LE Realistic Castle Upgrades

[Mechwarrior94]

As we all know, castles in Skyrim are not even close to being actual castles, but more walled settlements. Walls are in most cases rather thin and no real castle features like marticulations, realistic battlements, proper castle gates and sectioned parts of a castle, etc. All we are seeing now are typical Hollywood style fail castles which can be easily overtaken to say the least. This including towers and lookout posts.

It would be awesome to see actually more realism in this, making walls thinker, adding proper protections and actually over all increasing the realism of castles, towers, etc. Would this improve immersion? YES! The current things Bethesda released are no more then basic ideas of castles which are seriously limited. The only major city that could call itself a castle would be Whiterun. It is the only one that actually has a decent entrance in some form and sectioned parts. The problem with this is that there are no real gatehouses installed that actually would protect the people inside. Not even mentioning the sectioned walls which is a big missed opportunity which isn't properly protected. The first arch way should be closed off and the second (with staircase) should have a second gate house as example. There is a person who can explain it a lot better then I can with the help of video's:

 

Elderscrolls series vs reality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPULMBtfrl8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMLfn9lNEp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KnSrTb4qpI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIOGzOJaEkM

 

Additional info:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBn7f3H-eqM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvVV2bEfk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBVPcr7VjyQ

 

I think after seeing these video's you get the picture pretty much, now is my request to change the Skyrim 'castles' into something that would be more realistic. In some cases a lot needs to be changed, while in other cases only a few things really need to get changed. This would require someone to do textures and meshes, redoing navmesh, placing NPC's in the right places, etc.

I know lore purists don't want anything to do with this, to each their own I'd say. But I really had it with these false castles and would love to see a mod tackling this problem. As it is, it simply does not make any sense at all. I really do hope someone wants to start working on this if not a team. Getting this done will likely get you a lot of status for the work done, this is not a simple small project!

[thechief18]

This is an excellent idea! Watched Shad's series too and it makes me really want someone to have a go at overhauling the castles.

 

Re: lore, I'm sure it can be done as minimally as possible so as not to drastically change the appearance.

 

Get on it someone!

[Alerios]

Yup, I was thinking the same thing since some days..

The castle from Cyrodiil are more "true" Castle.. ;)

Edited October 4, 2017 by Alerios

[Swordsguy2010]

YES +1

[ScottC12]

I like this idea! Most castles and forts in Skyrim and no longer defensible, since they are broken-down and in desperate need of repair, as if they have recently been besieged. Many do not even have working gates, and have a few easily destroyed barriers, instead. It would be great to see the many of vanilla fortifications improved to be worthy of being defended.

[twowolves80]

Any mod like this should probably use Open Cities as a framework since it would require being able to scale said walls. Unfortunately, if you scale the wall now, you see a low-resolution LOD-style rendering of the city inside the walls.

This could also become a framework for more immersion-friendly stuff, like actual siege warfare with escalade ladders and towers. I was looking at actual castles, too, and most of what you see in Skyrim seems to fit the definition of a keep or donjon more than castle. Beaumaris Castle, for instance, would probably take up most of the space between Whiterun and Fort Graymoor. lol It's that big, especially if you include the moat. Most castles would be massive in Skyrim, far surpassing even Solitude in size, though I think Solitude is probably the closest to a real castle in the game. That, or Volkihar.

 

At the very least, I'd like to see a castle in Skyrim with an actual, functional barbican and gate complex that would allow for the use of arrow slits and murderholes. Let's not forget machiolated towers and/or bartizans. The machiolation of towers was a huge defensive leap as you could hide behind the crenelations (battlements) and yet still drop boiling oil (mostly rendered lard! Ha!) on your enemies through the machiolations in the floor.