SwiftRosenthal

I want this to be as seamless with the regular game as possible, so I'm not looking for anything that isn't reasonably close to the economic focus. The political angle in my second post was merely a combination of that and the fact that the Silver-Bloods and Black-Briars and others in-game are unapologetic about using their economic power for political purposes - so why shouldn't the player be able to do so too? I do recognize however that with a lot of areas (caved-in ruins, Winterhold, Ilinalta's Deep, Whiterun's walls...) the layout is so far removed from the in-story original design that whoever has to work out what they look like after renovations will have to simply make stuff up instead of "merely" extrapolating. Which does fit with lore, I mean it's not like the in-story archaeologists, architects, and engineers would have any idea either.

LOL no I'm not at that point yet. I haven't even opened the CK yet (felt like an idiot trying to find it on Steam). I haven't even beaten the main quest or completed either civil war yet. Even if this mod was completed and installed I couldn't actually take advantage of it for at least 20 more gameplay-hours, and I abuse fast traveling like, uh, something that gets abused a lot. Not that your post wasn't incredibly helpful though. (Er, will be, once this gets to the "I'm actually making this right now" phase.)

Tag. This is extremely relevant to my Rebuilding Skyrim proposal / not-yet-outline. It basically seeks to do what the first bits of this does, but for almost every human-built area in the game - pay to renovate cleared zones, protect the worksites until they're complete as bandit/Forsworn/mage hostiles stop respawning and get replaced by friendly NPCs, then watch as Skyrim becomes as prosperous as Cyrodiil if not moreso. I don't need to look at your politics stuff though, as my idea is post-Civil War (each side gets different bonuses) and would lead to the economic end of the Forsworn movement.

This idea is almost entirely macromanagement, more like the restorations in AssCreed 2 and its expansions (I was really disappointed at not being able to do this to the Roman landmarks in Brotherhood) than Minecraft. It's about time the Dovahkiin gets to be in charge of something without having to do all of the groundwork him/herself. Besides, why else do peasants exist if not for doing stuff like this? ;) I'm gonna try to work out an outline of everything that needs to be done over the weekend. Almost all of my modding experience before now is in Paradox games, and always just small-scale edits. (Their games all use text files for the vast majority of their data... it's just as great for modders as it sounds.) And since I've had Skyrim itself for less than a month, right now I'm not really good for anything more than ideas. The obvious first tasks though after initial organization are a) locating the script the game uses for decorating places one area at a time and b) sorting every dungeon by type (natural/Dwemer/tomb/fort/mine/other) and Hold.

I'm using the unofficial patch instead. Kinda sad how it fixes literally hundreds more problems than this one.

Unlike the houses, renovations shouldn't be immediate. You may buy every part of a newly-cleared fort, but you'll still have to wait at least a couple months for it to be completed. Occasionally you'll get a courier from the worksite alerting you to some crisis, usually bandits/Forsworn, Draugr (tombs only), or a dragon, but sometimes some vital thing has gone missing or been stolen and you have to track it down (but being Guildmaster has benefits!). You can't fail these mini-quests, but you must do them. If you don't, construction will pause indefinitely. At least it won't regress, that would be too frustrating. Additionally, the player's experience in this pseudo-questline should differ depending on an Imperial or Stormcloak victory. The Empire is obviously modeled on Rome, and the Romans are known for being amazing engineers, so the startup cost for each renovation would be noticeably less and construction would progress more quickly and with fewer issues. Stormcloak characters instead get a larger cut of the new tax revenue produced by each renovation. After reaching a certain % of the total possible tax revenue from each hold, the player can use their economic power as leverage against the local Jarl and replace them with individuals who are less corrupt or more competent or both. Yes, that means Imperial players won't have to tolerate Siddgeir or Idgrod or Maven; the same goes for Stormcloaks and Skald, Korir, and the Silver-Bloods. Stormcloaks can go one farther, however. After renovations across Skyrim are about 80% completed or 7 holds are completely renovated, the player can choose whether or not to directly challenge Ulfric the same way he challenged Torygg - better for him to die a martyr IMO, or insert TDK reference here - and become High King/Queen him/herself.

My "Rebuilding Skyrim" (see the separate thread) qualifies for Rhorex's (1) and (2). Unfortunately it's also quite a bit larger than anything being proposed in this thread and I don't want to hijack you guys so I'll quietly leave now.

Jace_1991's Western Watchtower Rebuilt and Whitewatch Tower Camp? Edga's Whiterun Rebuilt? How about paying ingame to restore all of Skyrim's human ruins and cities to their original condition (or close enough)? Roads too - remember all those knee-high walls along their edges? How about gentrifying Markarth's Warrens or Riften's Ratway or Windhelm's Gray Quarter? Here's how it would work ingame: After becoming a Hold's Thane, you go to the Steward and find a new dialogue option, something obviously infrastructure-related. Then you scroll through the list of (non-natural, non-Dwemer, maybe non-tomb as well) properties in that hold that you've already cleared, then another list of possible renovations for that property. The least expensive individual renovation should still cost at least as much as buying Proudspire - on the other end, Labyrinthian and Winterhold should each cost at least half a million Septims, probably closer to two [million], because they're huge and nobody alive knows wtf they originally looked like. Renovated properties should replace hostile spawns with new NPCs of appropriate social classes (residents, artisans, merchants...). Furthermore, with each renovation in a hold, the available funds and stock for every merchant in that hold, as well as the number of NPCs and buildings in the hold capital and any villages, should increase, reflecting the increase in overall prosperity. (Maybe after becoming Thane you have to wait a bit longer: until the hold is both captured by your side of the civil war and no longer threatened by either the opposing side or, you know, dragons.) The script is already there, for the player houses and Ragged Flagon and Dawnstar Sanctuary - it would just need to be found and repurposed. The other difficulty I see is of course the textures and meshes for each stage of renovation - for each combination of stages - for each property, but I'm not crazy enough to ask anyone to do that all at once. Also all the new NPCs would have be created and named and given dialogue and and and OK this would have to be a multi-year collaborative effort. But it would be awesome and (more importantly) we could start playing it as soon as the first building is done.

There are a few incompetent Stormcloak Jarls (the one in Riften is just as friendly to the Black-Briars as the Imperials are, and I haven't liberated Markarth yet but I don't doubt that the Silver-Bloods will be given control afterwards) but (unlike the Imperials) they can be "impeached" in the traditional method without anyone raising too much a fuss. After all, if Ulfric himself did it then it can't be illegal.

Outside editing, yeah that's as I thought. About the Daedra though, maybe the quest-tracking house could have an "Oblivion Hall," featuring walls lined with lore-friendly paintings and the artifacts mounted on stands or in display cases.

Agreed. My current character is pure Stormcloak but I'm hoping Skyrim and the Empire will become friends again after flooding the Summerset Isles' cities with Elven blood and exterminating the rest of the Falmer to boot.

Five years from now, I expect to be playing a mod that uses what you've shown to open up all of Tamriel for exploration and quests. Maybe ten years, if I have to wait for a computer that can handle it.

(This probably isn't possible without modding the engine but here goes) After being away from any game for weeks or months, opening an old save and figuring out where you left off can be rather difficult. Especially if the game isn't as helpful as, say, AC:B. So how about a graphical way of showing your progress? At the very least, I'd expect the following: 1. Progress through the main, civil war, and faction questlines. Simplest way is probably using the Steam achievements for each (for the specific character, instead of the player) or, for the war, a map showing the two sides' zones of control. Also, some way of seeing your progress through Under New Management, without going to the quests screen and counting, would be really great. 2. Daedric quests. I envision this as a 3x5 grid, with images of each prince or its artifact (except Nocturnal). Each should be a silhouette, then grayscale when you start a quest, and then color when you complete it. The page shouldn't be accessible if you haven't started at least one. 3. Thane titles. 3x3 grid, with each Hold represented by its capital's seal. Not accessible until a Jarl first mentions thane-hood. 4. Potential followers. Characters not yet met should be silhouettes, then appear grayed-out if you haven't done their quest, then in color if you can recruit them, then something else if they're dead.