A player-owned fort!

[Choisai]

But will you also make the town dynamic? If you are, you will have to do a lot of voice recording yourself for this part because you need people to talk in a normal way. 'Arrow in the knee' over and over again doesn't give that dynamic feeling.

 

If you try to make it more dyamic via creating an economy this will most likely not succed, because you end up like Assassin's Creed Revelations - a never ending chest of gold with no other purpose then you giving the oppertunity for being overpowered.

 

If you try to keep it very focused on the military and use only a bit civil ambience, it might get easier to create. An fort, Robbers Gorge (or overgrown Dawnstar), with many archers on it's walls with men looking in the distance for a possible threat is easier to create then civillians arguing with the guards and Jarls .

But your fort needs more then that

Aside from the obvious things, alchemy table, enchanting table, smithy's, many grindstones, patrolling guards, you might also consider:

 

FOR CIVIL AREAS

public executions,

large groups of children,

hobo's living and sleeping in the dark alleys

, random brawl fights on the streets,

groups of nobles,

groups of women hitting on random men

, guards arresting people on the street,

large tavern-fights,

Family feuds,

loud and noisy market place,

people trying to get into the military area of your fort and are arguing with a guard,

mercenaries looking for work,

people asking the count of the castle (you) to take care of bandits,

musicians on the street,

 

FOR MILITARY AREAS

non-public executions

prisoners getting a beating

soldiers sharpening their swords and working on armor (I don't know how well Skyrim can handle more then one grindstone and forge in an area)

archers practicing

bladesmen practicing

Officers hosting lectures to young officers about military theory

coaches keeping an eye on the training

soldiers performing pushups (like in Fallout 3!)

soldiers reading books

military taverns filled with military personel

military musicians playing march music

dangerous prisoners like werewolves and vampires

pen fights with wolves, bears and other animals.

officers looking at a map with flags and looking very important

maps of tamriel, skyrim, cyrodill, morrowind

trainers available for all warrior skills

a mine for resources

old bearded men having a meeting over something so important that they need uncomfortable chairs and thrones

 

and that's about all i can think of so far. Lemme know what you think

Edited January 26, 2012 by Choisai

[gofer32]

So that means the project is gonna be a castle on a island in the sea? please tell me you are also planning to add horror to it.

 

Haha! Yeah... the temptation is strong. It's crying out to be the opening quest: clear out the Draugr, take a look around, think "This could scrub up nicely" and then get fleeced on the asking price because you just sent its value through the roof by booting out the undead squatters. DB solution: kill the previous owner. TG solution: frame the previous owner and plant a forged bill of sale. And so on.

 

I'm with Kromey on doing both an island castle and a fort. A standalone castle might be more manageable as a kick-off project - so I'll probably do that to begin with. Robber's Gorge is ace, though: loads of room for phased expansion and a good variety of terrain - a river and a road - and there's even a dinky little grotto beneath it, which is begging to be dug out and turned into a dovahkiin-style Batcave.

[gofer32]

But will you also make the town dynamic? If you are, you will have to do a lot of voice recording yourself for this part because you need people to talk in a normal way. 'Arrow in the knee' over and over again doesn't give that dynamic feeling.

 

That could be a massive bonus: a new town with NPCs who never say a word...

 

Good ideas in those lists. If it's a fortified town, wouldn't you have a mix of both civilian and military? They'd kind of overlay each other, at least in the early stages before you built a barracks and your own private army.

 

That point about AC is an excellent one. Expansion for the sake of it is pretty linear - I mean, it can work, but it's self-contained and flatlines at the end. What would make good city defences necessary would be attacks by bandits. Defences cost money, which drives the economic side (10,000 for a new stone wall or whatever). And then that feeds back into the whole recruitment angle, and there's your golden triangle of interdependent necessity.

 

So we'd have to script bandit raids but not so that they become irritating or unfair - say you've just put up a stockade just as half a Mongol horde comes charging over the hill - and you're like: "I miss dragons..."

 

So larger attacks could happen as a quest, with smaller nuisance raids in between.

 

Hehe. Seven Samurai, anyone?

[WiseMan999]

I was just thinking that if you do build an island city/fort/port on the island of Wreck of the Winter War, you could ask the guy from the East Empire Company. He would have a reason to support protection on that route and would owe you for his job. It could be used to protect the trade route to Solitude as you help him rebuild them, but the increase in trade draws even more pirates. Just a thought :D.

[BCbrad]

Hi,

 

I'd go for Mistwatch if I were you. While slightly off main roads gives good chance to make a sensible centre for local folk, and there's a hamlet / mine nearby that could be involved in your idea.

Fort Amol and Fort Greenwall are involved in Civil War, Faldar's Tooth, Bloodlet Throne in Companions questline. Robber's Gorge looks nice if you intend to go with 'create a fort from scratch' idea. It definitely makes sense if you look for a lot of work for yourself :-)

That's a nice idea in general so I hope you do well with it :-)

 

Greets

+1 for Mistwatch. Seems like a good size, multi-level, nice view, near some hot springs.

[KaptTorbjorn]

It might be worthwhile to check out Northwatch Keep (http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Northwatch_Keep), that could become available for the player after the completion of the quest 'Missing in action'. It appears to me that the area with the greatest distance between capital cities is between Solitude and Markarth, which would allow a more realistic creation of a new hold (also due to the fact that the Jarl of Markarth lacks the manpower to deal with the forsworn (mines getting over-run, caravans attacked, etc).

 

It would also seem to be a proper little fortress for the Dovahkiin, situated in the North on the coast, windy blizzards, lots of caves and stuff nearby to explore. You could consider deleting the exterior barracks with all the tents and bedrolls and replacing that with neccessary buildings (blacksmith, stables, etc).

 

It's probably already been suggested, just throwing my 2 cents back in. I may actually have time to help out with this project so if you need a hand just send me a PM.

[Choisai]

 

So larger attacks could happen as a quest, with smaller nuisance raids in between.

 

Hehe. Seven Samurai, anyone?

 

I know what you're talking about xd

[kromey]

Haven't yet made it over to Mistwatch in-game, but hearing really good things about it, and seemingly the only quest affecting it is one that would automatically be done in the course of clearing out the place anyway. Looking at screenshots, though, it looks like it lacks the room necessary for a town to grow up around it. Could still make a nice fortress for the Dovahkiin, but I'm more looking for somewhere that the Dovahkiin can grow a full town.

 

I ran into Fort Dunstad the other day. The place is almost ideal! Good-sized fort, there's already an inn there, lots of flat land around it for a town, and on a road that could become a major trade artery once the bandits are cleared out and the Dovahkiin has secured the area. Unfortunately, it's a Civil War objective, for both sides no less, and seems that it's even affected by the main quest! Tempting to see if I can safely tweak the Civil War quest lines to either skip it altogether or automatically complete it if the Dovahkiin already owns the fort. Or, maybe require the fort to be taken for the Dovahkiin's side in the Civil War before it becomes available (maybe the Dovahkiin is assigned to the fort to maintain it after it's won?).

 

Still, needing to muck with the Civil War is a big strike against Fort Dunstad, no matter how much I love the area. I may still do it as a second player-owned fort mod, but not for a while.

 

So I'm still heavily in favor of using Robber's Gorge. I explored the river there a couple days ago; on the map it looks big enough for some river trade to make it there from Solitude, but unfortunately there's places that are just far too narrow, spots that are just far too rocky, and many, many waterfalls along the way; someone traveling upriver by boat would be portaging around these obstacles so often that it'd almost certainly be faster to walk!

 

I haven't looked at any of the other rivers though; anyone done that? Are any of the rivers in Skyrim viable for trade? Or is the whole region just so mountainous that every river has a 60-foot waterfall every 30 feet?

[Choisai]

 

So I'm still heavily in favor of using Robber's Gorge. I explored the river there a couple days ago; on the map it looks big enough for some river trade to make it there from Solitude, but unfortunately there's places that are just far too narrow, spots that are just far too rocky, and many, many waterfalls along the way; someone traveling upriver by boat would be portaging around these obstacles so often that it'd almost certainly be faster to walk!

 

I haven't looked at any of the other rivers though; anyone done that? Are any of the rivers in Skyrim viable for trade? Or is the whole region just so mountainous that every river has a 60-foot waterfall every 30 feet?

 

Well, you always could create your own river, but that won't fit in with the entire landscape. What about a underground cave structure that's an entire river that leads to Solitude. A secret cave structure leading beneath Skyrim. Filled with falmer that you and a stormcloak troop have to clear out (it's seems rather off to send of the fort commander alone to do what is actually soldier work).

 

It's not hard to create. Really, it's not. It's just one gigantic tunnel with many Falmer and maybe some doors to dwemer ruins. It's filled with water and some paths were you can walk. Too bad Skyrim doesn't have boats that can actually move.

[kromey]

Well, you always could create your own river, but that won't fit in with the entire landscape. What about a underground cave structure that's an entire river that leads to Solitude. A secret cave structure leading beneath Skyrim. Filled with falmer that you and a stormcloak troop have to clear out (it's seems rather off to send of the fort commander alone to do what is actually soldier work).

 

It's not hard to create. Really, it's not. It's just one gigantic tunnel with many Falmer and maybe some doors to dwemer ruins. It's filled with water and some paths were you can walk. Too bad Skyrim doesn't have boats that can actually move.

Hm... That's something to consider. Not sure where the tunnel would come out, but I'm sure there's something in the area I could use. Heck, even emerging from behind the first waterfall there would work!

 

At the Robber's Gorge end of the tunnel, a rope-and-pulley elevator system -- or even an ancient dwemer elevator -- could be used to efficiently move goods up and down between the boats below and the town above.

 

And once the tunnel is cleared of hostiles (I've got other plans for falmer in the area, although that could tie into this potentially), and guardposts established at the endpoint (the town itself acting as a guardpost at that end), it would in fact be safer than taking surface roads!