

[@piehalo]

review novigrad from the Witcher 3, I think it's a fantastic example of a medieval city

[@themaximus144]

Cole .S I'd love to see him do other places from the witcher 3 as well. I think they do a much better job at making things the correct size than do the teams over at Bethesda. like you get to see and compare the sizes of proper medieval cities (Novigrad), towns (I think it's called oxenfree or something), and fortified village centers (velen), and it really gives you a sense of the scale of things.

[@robjo9265]

+Brendan Bush it's oxenfurt!

[@harou22]

+1 for Novigrad :)

[@CAepicreviews]

I'd love to see him review most things from the Witcher series. I'd agree, its a fantastic example.

[@hydrogenone4926]

I think Kaer Trolde has better defenses

[@Foogi9000]

Actually the imperial city is supposed to be HUGE way bigger than in game it was due to the restrictions of the tech at the time the city was shrunk down

[@TheDestructiveGiant]

They really screwed the Imperial City in Oblivion, in other games it was described as being built on NINE different islands and housed the entire continent's navy, now THAT sounds defensible.

[@dieselface1]

TheDestructiveGiant they also said Skyrim was entirely a frozen tundra, here we are

[@LecherousLizard]

@@dieselface1 Are we forgetting that Cyrodiil was meant to be a jungle, but Bethesda couldn't be assed to make it a jungle, so they retconned the entire lore and had Tiber Septim retcon it in-game to always be temperate forest instead?

[@LecherousLizard]

@Tube Industries Broadcasting Company How exactly?

[@LecherousLizard]

@Tube Industries Broadcasting Company There are jungles at the same latitude to the east.

[@scorpixel1866]

@@LecherousLizard No Empire could rise from a land that cannot provide reliable farmland Jungles have TERRIBLY poor soil due to the speed of the organic life cycle, couple that with horrible mobility, hostile environment for humans and cattle alike, and the best you could hope for is sparse city-states on uncommon spots of suitable land

[@lilithvampyre1716]

I've never played or seen oblivion and ironically in my own fantasy world, i have a city designed like the main part of this city. I've been watching your castle series as i go about designing my cities and castles in my world. You make a lot of good points and remind me of many points i learned when i studied castles long ago. Your advice here will be taken to heart.

[@glue6143]

Tbh in the lore the places Imperial City and Solitude are probably much much bigger than in the games.

[@glue6143]

Also, wanted to point something out regarding the gatehouse's. The city wascreated by a group of people who never would have gotten invade so defences were not a primary concern. They're priority was it looking good.

[@rawovunlapin8201]

_Only_ three gate houses?

[@awkward.6889]

Rawov Un Lupin "Y'know, I was kinda hoping you would take care of that..." -Wise words from Captain Aldis of Solitude, even if far away up north...

[@byter75]

I'd imagine that a lot of the problems with the details of the walls (no access, no portcullis no machicolations) would be due to the age and sophistication of the game. Particularly with things like machicolations, you'd probably need to use a lot more resources to make it look right, you'd need to model each block that extends outwards and have a much trickier time texturing it all. To use an analogy, before they just stuck two long pieces of cardboard on top of a large block of wood. Simple and efficient. With machicolations you need to use lots of small peices of cardboard to space out the long cardboard peices from the block of wood. In terms of number of objects and amount of rendering you have to do I'd imagine that the the latter would've been a much larger ask back in 2006.

[@richterman3962]

Idk dude Arena was the best game I ever played

[@ultimatepunster5850]

@@richterman3962 Ah, so buggy and broken, with a menu and fighting mechanics that make you want to tear your hair out? I found it kind of infuriating. That and, being a huge TES lore-buff, I found the story and world building... lackluster, but I understand that one on account of the game being new and the Dens not really having many ideas on lore. But, Daggerfall did much better in my opinion. Especially since Daggerfall Unity exists, and allows you to experience it much more fluently. Dice roll is still a pain in the ass, though. Story and lore building was great, though. In my personal opinion, you could easily skip playing Arena, if you were to chronologically play the games in order, Daggerfall however, uses quite a few ideas and elements that the later games definitely expand on in a much better way thst really makes the world come together to feel like a singular universe. TL;DL: Arena is kinda like that one young cousin who doesn't really know any better, but plays along anyway.

[@epicpandareviews]

I'd love to see you address the 2 models of keep in Cyrodiil, in Elder Scrolls Online. And, maybe, their individual placement on the map. Their design seems pretty decent, as they were intended to be attacked and defended in PVP battles, but there are some... questionable decisions in some of their placements geographically. Could be fun.

[@rng_lord1276]

I think it'd be interesting to see a castle designed by you Shad. Maybe an ideal castle for two or three different locations. Hilltop, island, on the coast, etc. In addition, I'd also like to see some more fantasy style castles. Maybe one designed to absorb impacts from fire/lava blasts. Maybe something to deal with ice or lighting as well. Basically if the magic follows the laws of physics with the things you can conjure.

[@thearisen7301]

RNG_ Lord Yeah! Shad you should do this.

[@christophersavignon4191]

Actually, I'd like him to not only design a castle/city, but model and code it so that it works on 2013 hardware. With NPCs, weather effects, AI scripts, soundscape, collisions, physics, etc... The whole package. Make a skyrim mod with a "realistic castle" and see how well it works, shad. Go ahead and try. Get help from the modding scene if you're not competent in the technical matter. Make a journal, too. I'd like to see just how quickly you have to abandon your idealistic fantasy of fantasy realism, and face the very real reality of GPU limits.

[@deadwolf1227]

i would say the gate house on the bridge have a small beneficent in that id you wanted to get large siege weapons across the bridge you would either need to knock the whole wall down or disassemble them them transport the parts across the bridge then reassemble them while taking enemy fire(or just go to the back of the castle and make new Bridges like you said....)

[@christianbanes7251]

Something you never address is the role that armies in the Elder scrolls universe play in defending cities before the enemy army can reach them. This doesn't mean the cities shouldn't be well fortified but it does play a part.

[@GeoffreyVonbargen]

One issue with it is that It is circular though. Doesn't give you as much range to shoot at enemies. But another factor is that it it wasn't designed by those living in it currently, I do believe it was designed by the ancient elves. So who knows what kinds of retro fications have been made or what sort of insane magical defences the elves would have had with it. Alieds? what were the ancient elves were called?

[@JamesJJSMilton]

The Heartland Elves who ruled Cyrodiil were the Ayleids. They really didn't have much magic left in the Imperial City by Oblivion, but the White-Gold Tower was nearly impossible to take without committing a full army.

[@GoranXII]

But you haven't told us anything about the outer towers, the inner wall, or that central tower. This video is incomplete.

[@briangriffin9793]

Have you played Oblivion? Those areas technically only exist from an outside perspective...well, technically you can enter the central tower...sorta... His critique of the lack of murder holds is also invalid because you can tell that it is a thick wall with internal gatehouse..but you never get to see that part due to the loading screen.

[@GoranXII]

Brian Griffin Is it invalid? Just because we don't see the area clearly doesn't mean they're there. Few other video games get this right either, and they missed out machicolations, so there's no reason to suggest they had the foresight to add murder holes..

[@briangriffin9793]

It is invalid because there exist no evidence that it is not a gatehouse with murder holes and it cannot be confirmed simply because that area does not exist inside the game engine. However, you can tell that the gate is not centered in the wall meaning that it COULD be there...or could not be. I would also argue that you can see the attempt to create the illusion of machicolation within the limitation of the graphics engine. The complete blackened or shadowed effect is to mask the effect on frame rate the lighting would have had in addition to the extra polygons. This is further supported by Bethseda using the same trick in Morrowind.

[@GoranXII]

Brian Griffin Actually, it's _totally_ valid because there is no evidence that there _is_ any murder holes either, and if you look at it, the gatehouses on the bridge have no depth to them, if you put a room in there the walls either side would be half-a-metre thick (impractically thin), and the room wouldn't be much more than a metre wide. plus there are no doors, and no way of accessing the tops of the towers. Therefore, it is not IMO unfair to assume that a designed missing out those quite significant features would also have missed out some more minor ones, like murder holes. And the _illusion_ of machicolations isn't enough, enough polygons were spent making those curves smooth that even a minor roughening would leave enough over to properly program the things.

[@briangriffin9793]

Matthew Marden I would have to point out that inside Elder Scrolls teleportation spells have played a major role. The spell allows you to access a previously marked area. This alone negated the need for any way to access the tops of towers or into rooms. How much space does a person need to pour hot sand? Given this world has arrow traps, flame traps... I would also argue that murder holes are not needed. I think a major thing miss is that this is the center of the Mage's Guild. I am going to assume that you have not played Oblivion in awhile...those textures are rough. Even with the amazing talent of modders...the engine struggles to produce better textures. The illusion has to suffice for what the game attempted for the time that it was developed.

[@pyrosauria7444]

The reasons behind much these castles is kinda chocked down to two unfortunate things. 1. Game limitations and 2. The knowledge on castles as a whole isn't well known and reguarded as inferior due to it being the medieval ages. But that's just what I've concluded. Anyways if you don't mind me making a request, could you possibly make a video related to Space Marines (aka space knights) and/or the various versions of Orcs/Orks? :3

[@4nyNoob]

it's so wonderful when you remove or add something in the image it's just a perfect blending

[@CloseingStraw97]

i love this series dude. Thank you for doing a big critique of all these fantasy castles. Hope we can more of this in the future.

[@Nimroc]

If Carcassonne is used as a comparision then it is worth noting as well that the city stretches outside of the walls too even historically, the walled portion just on it's own is closer to a town than a city. Which just makes the small size of the imperial capital in Oblivion even stranger.

[@AuthorityCat]

Shouldn't he be comparing this to how big the city actually is? I don't know the exact scale, but these maps are SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than the actual landmass they're supposed to be representing(Cyrodiil is about the size of Connecticut), meaning that thin area of water is probably about a half mile wide, if not more. you mention how the game's engine is limiting the realism, but fail to calculate this in. For your reference, if you read this, Elder Scrolls time, in game, is about 30 times real life, so you have to scale up the world by a magnitude of thirty to get its real size.

[@richterman3962]

I know it's been 2 years, but I don't think my orc is. Halc mile tall

[@300subscriberswithoutanyvideos]

Exept for TES daggerfall, that map is almost the size it has to represent.

[@smolpp585]

@@richterman3962 i dont think you understood what he was saying...

[@sjfas_]

He knows the limitations of the video game and if you were listening, he mentioned that in the video.

[@thomasschrank2606]

Mind you this isn't when the city was actually in danger of an invasion, at the time of oblivion, there was no real threat from traditional sieging. If you could use the imperial city from the elder scrolls online, it would probably give you a better idea of how defensible it actually is(when it was actually being a seat of power instead of just a political feat) the elder scrolls online also gives a way better idea of the scale.

[@mathm7401]

Hey Shad! Just found this brilliant video and loved it. I live in a small city in Germany called Paderborn and it actually still has part of its old city wall. These days a road follows where the wall used to be and you can easily see it when you look at maps of the city ( if you're interested 😁)

[@archive4058]

I love your videos and I love Oblivion. The story, voice acting, and atmosphere is just much more immersive and realistic to me than Skyrim. I think your next video should be about Kvatch in Oblivion. From my memories of the game, it actually has some pretty good defenses on the Keep. For example, the gate house actually has double portcullis and the only way in was through a secret tunnel that had to pass through a bottlenecky gate house and you have to pass through an entire courtyard before you can get back to the gates to open them. That was the most extensive level of defenses I have encountered in the actual cities. The city has been ruined by demonic forces that appeared in a surprise attack so it was ruined, but the structure was pretty defensible in my opinion.

[@mast0rrrchief]

the voice acting? really? okay...

[@archive4058]

mast0rrrchief Derp moment, not the voice acting. I mean the lines that they speak. One example is the opening with Uriel Septim whose lines are just epic and a pleasure to hear. There are also the lines from the Kvatch guardsman you first meet, the captain, who can really express the frustration and worries that he has. Thanks for replying so I caught myself. I just get blind sometimes like when a store has a cash only sign literally right in front of my face, but I don't catch it somehow until it is pointed out.

[@AllCanadiaReject]

Archive 405 Savlian Matius. A god among guardsmen.

[@milkshake669]

Please, make more videos about The Witcher series. I think that the cities, towns, villages, castles and other settings in the games are just tremendous. More realistic than in any other fantasy RPG, and trust me, I have played a lot.

[@electronkaleidoscope5860]

When I saw this in my sub feed, I actually said "AWW YEA" out load completely unintentionally. Please keep these things coming, shad! :D

[@MedievalTrebuchet]

I love this series Shad, you make great observations.

[@markotark]

Bloody Barons keep from Witcher 3? For a more low-tier, improvised place that could have many real world examples...

[@CorvinTheSwasian]

markotark crows perch in velen I think it's called

[@markotark]

I didn't use the actual name of the place as more people might know it by the the person in charge of it. I'm currently close to finishing the game for the 3rd time, so i've been to that place maybe hundred times...

[@CorvinTheSwasian]

markotark ok i only wrote it so that it might be easier to google for anyone who might not know it. did not mean ro offend :)

[@markotark]

No problem, it's good that you did give the actual name, i hadn't even thought of someone wanting to google it. The way that "roads", buildings and even keeps and cities follow and blend in with the surrounding nature is somehow so much more believable in W3 than in any other game i've come across. Living in the Åland Islands, a collection of nordic islands (quite similar to some parts of Skellige), the way footpaths twist in the game-forest is something similar that i can see when i walk outside my house. Even a game like Skyrim is a bit hit and miss with some parts of that civilisation just seem to forced into their place instead of just naturally forming.

[@CorvinTheSwasian]

markotark i agree. i also really like the winding streets leading up to bauclair and caer trolde. I hope shad will review more witcher cities/castles

[@pauldawson7377]

Love your Videos, keep it up man

[@Lance06Evo]

Loved your analysis as always

[@koragg3399]

these videos are so epic can't wait for the next city analysis. thnaks for all the hard work Shadiversity

[@mysterioso2006]

God this video just makes me want to play Oblivion again! Great review. I'd love to see a mod that adds these features. "More Realistic IC," I can see it now!

[@Wildeye13]

Shad, for your next Elder Scrolls City, could please Morrowind's city of Vivec?

[@maledwarfwarrior]

A very good critique. I think one of the things that happened in-universe was that The Empire hadn't been attacked in so long it began to abandon it's fortifications due to a lack of an outside threat. When combined with the services of the Dark Brotherhood, wars were extremely rare for a long time. Style and grandeur took precedence over practicality. My two complaints, taking the mage's college would be a second siege itself, and the prison doesn't have connecting walls to keep the in-mates off the walls in all likelihood. Other than that good points all around.

[@olivercuenca4109]

I can forgive the lack of stairs in the bridge gates because in the Elder Scrolls universe teleports seem to exist fairly commonly, and if you can do it I’d definitely say that no stairs is a very sensible and defensible idea. No portcullises though, that’s insane.

[@LautrecOfCarim]

Boletarian Palace. It is ridiculous and yet grounded in reality. Do it for Biorr!

[@MrPhilsterable]

Oh my god yes! Its scale seems a bit ridiculous, but its effectiveness appears amazing!

[@UnstopablePatrik]

yesyesyesyesyesyes

[@anthonyward8853]

Considering the fact that one person can storm through the place and kill the king despite the fact that you have two dragons and an entire army defending. I would say the defenses are poor at best.

[@LautrecOfCarim]

Anthony Ward But what if a fat offical closed more of the portcullises?

[@uyou2tube]

Anthony Ward that's what makes an assassin so cool. Breaching massive amounts of defenses undetected.

[@adamparker1504]

M8 love this video you really needed to do a review on the defense of World of Warcraft's cities. Stormwind , Orgrimmar , Thunderbluff etc love to hear you vues on them.

[@anthonyburns4106]

There's one thing I'd like to bring up. In any bethesda game, when there is a moving part of a wall, it'll disappear into the floor or ceiling. So just because the gate houses don't have holes in them doesn't mean that there isn't a gate somewhere inside it. But that's just my 2 cents.

[@johnrundhaug7363]

PLEASE keep doing skyrim/elder scrolls stuff! I love your content, you are the best.

[@nicodemusedwards6931]

Can you try and do Anor Londo? May be kinda difficult though.

[@hazzmati]

yeah he probably can't anro londo is not open world we don't know it entirely looks like

[@nicodemusedwards6931]

hazzmati fair enough.

[@AuthorityCat]

do it anyway! There's enough of it visible.

[@nemtudom5074]

There are cheats to fly.

[@edi9892]

Well, you can't choose the terrain. If the enemy can build bridges, you need to guard these locations with additional fortifications. That's my second point. They *didn't use the size of the island* to its fullest. They should have built watchtowers close to the water.

[@trentwilis2582]

edi With magic and lot of manpower and time they might have been able to remove a section of land at that points he meationed then flooded the area

[@edi9892]

***** It would be far easier to create some obstacles and put some watch towers.

[@Mazetism]

I do like that Talos bridge mod which actually puts defenses on the bridge itself and puts fortifications around the bridge on the island side.

[@williamyoung8464]

A City/Castle you may enjoy analyzing is the city of Boletaria in the game Demon's souls. Also i absolutely love the castle analysis videos.

[@KrisBendix]

Can you do Warcrafts Stormwind city? Both current in-game version and scaled up movie version.

[@Nerazmus]

Dalaran!

[@KrisBendix]

The floating version would be OP even without any walls. Grounded Dalaran... yeah... may be. As long as you leave out any magic. And Dalaran is soaked in it.

[@MtnNerd]

My main issue with fantasy castles is that in a universe with dragons and wizards who can shoot fireballs, fortifications should look like something from modern warfare. At least after the advent of bombs

[@ThallanarRabidtooth]

In Elder Scrolls games, fireballs don't have that much force impact, meaning, a fireball isn't likely to crumble a tower or a wall, if they're both fortified properly, and, unless dragons or wizards found a way to get fire to burn stone, you won't burn the walls either. Dragons are the best way imo to defeat a city because you can just fly over the walls, and rain down fire onto the flammable insides, like wooden buildings and stuff.

[@MtnNerd]

The latter is my point. Why have walls when you can just destroy it from the air?

[@trentwilis2582]

PraiseDivineMercy Because dragons are rare and more normal enemies still have to fight the old fashion way.

[@Nuvendil]

PraiseDivineMercy well the counter point is that an army of mages could be assembled to repel such attacks and ward the city from any aerial bombardment. And once you have done that, traditional assault and fortifications come back to the forefront. And in Oblivion, the Empire has such an army, the Battlemage divisions.

[@Gitami]

That is assuming they are built with normal stones, perhaps magic resistant stones or spells and wards are weaved in that disperse magical attacks.

[@shizikpuh1634]

Love your reviews, I've learned so much from them! Can you do review on some places in Witcher, like Novigrad, Oxenfurt or Bokler (blood and wine pales)?

[@Borstian]

Nice to see Hochosterwitz again. I`ve been there with my dad when I was 7 years old.

[@Saviliana]

Ah, nothing mods don't fix. We could just stick some gates and doorway to all those gatehouse.

[@kieran1484]

you didn't mention that the water in between has a connection to the sea, could just bombard it via boats

[@AllCanadiaReject]

Bobby Dugart Oh snap. It'd have to for that Bloated Float quest to make any sense. Would probably have to pass by Leyawin and Bravil as well though.

[@Nuvendil]

Bobby Dugart That's a positive though. It means the city is impervious to pure land sieges. Not only do you have to secure the island thoroughly to ensure no supplies got in from the mainland and no supplies are grown by the city to austain itself, you also have to either secure and hold the docks or bring a big navy. Otherwise the city can be constantly supplied and reinforced. And the city is avtually plenty far away from the shore to make bombardment impossible from boat.

[@degurkin]

I played Oblivion,I remember using the bridge to the imperial city *once* and that was on my way out,every other time when I played the game I literally jumped across the water.

[@itsmerb86]

I love for you to do some reviews of the various castles, keeps, and various defensive structures of the souls series

[@themaximus144]

You should review the cities from the witcher 3. I would say they do a much better job with making Novigrad the correct size of a medieval city than do the elder scroll games with their cities. On the other hand.... I wouldn't exactly say I think Novigrad is as defensible as the imperial city with it's massive walls. You could also review velen which is more of a small town, and that fort in the tutorial region (think it's called white orchard). There might be more things to look at as well but I haven't made it to the Skellige isles, or anywhere in the dlc yet, nor have I made it back to kaehr moren (forgot how to spell it).

[@themaximus144]

oh, and forgot to mention. love your videos man. keep up the good work :)

[@themaximus144]

Thijs Tharn well, rather, the correct size of a medieval city serving the purpose it is intended to serve within the fiction of the game :P

[@Diskhate]

Here is a true "cringe inducing nerd comment" To be fair it has been argued (and still is) since Oblivion was released if it was a fair representation of Cyrodill...meaning that we definitely know that Bethesda had to reach compromises about it's rendition (like any gamedeveloper) since ingame books-citations describe a waaaay different imperial city..just a little example: the famous "imperial navy" where the heck is? Ingame you see like 3 ships in a tiny pier, instead various sources described massive amounts of warships always ready for defense. Then when it comes to mere "size" i think it is fair to assume that "real Cyrodill" would need to be "stretched" like 30-40 times to represent itself fairly (thus the distance between the imperial city and the adiacent rivers would be much larger)...and that's not even counting all the missing cities that should exist but are nowhere to be found (which is a problem the serie always had, including Skyrim & Morrowind, which both lack around 75% of the cities that we know to exist...but simply are nowhere to be found ingame) Unfortunately what is represented ingame, when it comes to the elder scrolls, will always have to be compared to their counterpart described in the lore; and yes, while the "unreliable narrator" is often used in the elder scrolls i think that here is more a matter of logic: it is obvious that the games themselves are inconsistent...if they were to be considered "proof" then how would you justify what we saw in TES 4 Oblivion compared to TES 2: Daggerfall, where the playable land is (literally) bigger then real life United Kingdom? PS: also, if you want a "just a bit better" imperial city...just use the "Better cities mod", which amplifies the various cities by A LOT.

[@seriokan2971]

What I would like to add, is the timescale ingame. Time is 30 times as fast as in real life, so it would make sense, that, like you said, distances should also be 30 times larger. And since the Imperial city bridge would probably not be 30 times as long, the Island would be more to the west, which could put the bridge at the closest point to the land.

[@sophiehitchcox3457]

I love these :) as a gamer and history student I find them really interesting.

[@edge9796]

great video shad. quick question, do you have any idea when table top time will be back? i really enjoy all of the content, and i always get sad when i get on youtube and see that tabletop time hasnt posted anything. i know you guys had to stop because of things going on in your lives but i was just wondering if you knew if there is a chance in the near future for you guys to come back or update the rules for cogent. thanks! keep up the good vids!

[@Flight_of_Icarus]

There's an acceptable amount of realism in video games, and then there's an unacceptable amount of realism. Remember, the game has to be fun and enjoyable as well as feasible to make. If someone spent all their time perfectly mapping out each city in the game to be absolutely massive, and especially the Imperial Capital, which should, theoretically in lore terms, push the limits of even the biggest Medieval cities, or even of Classical cities like Rome at its height, with all the bells and whistles, then the city would be amazingly easy to get lost in and amazingly difficult to find what exactly you need for quests and the like. If it's a city that takes literal days in real time to fully explore, then it's probably not fit for a video game, with even how hard it would be to make a city that size and have it be realistic and detailed, let alone putting multiple cities in one game, especially a game where you only play as one character, instead of managing whole armies. People love to boast about the sizes of cities in games like Morrowind with Vivec, or even the original cities in Arena, but then they forget that these cities were made mostly of generic NPCs with copy-pasted buildings filling everything. They forget how annoying it was to navigate in Vivec, which in reality was just one section of the city copy-pasted multiple times.

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

I never found big cities (even copypasta ones) annoying to navigate, and ive gamed RPG's such as TES Arena, Daggerfall, Legends of Valour, Star Trail, Ishar, Bard's Tale etc where the only map you might have is the ones you draw yourself with pen and paper (or got in the gamebox), so if you cant handle navigating in modern RPG's with all the handholding you get in them maybe RPG's just isnt for you.

[@TheGreatsagegoku]

....how dare you insult Vivec

[@spartacus17.]

Have you ever played the Minecraft server "MC Middle-Earth"? While not an RPG or anything, it has an absolutely huge scale and works just fine.

[@1125563macs]

please do Novigrad in Witcher 3

[@Ubeogesh]

The Norwegian Potato Novigrad is not interesting because if you payed attention to what some npcs said it was unreasonable to assault it. Vergen would be much more interesting (including the part where it was actually assaulted)

[@ClausewitzMTH]

Great video, mate! Just want to add something regarding the water. The points were it is relativly easy to cross can actually be beneficial. Because they force the enemy to approach over those points, therefore you can easier fight him there and plan attacks better. Also the narrow areas give the defender the opportunity to counter attack and harass a sieging enemy and eventually may break the siege. Also the attacker has to decide from which side he wants to attack and the lack of streets make those narrow points less desireable, but regarding the bridge mabye necessary. So they have to take one of those points (but also secure the bridge because the defnder would use it otherwise) and may encounter problems and make mistakes. All this going on while the defender sits in the city and waits for a good time to strike. But have to say that this whole stuff is also dependend on the troops the denfer have and how they fight and other factors like supply or types of war enginges the attacker and defender has. Also my point here doesn't solve the issues you presented either but I just wanted to give some perspective that "bad" defensives can be beneficial.

[@Gladical]

Been a while since I've played Oblivion and this kinda makes me want to pick it up again.

[@Amar_Ramic]

Does Kvatch have realistic defences?

[@zachwenger1128]

Amar Ramic apparently not 😂

[@pastorofmuppets4552]

Zach Wenger, to be fair, it was sieged by the unrealistic Daedra.

[@whoami1449]

When enemy spawn literally in the center and right in front of the gate well, any kind of fortification is useless

[@thegaminglevi130]

Not anymore it's a fuckin ruin now

[@JustJayGaming]

What about Novigrad from Witcher 3

[@karrachr000]

I am loving this series. One castle that I think that you should look at is Gran Soren from Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. This castle might be one of the best that I have seen in a video game. Partitioned sections, actual gatehouses with murderholes and wenches for the portcullis, proper height of crenelations and distance between them, arrow slits instead of windows, etc. The one major gripe that I have is the thickness of the walls on the towers and gatehouses; while it is thicker than most games that I have seen, many walls of the castle seem to be around a meter thick.

[@joaopiva6248]

Overthinking Vidya Gaems 101. Awesome video, dude!

[@HunterLord458]

Novigrad next!

[@thedappershark5968]

do skyrim's fort Dawngaurd

[@Relikvien]

Ahh I just love these Elder Scrolls videos so much! I share, like and follow!! Please keep it going! :D You will surely to love the rest of the cities in Oblivion ;)

[@thecyberchill8907]

Also you have to remember this wasn't the aelyids capital city, it was also designed with ritualistic/religious views in mind, the great wheel, and tower..

[@finitewehosh6542]

Can you do a video on whindhelms defenses?

[@Nerazmus]

Nice rive, nice gatehouses - but no gates, no real internal division, nice walls - no towers.

[@finitewehosh6542]

Mr.Vojtik Da bridge though!

[@dongding2741]

Ark from Enderal? It's a mod but might be interesting

[@Nuvendil]

dongDING Actually, I would prefer the capital of Nehrim from Nehrim: At Fates Edge. In fact, both the major capitals are really well fortified in Nehrim.

[@ericvicaria8648]

I really like your videos, and your castle reviews are pretty consistent on your expectations. I am shocked you didn't discuss the keep and that tremendous tower. That has no notable features?

[@samwysegamgee1434]

hey shad, im a recent subscriber and i already love all your videos and it is my favorite. but i do notice one thing, and have a question i beleive only you could answer, whats the best type of shield?

[@TheDavisDennisShow]

Can you please make a video about Hogwarts?

[@WiseSnake]

Finally!

[@errer404notfound2]

great video as always. i would love to see you review Irontown from Princess Mononoke, but i cant find many good images to actually make a comprehensive review. that said, would love to see what you think of the game "medieval engineers" and how some of the building peaces stack up to historic authenticity.

[@Addisoran]

While this may be only a passing resemblance, the Imperial City reminds me of the old city layout of Baghdad before it was destroyed and rebuilt.

[@jessedevos5806]

please do windhelm from skyrim

[@ieuanhunt552]

Could someone mod these changes in.

[@yaelpoliti1694]

Hi! I've been enjoying your videos on fantasy castles, but I think it would be really cool if you did videos about real castles as well - like an overview of their structure and defenses and their history. I was thinking about this because I was enjoying your side bit on Corfe castle (idk if im spelling that right) in your analysis of Whiterun so much and because comparisons between real castles seems like an interesting discussion. Especially, I was thinking about the similarity between Corfe castle and the Masada fortress that the Sicarii held for a year against the Roman army. I think this is an interesting topic because the Romans obviously successfully besieged the fortress, despite it's formidable natural defenses. I think a history of real castles would be interesting because you could talk about not only how they defended, but also how armies successfully or unsuccessfully besieged the city and why.

[@autolykos9822]

In my opinion, not properly using the lake is the biggest blunder in the design. Ideally, you'd extend the walls all the way to the waterline, or at least build more small forts in the most extended points so all of the island is in arrow range. _An obstacle not covered by fire is not an obstacle._ Also, you'd need to cut all the trees outside the walls, so they don't provide cover and concealment to enemies (but that can usually wait until an army is nearby). If I had to defend it, my first order would be to cut the trees and use them for a palisade with watchtowers around the shore. And maybe cover possible approaches for siege towers with something like Czech hedgehogs from larger trees.

[@Quasihamster]

Maybe you should at the city as it is depicted in the intro to the game, many things you you say are actually met there. The island is in a HUGE lake, the bridge is like twice as long and has 5 gatehouses if I remember correctly. The city that actually is in the game is basically a scaled down version of that.

[@alexsnyder7516]

This will make a great series

[@Kari-tu3fs]

I am fairly sure that the lack of maticulations is caused by the limitations of the hardware at the time. The game was released in 2006, very few computers, let alone game consoles could have handled that many extra polygons. The very fact that they hinted at it I think may have been their way to suggest that, yes, we wanted to put these in but were unable to due to the limitations of hardware. I remember the Imperial City to drop my pc at the time down to around 8fps and the overworld was sitting at a cinematic 24fps.

[@CaptainShuffles]

There's actually a bit of lore that provides insight on to why the city was built the way it was by ancient elves known as the Alyeds.