Personally I thought the whole "Cyrodiil = jungle province" was absurd, especially in the context of the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Map. How do you run a continent-wide empire with your capital deep within an otherwise uninhabited jungle? That's just stupid.

The presentation of Cyrodiil as a temperate rainforest with highlands and some open plains in Oblivion seemed more convincing, particularly with 8 other cities in the province. Though I am irked by the lack of extensive farmlands (there's nothing on the scale of plantations in Morrowind's Ascadian Isles, for example), and way the City Isle was underdeveloped (Imperial City really should've had more districts).

Giant Robot threats

Statements like this are hilarious.

While this seriously isn't directed at anyone, I don't get how people can question some of the stuff in Elder Scrolls like this. Is it just lore ignorance or what? It's seriously confusing. This IS a place where a big huge Transformer-sized robot helped secure an empire.

Interesting questions, interesting answers.

Would have been anyway.

You have never read the PGE, have you?

Perhaps Bethesda had a problem envisioning a global empire run by anyone but Anglo-Saxons from Wolverhampton.

if we're going by the arena map, it sure doesn't look like there's much for jungles except for east of the imperial city.

Sounds about right. The Nibean basin is Jungle, the East is the Colovian East, more rugged but not quite Skyrim yet. Something like say http://www.lancelotfinn.com/novgorod-caucasus_083.jpg.

Not that anybody should put to much weight on the exact lines of a map though. Untill Tamriel develops a rail network and people start to commit murders on the clock you can move cities and borders a few tens of miles about without creating any significant problems.

The Caucasus is more rugged and alpine than anything you'll see in Norway, isn't it? I do think that they should ditch Scandinavia and use it as inspiration for Skyrim.

Anyways, judging by the PGE map, the jungles surrounded Rumare where the Great Forest is now, punctured by many rivers running down from the temperate highlands and the Jeralls. The snow melt floods the rice fields and initiates the annual reversal of current that speeds the world's trade down through the Niben, until it clashes with the tide at Topal and forms the great eddy that vessels can use to slingshot off into any direction.

I started wandering somewhere in there,

Dev's laziness (it explains so many things on Oblivion), console limitations, the will to push standard, bland, LOTR fantasy on casual gamers and, maybe, they rushed the game.

That's why Cyrodiil is New Zealand instead of a tropical jungle. Oblivion is a good game but it is so much less than it could be...

First off, anyone who calls the devs lazy probably hasn't developed their own game yet.

Second off, anyone who compares Oblivion to LOTR probably isn't very familiar with LOTR itself.

Third off, anyone who tries to pass off LOTR as standard and bland and for casual gamers probably -- well, just see above.

That aside. Im not the most proficient guy on TES lore, but this:

It is the largest region of the continent, and most is endless jungle. Its center, the grassland of the Nibenay Valley, is enclosed by an equatorial rain forest and broken up by rivers. As one travels south along these rivers, the more subtropical it becomes, until finally the land gives way to the swamps of Argonia and the placid waters of the Topal Bay. The elevation rises gradually to the west and sharply to the north. Between its western coast and its central valley there are all manner of deciduous forest and mangroves, becoming sparser towards the ocean. The western coast is a wet-dry area, and from Rihad border to Anvil to the northernmost Valenwood villages forest fires are common in summer. There are a few major roads to the west, river paths to the north, and even a canopy tunnel to the Velothi Mountains, but most of Cyrodiil is a river-based society surrounded by jungle.

Seems incredibly accurate, minus the jungles. Like I said, I'm not so lore efficient as to know-it-all, but this is from an observational standpoint. So what has there really been missed between (above) and what Cyrodiil is in Oblivion? Given this, the Talos explanation seems more than satisfying as to the nature of Cyrodiil's landscape.

That said, and as it has been pointed out before, the real element missing is the lack of depth and complexity in Imperial City that was so present in Morrowind. Compared to this, the lack of a hardcoe jungle anywhere in Cyrodiil seems trivial.

That is what I believe too. I don't like it, but I don't write the lore. And unless Bethesda turns around and decides to retcon the retcon, we can assume that what we see is how it is, for the most part. A few aspects are probably just game limitations or mistakes, like the small size of the province (game limitation.) and the fact that Leyawiin completely blocks the river off from Topal Bay (a mistake, probably.))



Doing so actually isn't completely inaccurate, since modern bland, standard fantasy mostly stems from Lord of the Rings, in this case, though, it's more like everyone copied Tolkien, not that Tolkien was being unoriginal. Creating his own universe with its own detailed background was a pretty good idea. It's just that everyone else decided to copy what was on the surface while missing what actually made the work great (as most who try to copy other works do.) thus we get the elves and orcs, but not the detailed history and mythology.



The only one of those that actually serves to explain it is the third option, tropical vegetation probably isn't any harder to model than anything else, and I'm sure it's not harder for consoles to do, and if Bethesda had rushed the game, it wouldn't have taken four years or so to develop.

The similarities to LOTR in TES series is superficial, even in Oblivion. It's more accurate to say that it was D&D that copied Tolkien, and many games copied D&D. This includes TES (just look at Arena). You'll notice that TES sharply deviates from the traditional stock high fantasy on numerous counts (e.g. grey morality, Vedic influences in cosmology, the high elves are not nice, "dwarves" actually are an extinct elf culture, etc.).

ohhh sorry i wasnt trying to be harsh maybe i shouldnt have jumped to conclusions

as we all know ciridill is a jungle i mean look at blakwood

First off, I can said the dev are much more capable off pulling off many things prier to the release. But as I see it in Oblivion, its more they say it is a "rush" then it is actually is. In other word, they did not use up their full potential and many things were not put in, which been could of.

Second off, I am pretty sure they are in comparison with the Movie of LOTR, which in a in sense, a comparison that both land looks alike.

Third, Oblivion was streamline. Even the dev themselves said this. They are after the console players. It always have and always will have.


While it is true that Cyrodiil is not 100% jungle, its more that the jungle did exist in many, many parts of the land, but instead of actually placement of the jungle, its just cut-n-paste forest, though I find it funny ya did not bold the the whole "but most of Cyrodiil is a river-based society surrounded by jungle".


Actually, the way I see it, the similarities of LOTR in TES series is more environmental. They look very similar to each other in that term

And of course its origin to that of DnD. What many sword and magic RPG isn't?

Geographically, LOTR is incredibly diverse. If you look at Eriador alone, at the center you have Bree, which is comprised of the Bree Fields, the Old Forest, and The Barrow-Downs. The Bree Fields are comparable to maybe the lands around Skingrad, but that's about it. Both the Old Forest and Barrow-Downs are unique -- there's really nothing in TES to compare either to. You have the Shire to the west of that -- again the Shire is pretty unique. It's quite extensively covered in farm land, with forest to the north and a swamp in the northwest, and I suppose, other than the lack of mountains, is probably most like Cyrodiil. Ered Luin is even further west and has snow-capped mountains in the north with large hills to the south. That's about as close to TES as LOTR gets, because to the south of Bree you have the Lone-lands, which is a large arid grassland dotted with ruins. To the north of Bree you have the North Downs, which are quite diverse innate of themselves, comprised of farm lands, swamps, pine forests, and even a vast wasteland. To the west of the North Downs you have Evendim, which is a sprawling lake with forests on its western edge, mountains on its eastern edge, and a large city on its southern side. North of that there is Forochel, which is a frozen wasteland with icy canyons and large mountains, with a large bay in its northern half, and the area is inhabited by tribals, but otherwise uninhabitable. Northeast of the North Downs is Angmar, a giant wasteland. South of that are the Ettenmoors, a large area with pine forests, crossed by rivers, a mountain wastelands on the north and east. Even more south are the Trollshaws, home to trolls, giants, and dragons. It's pretty much a large pine forest with many cliff faces, a large river going through it, and a small highlands area in the east. The Trollshaws is also where Rivendell is located. East of that you have the Misty Mountains, a large range of snow-capped mountains that contain Moria, a sprawling cave system unlike anything you might find in TES.

The above is a BRIEF description of Eriador, which is an area smaller yet than either Rohan or Gondor.

To call LOTR generic is incredibly ignorant, and to compare the diversity of LOTR's landscapes with the lack of diversity of Cyrodiil's is an insult to the very nature of LOTR's geographical diversity. Kthx.

Pretty much. Though nothing is more alpine then the Alps, might stick with those.



That's the nice part about the PGE.

Cyrodiil is the cradle of Human Imperial high culture on Tamriel. It is the largest region of the continent, and most is endless jungle. The Imperial City is in the heartland, the fertile Nibenay Valley. The densely populated central valley is surrounded by wild rain forests drained by great rivers into the swamps of Argonia and Topal Bay. The land rises gradually to the west and sharply to the north. Between its western coast and its central valley are deciduous forests and mangrove swamps.
Retrieved from "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Provinces_of_Tamriel"

I think they say "jungle" in the NPC dialogues of Morrowind, but in the book its just "rain forest" which is a bit more vague.
The Great Forest west of the IC is always a deciduous forest, even in Morrowind they told you this.
I guess the jungle-like bit is Black Wood in the south. Its not a classical jungle with palm trees and the like, but certainly a rainforest.

Looking at Tamriel as a whole it does seem more logical like that. Skyrim is a land of snow, then temperate Cyrodiil, and in the far south the jungles of Valenwood, Elsweyr, Cyrodiil's Black Wood, and Argonia.
And the Colovia bit fits in with dry Hammerfell next door.