Poorly defended

[Halororor]

That would be a proper size, but 1) Oblivion engine is not capable of handling so much data and 2) imagine how boring it would be to walk for real life hours of wildness to discover / reach a certain ruin.

 

To tell the truth, I think I would actually enjoy that. You would feel a greater sense of accomplishment when you reach the ruin/whatever. Then you would have to face going back to a city with all that loot again... Really cool! :thumbsup:

 

Anyway, what oblivion needs are more settlements. Morrowind had tons of them, you could go anywhere and you where sure to find at least 1. Although, morrowind was a lot bigger than oblivion...

[NovaUK]

I actually like Cyrodiil as it is - people are right, it's the right size for a game. It's not too demanding on your machine, it's not too big and it's not too small. It's pretty much the perfect size for an RPG like Oblivion.

[Iapetus]

What really baffles me is that some people here seem to think the IC is some sort of low-hanging fruit, ripe for the proverbial plucking.

Yes, a ship could rain stones at the towers. However, the mages housed in the AU could rain down beings of fire and hate.

Sure, that ship with the catapult looks like a viable threat, but when you have people capable of flinging freezing masses of air towards a target, or hurl lightning from their hands, or conjure up rather creepy spider-demons that can stop you in your tracks, you start to wonder how well a boat of invaders would fare.

And that's just the mages. As anyone who has ever started some crap in the Market can tell you, one false move and those guards are on you like Corpus on the Nerevarine. It's not like you can just swat one out of the way. Those suckers are more than able to tear some invading fool in half.

 

Sure, it all looks easy to invade, but then you have to put up with the people inside.

That changes things a touch.

[NovaUK]

Exactly. If the fools even tried to commit a crime in Cyrodiil, they'd have 7 Imperial Guards on each person from out of nowhere shouting "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM FSGSGJSHDH". If they resist arrest, the guard count miraculously TRIPLES. I honestly don't think invaders would stand a chance in the Imperial City.

[Halororor]

I see your point iapetus, but how far does the magic of a mage travel? I don't think a straight forward invasion would help, but instead raze the place to the ground from far away.Catapults are LONG range weapons. And what if there are mages on the ships? And what if there are 100 ships, wich probably won't fit into the bay, but can replace those that go down. And how's about, say, 3000 invaders, including mages who can summon deadra. The point is, if somebody really wants to, they can. I want to see a mage stop a half-ton rock smashing him to smithereens. :biggrin:

 

BTW, arcane university mages ain't supposed to summon daedra as far as I'm concerned, that's the necromancer's jobs. And thats why necro's are hated all over... well, almost evrywhere.

[hoots7]

Halororor & Iapetus both make good points.

I say that a city that represents an empire is not going to even look like a easy target even if it’s not one.

The physical appearance would look dominating & secure, like a fortress.

[ninja_lord666]

Actually, you're wrong. In Medieval times (when Oblivion is based), the super large cities like Paris or Venice had around 100,000 people. The IC has 197. To make things easy, let's put it at a 100000:200 ratio, simplified to 500:1. Also, you have to realise that OBLIVION IS A GAME. In lore, the roads aren't filled with bandits, the caves aren't brimming with necromancers, and the guards patrol the roads in force. If the game were realistic, exploration would be incredibly boring. If you went from Anvil to Cheydinhall, you'd run into a couple bandits, and a few animals, not like in the game where you run into a small army of baddies. An assault from water? That's the stupidest possible way to attack. The only way they could do that is going up the Niben. However, they'd have to deal with Leyawiin and Bravil to do that. Leyawiin would fall, but by the time they got to Bravil, a message would have gone out, and Bravil and IC would have rallied their forces. Bravil would fall, too, but not without putting up a fight. By now, after destroying two cities, the attacking navy would be no less than half it's size. So, by the time it reaches the IC, it would be squelched. Realistically, the IC would have a navy, and a damn fine one at that. The Imperial Navy would have plenty of time to set up one or even multiple ambushes and destroy the attacker with minimal losses. The most intelligent attack would be land based. Considering Tamriel's only real enemy is Akavir, the attacking forces would have to pass through all of Skyrim or Morrowind to get to Cyrodiil, probably Skyrim since that's closer. Again, the IC would have time to rally it's forces, much more time. They'd even have time to draft more soldiers. IF Akavir actually managed to get through Skyrim (unlikely), they'd have barely any troops left and would easily be crushed by the Imperial Army.

 

Again, the catapult ships are impossible, mainly, because catapults DON'T EXIST! Not even the Dwemer had catapults (they did have giant walking balistae, though). A catapult is a completely foreign idea to the people of TES. In fact, siege engines are mostly unknown.

 

Another thing, the AU mages do summon daedra. Undead is the domain of necromancers, not daedra, and anyone who got that confused is a real moron.

 

 

When discussing the probability of the IC falling you have focus on one thing:

Stick to the lore!

As far as lore is concerned, the IC is solid; it's good. The only way it'll fall is if my TES V wish comes true and the provinces rebel. Even if that does happen, the IC will be the last thing to fall.

[Kresselack]

Suppose an army of Nords were to attack Cyrodiil. Suppose there was a decent sized army of imperials to defend their province. Where would the battle take place? There arent large enough fields in Cyrodiil for both armies to charge at each other. Seems odd dont you think?

[Mythic_One28]

Exactly. If the fools even tried to commit a crime in Cyrodiil, they'd have 7 Imperial Guards on each person from out of nowhere shouting "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM FSGSGJSHDH". If they resist arrest, the guard count miraculously TRIPLES. I honestly don't think invaders would stand a chance in the Imperial City.

 

 

I don't know about invaders, but my char sure can.

 

 

As for defendability of the realm, one must remember the harware, size, and labor barriers. In the lore Cyrodil is dozens of times the size of the game, and adding more guards would be unrealistic because they would then grossly outnumber the regular civilians. Also increasing the size of Cyrodil would have required a massive amount of work, and in the event that they made it a proper size the game would be boring as hell. After all how fun is it to spend a week real time to get from point A to point B. Bethesda made the world as large as it was realistically possible to do, which, in some cases, still isn't good enough, such as the battle for Bruma.

[NovaUK]

I don't know about invaders, but my char sure can.

I don't think so, Tim.

 

But seriously, the guards level with you. I'd like to see this on YouTube or whatever, complete with a shot of the difficulty slider.