Does Solitude from SKYRIM have realistic castle defences?
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- The Elder Scrolls 5, Skyrim, has many castle and castle like cities, but just how realistic are they and if they were real, would they be effective? In this video we'll be taking a very close look at Solitude.
Real castles mention in the video:
Viljandi Castle: en.wikipedia.o...
Predjama Castle: en.wikipedia.o...
Hochosterwitz Castle: en.wikipedia.o...
The one thing Shad forgets in this series is that the average army in Skyrim seems to be forty uncoordinated bar-brawlers with so-so combat abilities.
The local hero took the entire region you play in with 500 men.
Well that’s for the sake of gameplay in the lore it’s not like that
@@kblskables2877 I took the entire region by myself with 1 follower.
You must not forget that in skyrim they had horses but they never even used the horses during the seiges or battlefields
Whole lot of skooma.
Someone needs to make a "Shad's castles" mod for Skyrim. Where every castle is remade up to Shad specs
Agreed
SHAD YES!
That would make seige quests significantly more difficult, totally sold
@@EloquentTroll Just them not opening the Gates when you attack the fort would make it much harder :P Instead of leaving the front door open.
@@redholm But having not the door open for other races would claim you the title of a racist o_o
Well, I just found a mod called "Realistic Solitude Arch" on the nexus. It's been inspired by this video.
If you want the mod for SE, someone fixed the original port (Realistic Solitude Arch SE - Proper Port).
I was just about to tell him that😂
Und
It’s Skyrim there is a mod for everything
@@Kadeo-ms6qw Unfortunately, EVERYTHING
Who else had that nagging feel that everything in skyrim was too small
Because it was.. stupidly so. Its was all made for game play mechanics and not game play immersion.
Geraduss Well it's more for technical reasons. Their insistence on making every npc unique, and every object be unique and have physics, means that it is a pain to run.
Ironically, trying to write so many different npcs spreads them too thin and the writing for everyone becomes generic. Also, I don't think every bottle should be handplaced, have physics, and be tracked by the game engine, so we can get bigger settlements.
Would anyone care that a bottle you had knocked over was put back when you came back? I don't think they would, especially if the settlements were larger as a result. The way the game is now, it has to remember every object position in a cell, meaning large settlements would kill performance.
Its also the limitation of the game engine that they're using, and making every NPC unique and "Special" also kills its own immersion, you don't walk up and talk to every person you meet regardless, and with how those NPC's in Skyrim work I tend to just avoid 2/3 of them because I don't want to do their stupid generic quests that they just want to force on you and in a tiny village like Whiterun that's rather hard to do.
I agree that the cities and towns in Skyrim are far too small. However, for a RPG with a massive world, the cities are quite understandable size wise. Take other games that might give one very impressive city, but nothing more. Also if every city in Skyrim was sized realistically, you would need a beast of a machine to run it and Bethesda would have to put in so much effort for so many unique NPCs.
You don't have to make them realistic sized, like for example Novigrad in Witcher, though even that city was tiny compared to the lore it was based on. But any way a general rule of thumb I go by is, is the city big enough to have "streets" as in corners and blind alleyways, not many just a in general to give you a feel of a "city". Bethesda did that in Oblivion with some of its cities, they were still tiny but at least some of them felt like settlements. Whilse in Skyrim you just have a single street with just a few buildings left and right of it and they call that "Good enough".
Mmm... knee-high defensive structures?
I sense a joke somewhere nearby.
Tbear your profile picture is way too smart for some people...
Fraydizs not really. Cute-e-pi.
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Drasko, i'm pretty sure it's supposed to me Pink-e-pi
O crap thats an epic pfp
None of the cities in Skyrim can really be described as "cities".
Because theyre holds, not cities
@@JMRabil675 they are holds but for some reason the NPC's call them cities
No City in any game I playd so far is a City
@@romanobritishhamster7912 the strip from nv was a decent size. Also gta games have cities
They are holds and cities. Game just in small scale.
There is a reason the barriers on the walls come up to knee height, ask the guards and they'll tell you.
yes and in the witcher 3 an archer gwent card tells you where archers aim for
I love you
Ah, but all the guards still took an arrow to the knee, so apparently those knee high walls are just a wee bit short, still allowing the guards to be hit in their knees
@@taltamir they took an arrow to the knee before they were gaurds
@@SuperDeadzombeh
fuck off, the joke still stands
Waiting on Windhelm... The giant, grey brick.
The nord dungeon on the surface.
Put a shout wall on t and the whole city would be like a crypt.
A thing to keep in mind about Windhelm is that it is a town built on top of an existing fortress. A lot of the town's buildings are not a part of the original structure.
There is the same problem - no gates in the gatehouses. (alto Bethesda programmed it so there are gates during CW siege, but it never made it to the live game.
To be fair, the city was made by Ysgramor. It's older than majority of the nordic ruins.
TheLordboki
The city was destroyed and rebuilt around 950 years ago, while Ysgramor originally built it 5,500 years ago.
Note:
During a Skyrim quest you can breach solitude, when you breach it, there are gates dividing the barracks from the first Bailey
Thanks for saying this I wanted to say it too
If it wasn’t for the dragon born the imperials would definitely win
@(ㆁωㆁ) aside from the xenophobia, the stormcloaks are better in almost every way. Freedom of religion, anti-thalmor policy, strong leadership and a homeland. The empire is a crumbling, dominated state used as a puppet by the thalmor to keep its serfs in check. Fuck that. Besides, as a motherfucking dragon person with the most power of anyone you can educate the storm cloaks on racism, if we're playing the scenario out in full.
@@anarchogarfieldist1652 Bro there are better places to debate this, can we not?
Maran God but where
He forgot the most powerful defence it has: the loading screen! The enemies will give up the siege in pure frustration, being so bored while stuck in the loading screen! :^)
Yes! YESSSS! damn those cursed loading screens!
Shadiversity hahah the loading screen spell One of the greatest examples of martial/defense magic of Elder scrolls.
greetings from Italy
they will use the open city's skyrim mod
But then they won't be able to function with the 30fps.
Crusader Dead Meme they will just use a good gaming pc for 60 fps
man, the edited version of the stone archway looks MUCH better then the original imho
They’d best hope that Ulfric Stormcloak doesn’t see this.
No worries, they will look at the Windhelm video
Windhelm location isn't perfect for their defense.
Just look at the big mountain behind the city.
General Tullius may use some catapults there
@@ra_alf9467 you mean trebuches, right? The superior siege engine
@@SilverGamingFI ah, yes. Thank you
Too late
One thing I find funny in LOTR is that Saruman has the power to cause rock slides from a distance but never uses it to attack a fortress build into a cliff.
"That wouldn't make for a good battle scene" - Tolkien
'The power to cause rock slides from a distance' might be a bit more nuanced than that. It was more that Saruman was trying to goad the mountain into causing those avalanches itself. Caradhras was always known as a 'cruel' mountain with an evil reputation. In the Peter Jackson movies you see Saruman pleading to Caradhras to destroy the Fellowship, while Gandalf is trying to get it to sleep. Saruman's power was always his voice and his ability to persuade others. Whether or not he could do that with other (maybe less angry) mountains is debatable.
*nerd mode off*
+GundamSentinel You wrecked him son.
Wow Saruman's voice literally could make mountains do h8s bidding.
That slide being Saruman's work was Jackson, not Tolkien
Is it ever confirmed if it's actually Saurman's voice they hear when trying to cross Caradhras?
Maybe they just wanted to make sure they weren't getting arrows to the knee? :P
Wayne Hounsome I came here just to find this comment!
I scrolled down to see that comment ahah
14:40 And we all wonder why so many guards "took an arrow to the knee..."
It only comes up to their knees because they can't afford to take arrows there.
I'll see myself out.
The cathedral does have gates. You see it during a dark brother hood mission where you assassinate the emperors cousin.
As with the barracks which you see during the civil war quest where you siege solitude
@@yungnut4247 Not only that but non gated entrances were *slightly* compensated for by wooden barricades
you can penetrate solitude through a dungeon
Horses can climb 90 degrees up mountains and he's trying to justify physics?
Of course...what, your horses can' so that?
I agree. Why should Skyrim have things like NPCs talk about how they're worried that their farm won't make enough money for them to live off if horses can climb up a 90 degree slope? It's a video game. It doesn't need things to make sense at all. It's stupid. Completely. Video games can't have things like immersion or pfft, god forbid, good design from the start!
@@themanofmemes4911 All you need in this game is a bucket and a horse
Yeah, wait until he takes a gander at the college of winterhold 👀
u can get a patch to easily fix that....99% of nitpicks for skyrim are easily fixed by mods lol. but with the base game, i agree. they rushed this game out just for a cool release date which hurt this game pretty bad.
Well at least you can't get an arrow in the knee if the wall covers your knee
im tottally calling you when i need to build my castle
After completion your castle, you'll have to kill him through!
I always just told myself the arch was held up by magic.
I'd imagine Dragonborn would feel the same way as if one was walking on a bridge, like, the only thing that is preventing him from crashing through is maybe a few meters of stone.
Remember tamriels physics isnt always the same as our worlds, In lore the white gold tower is taller than the burj khalifa!
@@twiddlerat9920 and where laws of physics are different between planets. I think it's canon that time itself isn't even a thing in other parts of the universe
14:40 the battlements were designed by achilles, he saw no problems with them.
It was actually meant to protect people's knees from arrows.
The city guards required it's inclusion.
What's worse than dying? Yes, being an adventurer no more.
Ex adventures don’t want to be shot in the knees ever again
Omg the genius of this comment!! xD Love it.
Dragon shouts could easily wipe out solitude. A battle between miraak and vahlok broke a chunk of land off from skyrim to create the island of solstheim, and the grey beards don't talk because their voices cause massive destruction like earthquakes.
Arngeir actually tells the Last Dragonborn that, if any of the other Greybeards were to speak any more than a whisper, it could actually cause physical harm. If you talk to the other Greybeards, they occasionally whisper "Dovahkiin", and all of High Hrothgar shakes with their Voice.
Ryan Cauffman what I don't get is that why they don't speak. think about it only dragon language would have that power so if they speak standard language in Elder Scrolls nothing should happen. it is like Latin and the church. yes they can speak it but why would you do so all the time it just isn't practical in day to day life.
+ Andrew Storey The Latin analogy is not quite apt as the Dragon language is supernatural in origin, being the language that shapes the world. If I understood the lore correctly the Greybeards have spent so long training with the Thu'um that they've actually become too connected with the Dragon language to speak normally. That's not a problem for Dragons (or Dragonborn for that matter) since the language is a natural part of their being. The Greybeards have had to alter their nature to be able to use the Thu'um and this has it's price. Arngeir, the Greybeard who does the talking, is actually the weakest of the Greybeards, since he hasn't hit that point yet.
GriffinPilgrim Arngeir may also be the youngest of the Greybeards, which would also explain his relative lack of ability. And Ulfric Stormcloak says that he learned how to use the Thu'um because he was training to become a Greybeard himself, presumably to replace one of the older ones, probably Wulfgar. So it's likely that the Greybeards train new members in advance to allow for at least one of their number to be able to speak normally, and to ensure they always have four active members, not counting Paarthurnax.
+ Ryan Cauffman Makes sense. And Ulfric and Arngeir together show that the issue of being unable to use normal language doesn't hit until you've advanced quite far in your grasp of the Thu'um. Indeed (intentionally or otherwise) they may show different stages. Arngeir can speak the common language but has a rather stilted cadence to his speech, perhaps as it's beginning to be difficult to speak that way, while Ulfric (who only knows two Shouts and not every Word of either) can talk perfectly normally (and is in fact rather well spoken).
It's kinda sad how they get so close and so far at the same time
Daniel Mallett literally
You do realize that due to game engine limitations they had to keep everything smallish yes?
That has nothing to do with anything. Did you even watch the video?
At least the walls keep you from taking an arrow to the knee.
Or they don't, considering how many guards there are XD
IN* the knee. It's 2018, get it right
Fuzzy Wuzzy - Arrow in the knee actually refers to marriage.
I was once an adventure like you then I took an arrow to the knee.
IN the knee
I wonder if a project leader will have everyone make a castle and then tell them "defend it from this AI army from the other teams". That would be a great test for game designers.
Considering how most locations in Skyrim seem to be randomly glued together, I doubt that they ever thought about stuff like that at all.
Archive 405 that sounds like an awesome and fun way to test your ai programmers and designers
Its hard for a game to ever accurately represent a siege in a fun way because they simply take so long. Even with RTSs that traditionally are willing to portray longer time periods they still feel the need to shorten or simplify sieges.
Archive 405 Try old school RS (Runescape). They had Siege, and although it isn't the focus of the game by a longshot, it's very well done.
While this would be cool, I can see a problem with it. While realistic and useful defenses could be awesome for a multiplayer game or something.. you may not want it to be actually good at its job. I mean you have to make it actually be attackable. If you make a proper castle with all the right defenses to actually make it a successfully defensive building... the attackers will never win. That gets pretty boring being on the attacker side.
“Only covers up to your knees” well..yeah...we can’t any more guards taking pesky arrows to the knee
14:40 Well, Shad, you know how you got to keep those knees protected. They're the most valuable part of a Nord's body...wouldn't want an arrow to get stuck there or anything...
this is my favorite comment
I think the gatehouses are supposed to have gates, but the devs just didn't feel like creating animations for them. Honestly without them the civil war questlines for both factions felt way too easy because of it. Can you imagine if you had to break down every single gate on the way to the keep while avoiding arrow fire? That would've been epic! But instead all you have to do is walk up to the front door and stroll on in like you're on your way to get groceries or something.
Well, apparently the civil war was supposed to be much bigger, so I imagine the castle was supposed to be much bigger. I'm guessing the deadline came up.
Every siege is just a grocery raid.
The lack of crenellations in general in Skyrim is prob because of the polygon budget becoming too high on target systems of the day. Them entirely missing in areas the player can actually reach is a design feature since the standard fps-style ball pivot camera mechanics do not allow for the necessary motion to utilize such openings. It's a rare thing in video games to be able to lean, reach around and make use of angles and geometry that given a realistic body representation would be advantageous.
@@JohnSmith-ty2he and it looks like complete garbage. everquest graphics would not sell in 2010.
@@JohnSmith-ty2he everquest today is not everquest from 1999. not even close.
@@JohnSmith-ty2he ooh, several thousand. If only the Elder Scrolls could pull in those kind of numbers.
I know it's a small thing, but now I want that archway as a mod, it always looked odd.
time to call the great council of Modders from the Realm of Nexus mods
Hardly Rainy Gamer I prefer the village of steam workshop because I'm too lazy to click into my files
I had the same thought, but even better, it would be awesome if someone added what shad pointed out as faults to the "city" of solitude, Like gates in the archs, good covers on the walls, an actual gatehouse, etc. I mean it's just from a estetic point of view because, I dont really know how hard would it be to make the guards or soldiers use any of them. I dont know about modding, but i dont think it would be so hard, after all didnt they made a mod for repairing whiterun or solitude after the war quest?
My point is: it looks possible, and shouldnt cause any problem, but yet again I am no modder, nor expert on the topic.
Rafael Rubio i am doing a large overhaul of Solitude and i have added some of theese things and perhaps i will add more. the mod will be released around the late summer of 2017 😊 maybe later =P
Awww man, that sounds awesome!!! I am really looking forward to it. Will you release it on both nexus and steam or just in Nexus ? So I can be aware of it in the upcoming months
He forgot about the sewer entry points you can see in the screenshot that he used for the "defying the laws of physics" bit. First time I went to Solitude I approached from the east, didnt go to the gate on the right, just popped in the sewer thing and went up into the city. Popped me straight in the middle of the city. Seems like a pretty big issue for the defensive capabilities of the High King's home...
Solitude Sewers is a location added by Undeath. It is one of two hideouts where the final ritual to become a lich can be performed. The hideout can be upgraded by purchasing deeds from The Broker. You just have mods mate
LuNaCy LuNaCy there is actually a door in vanilla that leads from under the arch to the division between the market and noble districts. In any case, most castles did have back entrances like that. They were mostly used to move supplies while under siege
The thing in the screenshot is the east empire company
@@Aprroxi nah there's a door above it
Youre not exactly gonna flood troops into a castle through a manhole lmao, its very defendable
I should make a “bettter solitude” mod that fixes all this
Nariopolus yes yes you should that would be amazing if it comes out on PS4 I’ll get my friend who has like 20k subs to review it
www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10609?tab=files&file_id=109884
@@veryswagnemo1984 no one cares about your friend 😂😂
@@thelambsauce7307 damn. That. that hurt
@@thelambsauce7307 h
Quick, someone mod that archway!
My theory is a Wizard Did it. The archway Stays up because magic.
Wasn't there a Daedric Prince below Solitude? Or was that Winterhold?
@@QwertySpaceOfficial not a daedric prince, but the former Solitude ruler who was known as the Wolf Queen. She used necromancy to make an army of undead.
DarkRavenWolf50 There was actually, Sheogorath. He’s in the Pelagius wing.
@@miy1925hassun Yeah true.
why do I remember solitude being so much bigger than this? that sky shot does not do it justice, love the video! Can't wait to see more castle/town etc.
So I want to throw something out here. In the real world very few castles were built into cliff faces or at the base of mountains because of the potential for rock slides, attacks from above, etc.
But in Skyrim and other fantasy worlds, is it not possible that building a castle at the top of a mountain or plateau might be a DISADVANTAGE due to the existence of flying monsters that would immediately have the high ground and no obstruction to just strafe you from the air? In Skyrim's case: Dragons.
Perhaps Skyrim doesn't have that excuse due to how, at the start of the game, Dragons haven't been seen in literal eons, but in other fantasy works where things like dragons or other flying monsters could be a real threat, it seems logical that one might risk the potential danger of rock slides for the purpose of having at least one side of your city/castle/fort protected by a massive natural wall. The dragons or other flying monsters can't approach as easily from that side, meaning that you'd only have to defend from massive, man-eating monsters on the other sides.
I'm no expert, but it's just a thought.
Yeah, the mountain is perfect for obstructing archers from seeing an incoming dragon, or shooting a fleeing dragon!
I mean theoretically, yes, but there's nothing stopping them from putting a watch post on the top of the mountain instead of the castle itself to alert the town. And if the dragon is approaching from the far side of the mountain then presumably it can't see the castle, same as the castle can't see it. In such a scenario the dragon might just fly over it without even noticing, or if it does notice, then both the castle and the dragon have equal amounts of preparation time - which is to say none at all.
Also "fleeing dragon?" Dragons aren't generally in the habit of fleeing.
Setting up a watch post on maintain top isn't a good idea. Imagine you are in a watch tower with 2-3 guarrisons, and there is a dragon flying! The castle cannot reinforce you on the mountain top quickly, and your team will be slaughtered immediately.
The only useful thing you can do is to shoot signal to the castle for reinforcement and preparation, before your team gets slaughtered. This gives the castle time to prepare, at the cost of a few sacrificial guards. Now here's a clever dragon: instead of attacking the castle, it/he/she kills the guards in the watch tower, and retreat. Tomorrow it will come back again, and the day after tomorrow, until there is no more guard in the castle. Then every unarmed civilian in the castle will be slaughtered.
So what have you gained? You could have seen the dragon is coming, if your castle is on the mountain top. Instead of dividing your troops to give the enemy localized numerical superiority.
"Dragons aren't generally in the habit of fleeing" Unfortunate, dragons in Skyrim often fly away, after having fought against me for 5 minutes, and on the losing side. I don't know if that is intended, but it was certainly annoying, because I wasted 5 minutes, and there's nothing I could do to pursue the dragon.
Couldn't they just perch on the "wall," though? Then, they have cover and a place to rest outside your gates while still potentially remaining in range to rain fire down behind the walls.
"Just nice pretty gardens"
BUT WHAT ABOUT DRAGONS?
Look at me learning about architecture and engineering.
Wood = great tensile strength. Stone = great compressive strength. It all makes sense now. And I guess steel has more tensile strength too, which is why arches under are now optional, but bridges have all these arches and wires above holding it.
Internet is a marvelous thing, isn't it?
6:50 as a slovenian, i am happy that one of our castles was mentioned. Also, fun fact: the only time castle Predjama was ever successfully besieged was because the lord of the castle was killed by trebouche fire while in the outhouse on the far left, which was the only part of the structure that couldnt withstand it. It also has a fun secret entrance and exit through the cave behind it
That's crazy. It literally was a way to go.
What an embarrassment for the lord
that gatehouse... no wonder they got an arrow in the knee
So the capital of Skyrim is a poorly built castle?
Yep ^_^
Castle Dour was the main fortification in Skyrim's early history, the city of Solitude grew around it over the centuries
What fits into gameplay is mere shadow of what's in lore. Daggerfall had population of 110,000. If Bethesda made TES:High Rock, then in gameplay Daggerfall would have just 50+ people.
Daggerfall also required two weeks IRL to travel from one side of the map to the other IIRC
You're confusing game of TES:Daggerfall and city of Daggerfall. Here's lore population at third era: elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/A_History_of_Daggerfall (third paragraph in Content)
As far as size, it is important to remember that in The Elder Scrolls games, things are scaled down from their size in lore. All of the Skyrim cities are greatly scaled down from their size in lore.
is Elder scrolls inspired by books? or games? or somewhere is stated that books are primary canon source for this world? if so then yes its scaled down if not than it not scaled down and this is lore. It is like a death star was portrayed not as planet but small ship and then someone said its just scaled down in lore its bigger. Nope. What is shown is canon.
the og elder scrolls games Arena and Daggerfall aren't scaled down one bit. They suffer from different issues though.
The worst one is Riften. It has walls, but there is no place for guards to walk on the walls! What's the point of that wall if you can't defend it?
it's called a palisade it's mainly used to keep out smaller problemjs like bandits or wild animals and shit
I don’t know ,ugh about historical castles, but it seems like it would be useful as a choke point generator, as well as restrict fire between 2 points to mortars and other indirect fire weapons
umm.. it gives you a bit more time to assemble your troops while the enemy is busy tearing down your walls? XD
It’s a fishing village it has nothing to protect
@@fraser4982 "...like bandits..."
The walls aren't exactly doing a very good job, are they?
I am starting to see a pattern here: "Great ideas, good basic layout and poor final touches and for the love of everything stop making walls so thin they could not hold their own weight."
Keep them coming I really enjoy these videos.
So here I am sitting, binge watching your castle series, and mentally comparing the castle citting in the middle of my city to your comments. The part about the wall thickness got me the most because one-stone thick walls of Solitude look ridiculous in comparison. Most of local castles have walls so thick you get chilly inside when it's climbing beyond 30C outside.
Regarding the comments you made about the stone bridge:.Though most of your comments regarding it and the qualities of stone are not inaccurate, they are incomplete.
As a former architectural student and someone who's worked with stone and concrete, I can tell you that there are more factors that come into play, such as the type of stone involved.
Whereas less dense types of stone such as sandstone would be representative of your assertions, harder denser stones such as granite, could easily support the stone bridge as modeled in Skyrim. Would said bridge be even stronger if it conformed to a traditional arch, absolutely, but that doesn't say that the structure shown wasn't strong enough.
Also, you need to consider is the bridge made of a single piece of stone or multiple pieces of stone pressed together by friction and time. In the latter case, the bridge would likely be highly unstable and a poor choice on which to build. In the former, it could be quite strong. In fact, if you take a single piece of stone such as granite who's depth is no less than, let's say, 1:8 of its length, it would be plenty strong enough to do the job. Take a granite block 4 meters by 0.5 meters by 0.5 metes and stand it up on a block at either end, and you could easily stand on such a block without it breaking. Do the same on sandstone or unreinforced low grade cement and it MIGHT hold up, but I wouldn't want to be the one standing on it.
see news.ai/images/bridge1.jpg for a real world example of natural stone bridges that do not conform to a traditional arch.
or tovisitibiza.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/StoneBridge-Toby.jpg
or bigadventuresinasmallworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/img_2485.jpg
or just google "natural stone bridges"
An arch IS the strongest method to bridge two gaps, but it's not necessarily the required method, depending on the type of stone and the distance and thickness involved.
As for the benefits and drawbacks of the castle itself, I leave that analysis to your far superior expertise.
Awesome! Thanks :3
Alan S So, would you say that this bridge is actually realistic (or there isn't enough information)? To me it looks like one piece of stone, and it could be granite.
Alan S Its not granite
Enemies could still just blow up the bridge, yeah?
Olter And how do you know that?
Don't let the Storm cloaks see this
I really like your castle analyzes and the ones from video games are definitely something else and quite cool.
Plus I love the way you pronounce Hochosterwitz :D Been there a few months ago and it is great indeed!
Thanks and keep up the good job :)
Okay, Shad, after this and WIndhelm, I have to say--I think you are really overestimating the whole "engineered landslide" idea in the context of Skyrim. Ignoring game engine and other computer-derived limitations, looking at these sites with the eye of a geologist, frankly, I don't see it happening in a scale of time any more reasonable than knocking the Blue Palace into the ocean by bombarding its base. The mountains are clearly igneous or metamorphic in nature, not sedimentary, which you can tell by a distinct lack of any sort of talus slopes pretty much anywhere in the game (color is a good, if imperfect, indicator too). Without the enormous amount of space and air pockets and general looseness trapped in settling sediments, breaking igneous or metamorphic rock is SOOOO much harder because the molecular structure is so tightly interwoven.
Additionally, slides, big slides, the kind you seem concerned about, tend to follow along the striation of rock (regardless if sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic), not against it, and in both locations, the mesh-level stratigraphy slopes away from the city/castle.
A nitpick for my favorite nitpicker. ;) Keep it up!
Well. I don't know why he kept going back to rock slide. But even just stationing small arms fire or siege equipment about that of the wall renders it a much better position than those defending. Most likely leading to a retreat on that flank and then a swift capture of the walls.
@@ripperfisher182250 I don't see artillery getting up there, but even a small group of archers or crossbowmen could be a big danger from this angle.
You could easily send up some engineers, build a small wooden palisade up there and station 2 dozen crossbowmen there. They could absolutely anhiliate the defenders.
This comment is copypasta goldmine
Could you not also engineer a rock slide by bringing up a bunch of rocks and pushing them down?
Also, more importantly, that area is a *really* good place to put siege engines. Slap some catapults or trebuchets up there, and rain down destruction upon the city. Of course, now the city is going to have difficulty reaching you, but you will have no issue reaching the city.
NeptunesOrcaII how are you going to carry enough rocks up to that mountain side to make a significant enough of a landslide without being discovered, I’d imagine that considering this is the Imperial capital of Skyrim which is currently embroiled in a vicious civil war they’d have scouts and outer patrols around the “city”.
You think there is only one logical way to the main structure but I'm sure you could climb the rocky side and infiltrate it from the side, especially if you had a Skyrim horse
As somebody living near Hochosterwitz castle, I enjoyed your pronunciation a lot. 😁 I visited the castle already a couple of times and it stuns me every time. Would recommend it a lot!!!!
may I recommend the third or fourth walled 'cities' of Skyrim.
them being Windhelm and Markarth.
Ohhh yeah, Markarth seems like a good fortification, I mean they have this big ass wall and gate blended with the mountain, (I think, I havent played skyrim for a while now), also they have some interesting bridges and levels that if you put some archers on the sides the way through the keep would be hard, This also reminds me of when you help the forsworn escape from Markarth, hmmm. Good old times, I love skyrim.
Out of all cities (or castles), I'd say Windhelm probably has a better defense set up. Long bridge with a dead zone. Sadly, the castle is aged, and there's stones lying about and has little to no battlements on the main walls. There's also the issue that once you get into the "Castle", you can go anywhere without being gated off (afaik, I always sided with the Stormcloaks). Sadly, the bridge also lacks gates itself.
If Solitude and Windhelm had gates within the "castle", I'd say they both would've been good in terms of gameplay.
Markarth all the way
Both work well against Dragons mind you; all stone so little to burn and in Markarth a Dragon swooping in is running a great risk of smacking into a mountain.
I'd actually say Fort Dawnguard has a better set up than Windhelm once they put in the palisade. The walls have actual battlements WITH arrow-slits and are high enough to offer a commanding view of the valley, the valley it's in is narrow and hidden, and the entrance to said valley is too small to bring siege engines in. If one were to try to mount an attack on the palisade without siege equipment they would be absolutely raked with arrow fire from the ramparts as well as the positions on the palisade itself.
Even if they got past that, the path up to the gate is too narrow and twisted to bring up a large ram to force the gates, best they could hope for is a small 5 to 6 man ram without making earthworks to alter the path to the gate into a ramp, all while still being peppered from the walls.
Finally even if they got past the gate the entry hall has 3 interior portcullises turning the entry hall into a huge death trap.
I can see room for improvement certainly, but it's still better than Windhelm's wide straight bridge with plenty of room for a ram, no real battlements for the defensive positions on said bridge, and no ramparts on the walls, and that's ignoring the big hole in their defenses, the Grey Quarter gate. You could easily bridge the river and bring up a ram onto the docks, and the defenders on the main bridge would have no way to stop you.
Some time .... I don´t know when .... Maybe few years maybe never but I am going to make a REMAKE of Skyrim Castles like you said. Everything you point out will be fixed. BTW - I subscribed just because of this video.
Also it will have walls and towers on the mountain. Improvemend of the walls , more defence , everything. If someone want to do that tell me (I am not going to help because I never done this think before but it would be cool to have that downloaded) Just think of it because I want to be mod creator. (But as I said I never done this , never try this , I am like a new born baby at this - You know just giving someone ideas to do that)
Just to be clear, you can definitely class solitude as a city and probably most other settlements in skyrim as cities because in europe (where the game’s topography is based off) settlements become cities when they contain cathedrals. In skyrim they have temples in most settlements which in my opinion would make them cities, however solitude has a temple to (almost) all of the divines, making it definitely skyrim’s equivalent of a cathedral meaning that solitude must be a city.
Edit: this is not as much the case now as there are many people of different faiths now, but this still applies due to the time setting of skyrim being medieval and the fact that everyone in skyrim is religious, much like in medieval times, places more significance on religious buildings.
"You can't get at it with ladders..."
Someone call Gilligan, and get a hell load of souls...
The cost is for the wood to make the ladder
Fun fact in lore all the places are bigger and they are not exactly the same as shapes and layout probably differ a bit (less than size does but still) a good proof of this is when we read lore we hear of massive armies I would be surprised if there is a thousand guards in the game which probably will be there in a large city also if a new game releases that is in skyrim the landmarks will look hecka different not cities landmarks but the fact about inaccuracies comes from Bethesda's laziness and false knowledge or lack of tools and technology(as an elder scrolls fan,it's my favorite game series, I would say more probably laziness).
true, like in the books and lore in game describe taking days or so to get from place A to place B but yu can literally run from one end of Skyrim to the other in less than a day in game
he's right bout size. When I played the game I just ignored how it called these places cities. I called them castles and saw each as surrounded by nearest farms/so called villages as the 'city's and everything else as like the surrounding barony that the Jarl got to rule/tax
Made slightly more sense size wise in my head then
Everything is teeny tiny.
Is Lord Farquad's castle from shrek realistic?
It's defenty not dragon proof
My impression of the archway was that, because Solitude is so old, there's a chance that when it was built, the stone it was sitting on was a proper archway. Over time, it fell apart- be it by battle or weathering or what have you. It wasn't built on a bridge so much as the archway became a bridge. Now why Solitude is not in the ocean is a mystery, but there's no saying that it wouldn't happen in the future. We could simply be looking at the last few moments that the city remains standing. It could come down at ANY TIME.
I think, also, that it's called a city and not a castle because of simple matter of semantics. Due to the low population density in Skyrim, the "city" is where the most people live in one place. It's where the Jarl lives. It's where the best goods are. It's the place most protected from danger (presumably). I live in a very rural area where the nearest college town has more people in it than the entire COUNTY. Someone in a large city would call it a small town. We call it the city.
There could be some Skyrim magic holding it up? if that makes sense
The age theory is actually pretty interesting. There is in fact a slope up to the Blue Palace, so theres that.
@PHX Exept they are not, and don'r try to argue with me, I am one of those guys who read most of the in game books.
I mean, it could have something similar to the College of Winterhold going on. It is the capital of Skyrim, so it would make sense that they'd give it magical protection.
i live in wales (the place with the most castles in the world) and near by me there is a castle built with it's back to a hill called gwrych castle and on the hill there are path's that lead from the castle to random lookout tower's that overlook each direction on the hill and was used as a early warning system unfortunatly now a day's the castles in such disrepair that it is almost compleatly fenced off due to being a hazard but then again there are a LOT of castles like that in wales :P
archways to barracks actually have portcullis. during the fight against Imperial army when joined Stormcloaks, they block access to barracks and you as a player must open it to occupy the city for Stormcloaks
I really like this series.
Thanks!
I had always had a feeling that the rock bridge of solitude would eventually collapse
Please do Markarth. Seems to have a good position for a city.
I wanted to say this myself but you beat me to it.
Until you realize Markarth was also built into a mountainside. Markarth was also not built on a hill, nor does it contain internal walls between the outer wall and the keep. One good thing that can be said for Markarth is its immunity to fire.
Markarth is better for the mountain thing than Solitude since it's built right up against an almost sheer cliff rather than in the shadow of a mountain. Climbing up to the top of the Markarth mountain isn't even possible in game. Plus the city is on a slope up to the keep, which gives defenders the high ground at all times even as they fall back. As for internal walls, true it doesn't have any but the keep itself is actually built into the mountain so one can forget busting the walls down or scaling them; there is no top to scale to. Even if you take the city getting into the keep would be a nightmare. Or it would if you didn't know about the two or three other entrances. Whoops.
In the case of Markarth it's noteworthy that it has to defend from attacks from the depth of the moutain as well.
True, though the Dwemer automatrons prevent most of that.
Lol wasn't too hard for the stormcloaks to invade
HRNTT The Stormcloaks did have a demigod who can rend people limb from limb by talking loudly to assist them.
HRNTT helps that the gates in all Skyrim sieges are unlocked and no people are defending the outer walls
In my personal opinion, I'd have to agree with Weasel Guts and Maintenance Brigade. No matter who wins the Civil War, as long as the Dovahkiin intervenes, the Thalmor lose. I also see a strong independent Skyrim as being preferable to an Empire that includes Skyrim in the context of fighting the Thalmor. Frankly, without massive reforms (which would be very difficult to push through), the Empire is on the road to complete dissolution regardless of the outcome of the war. As was previously mentioned, the only provinces the Empire still has effective control over are High Rock, Cyrodiil, and Morrowind, at least one of which is actively imploding. Even if it regains control of Skyrim, a sizable chunk of the populace will be resentful of and uncooperative towards Imperial forces, leaving only High Rock and Cyrodiil to effectively fight the Thalmor, albeit with a (possible) alliance with forces from Hammerfell and Bosmeri or Khajiiti resistance movements.
With an independent Skyrim, on the other hand, I see it very likely that both Skyrim and the Empire would unite in the face of a common enemy against the Thalmor, or at the very least refrain from hindering each other. There are also the aforementioned Redguards, Bosmer and Khajiit resistance fighters to join forces with any outside power fighting the Thalmor. On top of that, an independent Skyrim is effectively an entire nation built from the ground up with the purpose of resisting foreign foes, assisted by highly defensible geography (being entirely ringed by tall, rocky mountains). Also, while it's true that many Nordic supporters of the Empire would be disgruntled, I suspect that most of them would shortly either accept the new political situation or simply migrate away.
I enjoyed sacking windhelm
@Lady Wanderer Even if the Dovakin disappeared, which is unlikely, the mere idea that the savior of the world hated the thalmor and viewed them as a threat would do wonders for anti-thalmor sentiments. Not to mention Skyrim is a rather strong position to resist invasions, and seeing as the takeover of Skyrim was done through politics and not military force, it helps prove my point. It would essentially be like taking Russia but worse due to a more aggressive enviroment. So, the Thalmor/Empire might be able to retake Skyrim, but it would be incredibly costly and not really worth it.
Man i've been to Hochosterwitz some years ago, truly amazing! walking up from the base of the hill, passing through the first gate took me about 10 minutes at a good speed until i reached the topmost gate, and, i mean, all the gates were open, i wasn't wearing armor or pushing any siege equipment, and there was no one shooting arrows at me. Being a Soldier assaulting that castle truly must've been hell.
Solitude alone is the reason I joined the Imperial Legion in Skyrim
Hochosterwitz was my favorite Castle when i was a kid :) Every year my family would vacation at the same camping grounds near Klagenfurt, and every year my parents took me there because i loved it so much.
By the way, great channel!!!
do the Imperial city from Oblivion
It's on the list ^_^
aww ye
Great suggestion, I'd really like to see the commentary on IC's defenses.
Shadiversity I personaly think that you cant really divide the town in to two parts because the pridge in the between does not have any gates it simply goes ower the city.
Yes you could build some barrigades under it but I dont think it counts.
These are my favorite videos btw keep it up! 👍
Shadiversity And are you planning to do any castle reviews from dark souls series? It has the most epic fantasy castles/cities in the gaming world. :D
Just check out Lothrick castle/ city and Anor Londo. :)
ahh but the knee height wall is the greatest defense for those poor guards!
As long as it protects the knees, don't want another arrow incident
I almost guarantee there is going to be some book in ES6 that talks about some earthquake happening and half of solitude falling into the ocean, like winterhold.
If they ever get to it
The cities in Oblivion probably have the best defences of Tamriel. Not the imperial city though, that also has no real battlements I think.
Willem Verheij hammerfell has cannons though
It had one hell of a long bridge, though.
AntiSkillshot True, but seeing how ships can sail pretty much all around the imperial city, that kind of defeats the point. It could be surrounded from all sides with ships that could easily carry siege equipment or have it mounted on there.
I dunno, the big hollowed out asteroid floating in the air in Morrowind was pretty damn good...at least until the magic stopped working...
Do you mean oblivion or cyrodiil lol
As an Estonian, your pronunciation of Viljandi castle made me laugh so much
Some one needs to make a mod that fixes these things......
*ahem* www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7823?tab=description
OOOOH! :)
Do the city of Novigrad next! It's from the wither 3, and a really cool but at the same time realistic castle
Jens Kofoed novingrad isn't a castle its a city
casthelion It's way to small to be a city, but it's the closest I've seen videogames come to it. Way beter than anything in ES.
MisterJasro I can actually call novingrad a city. I know city's that were a lot smaller in historical times. (just a little bit bigger than Oxinfurt) I know for modern day standards it is small bud for a medieval like setting is a good size. bud not near the biggest city in the world what they say bud looking at the speed of time in the witcher 3 will the world be scaled 1:20 so it will be much bigger.
Novigrad has approximately at least several thousand inhabitants. That is indeed a sizable city, at least in the Early Middle Ages. The North is more like High/Late Middle Age, so not super accurate, but at least it feels like a city.
Novigrad has about 30.000 in population that lives there permanently, and has about the same amount of refugees fleeing from the war with Nilfgaard
I also really love that plateu in the cliff face, Perfect view right into the city. Get a group of archers or a cannon or something up there and goodbye defenders.
Hello. I am Salmo Honditar, an Altmer geologist working in the Imperial City in Cyrodiil. I am here to debunk your wrongful theories in this video.
You are assuming rocks on Nirn are the same as those in your lowly planet Earth. The Solitude arch might be impossible if it was formed on your planet, where your sandy rocks are so fragile a 10 years old Altmer could easily shatter them with a blast of ice from his hands. Rocks on Nirn have a much higher level of hardness on the Mohs scale and are far less sceptible to elemental damage, but I understand that a species which lacks Magicka in its genes would fail to realize those facts clearly.
As for the size of the city which you are calling a "Castle", please note that Bethesda didn't represent the full size of Skyrim in your video game. The cities and villages of Skyrim during the 4th era were much bigger and more populated than what's represented in the game, but neither your backward technology nor gaming preferences would have been fit for games of true-to-life scales.
Thank you for reading this.
Your master, Salmo.
This one loves this, even coming from a decietful Altmer.
@Jacomo65 it was a joke
Shad, if you could post links to the historical castles you discuss in the video (and other videos like it) that would be awesome, no offense to your pronunciation, but I'm having a difficult time googling them!
Great suggestion, I'll get to that now.
+Shadiversity thanks mate! Much appreciated
Speaking of historical castles, Shad, living in Germany, I actually know quite a number of castles situated on the flank of a hill or mountain.
That bad arch aggravated me SO much. And I actually attacked solitude in game from that mountian ledge with a crossbow and killed a bunch of people. One of my favorite things to do in Skyrim is try to take a hold solo. It's really a shame how easy it is most of the time #RitualStone
Well in Skyrim having a barrier that stops you getting an arrow in the knee is all you need!
Why are the "Cities" in Skyrim so freakin small? Especially Whiterun
Noah Bowers engine limitations
Dawnstar was barely a tiny fishing village
@@bengosling4606 well winterhold is literally nothing then
Console hardware limitations, and the ancient engine which Bethesda makes games on.
Oblivion had some really good size cities
I'd love to see shad create a city overhaul mod,it'd be really cool.
14:39 well, you know how these Nords are about knee protection, right?
You should do Novigrad from Witcher 3! It is one of the few actual cities I've seen in games.
Dont forget the door by the docks that leads inside one of the towers, ik im 3 years late but this just popped in to my recommendations
Nothing like a good thrashing of nonsensical design choices.
perhaps that is what happened to winterhold, and solitude's bridge is a ticking time bomb
Gary winterhold was placed on a Giant sturdy cliff, it collapsed when red mountain erupted WHICH caused earthquakes all over tamriel, its actually Quite weird that solitude did not go down too...like the college
So, maybe Solitude had a complete arch underneath the Blue Palace and it partially broke during the earthquake and what we get ther now is just the current state of business. lol
Gary winterhold collapsed long after red mountain, my theory is that a giant landslide on the northern Arctic continent of atmora caused by a large northern storm system that was already battering winterhold weakened the ice clad and ice imbued cliffs causing a colapse that triggered a mega tsunami several 100 meters high wiping winterhold off the map with the college protected by a giant ward much like the one that occurs when ancarno triggers the eye of magnus. god damn im a nerd lol
TheRandomshite123 no..i told you, it was the red mountain eruption that destroyed it, just ask some ppl around winterhold
Really love this kind of video! Would you like to make one for Masyaff from Assassins creed 1/Brotherhood? It's one of my favourite video game castles of all times, I think it's well designed and it would be very interesting to examine this, because of the unorthodox fighting style of the defenders, I think
*The Dark Brotherhood wants to know your location*
I have a mod installed that makes the Holds bigger and more city like. It also fortified the holds with bigger walls and gates and adds more guards.
How is it called? Sounds interesting
Michał C. It’s incredibly good.
Michał C. It’s called the great cities of Skyrim and Whiterun fortified.
@@toby1061 oh now I realize that I have it already. Kinda easy to loose track once you have 200 mods installed. Thanks anyways
Stumbled across this stuff and holy hell this is fantastically engaging, entertaining and educating information I've seen in a long while on RUclips.
What's also more interesting is that, in getting back into Minecraft, this kind of stuff is really interesting for creating better structures and giving some real life examples. Love it and if it wasn't 1am I'd binge watch all of this ^-^
I'd really like to see your opinion of Fort Dawnguard Shad, preferably when you're far enough along they've erected the secondary palisade, it kinda covers the holes in the defenses the original builders missed.
what I've always wondered is why guards are always pitying the unwalled cities because of the dragons.
I mean, what the FUCK do those guards think a wall will do to stop a dragon?
Gary they probably mean they are so defenseless that they can't even afford a wall, meaning they are hopeless
If a dragon were to attack from outside the walls (because sportsmanship) the stone walls might block the flames/frost.
note: the most powerful dragons in skyrim often have powerful enough thuum's to tear down any walls.
an example of this is how when mirraak duelled with a dragon it created a new continent.
Xytan Vadum'ee
I'm assuming you are referring to Solstheim (an island not a continent) which was created because of a battle between Miraak and Vahlok, not a dragon.
Why would a powerful dragon do something as insignificant as kill a few mortals. The weaker dragons probably see this as some kind of challenge, but and dragon strong enough surely wouldn't be bothered by such trifle affairs?
ah my mistake, also Miraak if am not mistaken was a great threat to dragons, not as powerful as 'the dragonborn' (as in the main character of skyrim) in lore.
still according to this my point stands, two mortal beings were capable of splitting land mass into a large island. that is more then enough to render any mortal security worthless.
There is yet another flaw with Solitude - an alternate entrance. If you jump to 8:00 where Shad highlights the different segments, there is an issue with the wall between the red and blue segments. The tower on the southern end there seems to be to get onto the wall next to it. And it does. But it also goes down to the harbor outside the castle. You can see the door to it at 16:18. It has a gate on it at the market level, but no barrier whatsoever on the wall level. Seems like it's meant to be used as a shortcut for supplies to come up from the harbor directly into the marketplace, but it's a very glaring oversight when the only thing protecting this way in is a bronze gate and a flimsy wooden door.
Will ya do fort dawnguard or castle volkihar
Matthew Smith both would be incredibly difficult to siege because good luck getting siege equipment to either
Βασιλεύς Starve them out with a blockade
Just saying, I think it would be incredibly difficult to blockade Castle Volkihar, considering the inhabitants of the castle.
[ REDACTED ] blow up the bridge, and a naval bloackade from the Empire could wait them out, vampires cant walk on water or fly
But Vampire Lords, in magic stance, can.
I always though solitude was such an amazing castle/city, especially when I saw it for the first time. I think as a design without the mountain and with a much better base it would of been impossible to effectively siege without losing most of your army.
However in skyrim its been around for many years and perhaps has magic to help strengthen certain parts of the city.
Plus the archway may have been one before erosion took place and so they used magic to make it stable when they realised that they would all die soon, or bethesda was lazy as usual
ESO definitely fixed some of those problems i was walking around and I noticed gates and murder holes and the walls look alot better
I used to build castles in the scenario editor in Stronghold and always thought that my designs were total overkill and that no real castle would be that strong. Turns out I wasn't even going strong enough in some cases. Who would have thought?
PS: Solitude is really easy to conquer even in the game, should you choose to help the Thalmor install a sleeper agent as the high king of Skyrim, for some reason (you filthy traitor).
you should do a video on Mount and Blade, and see if their castles are realistic.
Michael Boyd Yes! Great idea! I also want Shad to examine them.
I mean we know they're easy to take, you just get an army and build some siege towers/ladders then kill your way to victory.
Sometimes you can get away with parking a large group of archers outside the walls with a small group of huscarls forming a shield wall 10 paces I front of them.
Something that has always impressed me is how much effort it would take to move resources and stone up a mountain/plateau to even build these structures in the first place.