Hello, everyone! It’s time! That’s right, after almost a year of anticipation the appointed hour has arrived! 11.10.11 is here, and the Imperial City Redux is ready for full relea- Wait. Hang on. What’s all this I see about 11.11.11…

…

Well played, Bethesda, well played.



BUT, I have nonetheless beaten you by one whole day! JUST in time for everyone to forget this mod and move on to Dragon-slaying.
There is a story behind this release. Because I am such a horrible people-person, I neglected to keep everyone up to date. One person said a long time ago that I seemed like a manic burnout. Manic, yes. Burnout, no. If anyone even remembers this mod, they probably reasonably assumed that it was dead. However, here’s the first version of the city, every district I intend to make is built, the exteriors finalized, and the interiors filled with people. Wonderful, murderable people. When Bethesda announced that Skyrim was finally coming out I put on my serious face and got to work, the end result is the first workable version of the mod just hours before everyone will never care again.

To those of you who never saw the original posts for this mod (probably a lot of you) this is a mod designed to improve the Imperial City and make it a center for commerce and government. Something befitting the heart of a continent-spanning empire. There are twelve new districts filled with people, places and things to see. Even the old stuff got a facelift, such as the flying Arcane University which was probably the most divisive decision I made in this mod. My most proud work is easily the Palace which was changed from a dreary, damp looking hole to a vibrant center for tourists and politicians alike. The old run-down of the city is as follows

Agora
I bet most people don’t even know what that word means. This district could be described as a suburban neighborhood transplanted into the heart of a city. This district boasts the finest hotel and restaurant in the entire city, travelers from all over a Tamriel stay there, some visit the city just for an excuse to stay there. Besides the hotel, this district is known for certain colorful residents and its magnificent miniature park that's almost big enough for you to forget you're surrounded by a city. But not quite.


Akatosh's Arms
This district was recently renamed in an attempt to brighten the lives of those living there. City planners had hoped that the pious, comforting name would help people understand just how much their city truly cared for them. Instead it just added another layer of cynicism to the already down-and-out residents of the district. Because surely, if they were in Akatosh's own arms living in this place, Akatosh was giving them all a collective noogie. This district is the poorest one still within city walls, boasting a beautiful open sewer, grimy walls and streets, and the highest level of poverty in Cyrodiil.


Foreign Quarter
Think of this district like a fraternity row, except with embassies. And instead of idiots with sideways caps and popped collars you have lesser politicians from the provinces and where frats have Frisbee you have Imperial politics such as tariffs and land usage. Almost as good, right? This is where a majority of the Elder Council is staying during the Oblivion Crisis since the Council must be ready to go into session at a moment's notice. One noteworthy building is a temple near the Morrowind building for the pious Dark Elf dignitaries to worship.


Forum
I know, it surprised me as well that "forum" also means a place for people to converge, important announcements to be made, and for people to hit "dislike" on everything they see relax. This district was my way of living up to the lore, calling the Imperial City a city on the water. The entire district is one large reflecting pool with artificial island connected by bridges. This is one of the nicest spots in the city, expect to meet many people here.


Historical District
This district is an example of what the city looked like in its older, unplanned stated. The complicated high-rising buildings feel like they're suffocating you, and that if you don't leave soon the whole world will collapse on you. Strange then that this district has the highest population density in the city, the people live there packed in like sardines. This district also is the home of the Imperial Museum of History, specializing in all manner of ancient artifacts both naturally made or constructed by intelligent races. Currently the focus of their exhibit are the ancient Ayleids, and why their cities seemed to consist entirely of subterranean trap-filled corridors.


Imperial Legion HQ
Did you ever wonder where Legionnaires were trained, or where they slept before they were sent all across the continent to fight off those pesky Oblivion gates? I certainly did, so I built an entire district for them. This district serves as both the offices for the highest ranking members of the Legion as well as a training ground for new recruits. Currently they are only accepting people for reserve troops. After all, with the bulk of their soldiers in the other provinces, imagine what might happen if there were limited soldiers to protect the capitol city (unlikely as that is, right?)


Innocence Gardens
I truly am a fan of ironic district names, they make it all the more surprising when I tell the truth. Innocence Gardens is derided by pilgrims, the morally uptright, and all men in front of their wives for being the location of the city's infamous brothel. The brothel has recently fought off rumors that their employees were strong-armed into working thereor that they were in some way being imprisoned there. It is hardly surprising that these accusations did not go anywhere, both because the pimp is a known friend of more than a few nobles and because the one who first levelled the accusations is currently under the impression that he is a beautiful Orc maiden.


Manufacturing District
For such a large and powerful government, there definitely seems to be a lack of stonecutters, construction workers, or imports to speak of. Now, one could say that this all takes place off-screen, mages go and "magic" it to appear, or that "it's only a video game, UCM, stop caring so much and go out and make friends." But I say it's important for immersion. Definitely important, so I made this district.


Palace District
The old Palace was a pitiful site. It was dark, dank and was inhabited by guards, two regular people, and a handful of blind monks. It also confused me that the guards talked to me inside the palace as if tourists regularly visited the palace, even though I was the only non-employee in the building. Not anymore. The palace now is brightly lit and carpeted to encourage the kind of foot-traffic the guards imply they have. The council meets weekly, and the second floor has been turned from an observation deck into the Emperor's missing throne. Below the council chambers are store rooms (off limits, logically enough) and the shrine where the Eternal Champion slew Jagar Tharn. Beneath even that are the Septim crypts for the royal family to be laid to rest. Both of these areas are permitted for tourists to visit, and is in fact encouraged for those touring the palace for religious reasons. Above the throne room, I will be silent, but it is no longer guard after guard after guard with a few monks in between. The palace is now staffed with servants, foreign dignitaries stay in the luxurious guest quarters, and at the top is Uriel Septim's own (now unused) chamber.

Now, OUTSIDE the palace has received a similar treatment. Gone are the overgrown mushrooms and ridiculously broken tombs. Replaced with a fanciful hedge-maze to get lost (or lose guards) in. One lore feature of this maze now are the hedge Emperors. According to legend Green Emperor Way contains hedges made to resemble famous past Emperors enchanted to have their personalities and to give advice to the current Emperor. I have created these hedges and they do sit in Green Emperor Way standing at a constant silent guard. They haven't moved since the Emperor's assassination


Pelinal Place
One of the most ritzy districts in the city, only the rich and people with something to prove manage to live here. This district is proud to call the famous Pelinal Statue their own, and it fits them. Nothing defines the rich like crotch-stomping a defeated opponent. Besides the statue this district contains the even more famous Hogithum Hall. This court house saw the only known trial of a divine being, and the subsequent banishment of a Daedric Prince. The house is watched over by Judge Rodell, the highest judicial authority in the Empire.


Septim Road
The main thoroughfare into the city. This road is essentially a large park intended to impress diplomats and commoners alike. It is adorned with several statues, trees, miniature hedge-paths, and well-armed ceremonial guards. This district is kept rigorously cleaned, so do not leave anything there for long that you hope to pick back up later such as an item, money, or a body.


Theatre District
The Empire is reputably the center for commerce, culture, and all manner of bizarre customs to meet. Why, then, is the only source of entertainment for the city dwellers the Arena? Sure, it's very nice to watch people being gutted like fish and then possibly winning money on it, but couldn't it also be satisfying to watch characters pour their souls into a performance and watch lovers split, kingdoms collapse, and true love blossom? Also, it's pretty entertaining when they flub their lines.



I hope you enjoy my work, I’ll have you know that I sacrificed my marriage for this! (Marriage to my JOB, that is! ZING! But seriously, now I’m unemployed and homeless).

But really, I’m excited now to move onto Skyrim, and I can’t wait to see what its gooey innards will look like, though this time I’m resolving to put more work into keeping in contact with people and not letting public knowledge of my work disappear the way this one’s did. Though, if there is one thing I do, it is hold to my word. A long time ago, I promised quests. That is still not ruled out. I love Oblivion dearly, though it is a violent, angry relationship. I will come back to this and add quests to it. I have several written out, and I’m still itching to tell my stories. As for this release, I not only accept but encourage constructive criticism and bug reports. Hit me, please.


For screenshots you can still visit my website, http://imperialcityredux.webs.com/

For the Mod itself you can head over to http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25113




For people I have to thank, here is a list of them.
Meo’s Fireplaces
Meo’s Ayleid Clutter
Meo’s Globes
Meo’s Settlement Bits and pieces
Meo’s Props
Mikal’s Improved Flora Textures
Mr. Siika’s Market Stalls
Mr. Siika’s Animals
Mr. Siika’s Port
Firespark’s Flag
Khugan’s Torture Devices
Khugan’s Objects of Desire
Ghogiel’s Dwemer Armor
Hel Borne’s Dwemer Weapons
Da Mage’s Dwemer Animunculi
Phitt’s Dwemer Items
Spoons’ Gallows
Xiamara’s Manor Bedroom Set
talion’s Staff of Chaos
Madcat221’s Meteoric Weaponry
Ginnungagap’s Daedric Crescent
Acid’s Eyes
Trigger190’s baldness
Razorwing’s Barabus Crypts
Throttle Kitty’s Hair
Bob Smolder’s Kvatch Returned
Jayson’s Dragonbone Cuirass
Cryo’s Ordinator Armor

Unfortunately, due to the long production time, bad record keeping on my part, and the number of resources I used in this city, a few might have escaped me when I was compiling this list. If so, I sincerely apologize. No harm was intended. Send me a message and I will add or modify the credit as soon as possible.

Just checked out the pictures at Nexus. :dance: It looks great. Downloading now, thanks.

Thank you for giving the mod a try! Here's hoping the gameplay measures up to the pictures.

Thanx mucho from someone who remembers this mod, and did indeed think it was dead. :thumbsup:

Hey there, Garx! I was hoping you'd see this again.

And don't worry, this mod is immortal. It's quiet and unassuming, but it won't die. And believe me, I've tried.

In the resources archive you have a textures folder and a folder called ICRedux, which is full of nif files. I think that second folder should be called meshes.

Running the mod through tes4edit and I get:
[Removing "Identical to Master" records done] Processed Records: 132963 Removed Records: 1130 Elapsed Time: 00:00

Tes4edit choked on trying to undelete deletions in the mod on this record:
Undeleting: [REFR:0001C2C2] (places ICWallDoor01Tunnel "Wooden Tunnel Door" [DOOR:00007E13] in GRUP Cell Persistent Children of [CELL:00023777] (in Tamriel [WRLD:0000003C] at 0,0))

so it couldn't finish that process but it looked to have about as many deletions (over 1000). Also there were a lot of these kinds of things:

While this looks like it would be a good companion to an open city variant the above issues indicate that it needs more attention and care.

Psymon,

"" can be ignored, it's a debug message for the programmer, and is harmless.

It is common for TES4Edit to abort the undelete & disable process when it hits a vanilla door. Did you try running the process a second time after it halted? Sometimes it will just continue through without issue the second time after having resolved the issue with the door the first time.

No second run through results in the same thing: it crashes saying that target is not persistent.

Well not crashes. Tes4edit doesn't hang or anything - it just stops the operation.

That isn't an error in the mod, it's a hangup in TES4Edit, Elminster never got around to smoothing it out. You need to find the door record it lists, and the door it links to, and manually set each door up to be however they ought to be in the ESP. Then run the process again.

EDIT
Also, while not wanting to be unfriendly, as a modder myself, I feel it's a little unreasonable to suggest that a mod needs more attention and care from the modder when referring to things which can only be done with a third-party modding tool which the modder may not know anything about or how to use.

Hallo Vorians!
What do you think about this mod in context of future shape of BC ?

The shape of BC is already nicely defined, I doubt that the release of another IC overhaul will change it.

Psymon: You're right about the error in not placing "ICredux" into a Meshes folder. That was an oversight, it'll be fixed today. As for the errors in TES4edit, Display Name is right, I have very little working knowledge of that program beyond the very most basic functions of it, so I am not sure if you or he is right about whether or not there is a problem. What I do know is that I did have to delete numerous doors and remake them in order to have them display properly. Also, while I appreciate constructive criticism and enjoy discussing the finer points of the city with people (for example the numerous discussions on the practicality of the floating island), I would have appreciated it if you had gone without the implication that I do not care about my own work.

Display name is not in Use: Hi there again. Thanks for still having an interest in my work.

wkomarecki: BC, as in Bananasplit's Better Cities? I really like that mod but I'm a little confused as to what you're asking.


Also, before the requests come in, I have to make a definitive statement on compatibilities.

When this was a WIP I rejected outright any requests for compatibilities. This was because I was not done building the basic city, and I did not have a finalized idea of what it would look like. I did not want to work with compatibility because A) I thought it would distract me from my own work, and B) at that early stage I did not know how much would need to be patched and would rather build my own city and afterwards look for what could be patched.

Now that I have a full version of this out, I am open to patch requests for mods that add individual buildings, modify the landscape around the city (Weye, for example), add people, or other such additions. What I am still not open to is requests to make my city incorporate whole entire districts of other city mods. I am not saying that other city mods are bad, many of them are phenomenal, what I am saying is that I have my own equally valid view of the Imperial City. I will not sacrifice entire districts of my city to replace them with someone else's work. And vice-versa, I would not expect or ask any modder to remove their work to incorporate parts of my city, either.

Fitting in a patch for the Bank of Cyrodiil would be great, to be placed anywhere you like, and then just working on stability fixes. Everything else is optional.

This looks incredible!

Can you say what does not work with this mod from what you already know?

I am interested in the following mods working with this:
UL Imperial Isle
Roads and Bridges
AFK_Weye
Region Revive Lake Rumare
Talos Gatehouse
Bank Of Cyrodiil

Thanks

As far as I know... Weye and Region Revive will not be compatible for the time being. Got this info from Nexus thread. But I think the author is going to see if he can work with other modders to come up with patches. Not sure about the Bank of Cyrodiil. Talos Bridge Gatehouse and UL Imperial Isle will be out of question because this mod will transform the whole island into a massive Imperial City with tons of new districts etc etc.

Quoting myself to point out that I never once said that I did not state that the maker did not care for the work - just that it needs more attention. So how do you get none out of a sentence that more is needed ... as the word more implies that already there has been care and attention?

I never intended to be harsh or rude - if I don't post - how will I know?

As for the inner mechanisms of tes4edit it seems neither I nor UCM knew of that bit about tes4edit - which means that I'd bet most users don't know it either. Likewise why is it that only the CS should be considered as part of the modder repertoire? If I post as if the author knew of tes4edit then I could just as easily be seen as offending because I'm stating the obvious. If I don't then I'm too arcane.

Mod cleaning is fairly standard these days and I know I'm far from the only one who has been known to post about the results of cleaning. I know Vorians himself has been an advocate of this, so why is it horrible of me to do so? With over 1000 ITMs and looks to be as many deletions - if it were not me posting that these were there - it would be someone else.

Expect to simply drop this one entirely. There would be little to no point in us even trying to cook a patch for this as most of it would be overwritten by the district changes anyway.


I'd need to take a closer look, but the road on the south end of the island will be toast most likely. Depending on whether anything changed on the north end by the prison, could be a similar result. Same with the east end. It all depends on how far out it goes, because it may not even require a patch.


Directly depends on how extensive the changes are with the AU. And of course Weye itself.


3 significant chunks of this are going to be wiped out. Highly unlikely it could be patched around as there would be nowhere to put those chunks now.

Also, one that didn't get mentioned. The aqueduct from Let the People Drink. No idea how the changes affect where that comes in to the city at the south wall.

I am Vorians, I work on updates for Better Cities, so his question was directed at me I assume he was asking whether BC will attempt to integrate your mod into itself, or whether there will be compatibility patches.
And of course, a major reason I am interested in your work is because sometimes it helps to follow the competition Actually adding new Districts to the IC is rare though, usually the competition for Better Cities is in the same theme as BC itself, overhauling what already exists rather than expanding beyond the original walls. This makes your work interesting even beyond the fact that you're potential competition for BC users.


Psymon, the way we word things has an affect on how their meaning is taken. It is quite common to, for example, have a mother see her child come home from playing in the mud and say "you could have taken more care of your clothes" - by suggesting that someone could have taken more care, it implies there was a lack of care previously. Simple deduction: recommending more care would follow from seeing a lack of care.

The way TES4Edit is presented to someone is also important. I do indeed encourage modders to use TES4Edit to clean their mods, though more often I encourage gamers to clean the mods they are using when the modder has not, since a lot of the time the modder is no longer around or simply isn't receptive to modern modding techniques. But I don't post in their thread stating that I used TES4Edit and then proceed to list every issue I found in the mod. In fact the best way to introduce a modder to the uses of TES4Edit for modding, is to PM them. That way you haven't made any public statement to imply there's a fault in the mod, which would sometimes result in the modder getting defensive and responding harshly to a seeming attack on their release, however well-intentioned you might be. By contacting by PM, you have kept things private, and the modder is more likely to listen - and if they aren't interested, there's no flare-up in their release thread so at least they're likely to remain friendly towards you in public.

Arakhor: Bank of Cyrodiil is something that has been suggested many times, and I would be interested in making a patch for it, because a bank is a really neat idea.

Murandus: Thank you very much, I hope you enjoy it!

Peter ID: Arthmoor already addressed each of the mods in question, but a rule of thumb is the further out from the city center the more likely it is that a compatibility patch is possible. The exceptions being any mods that only adds interiors, which I think is a relatively simple process to do.

Arthmoor: thank you for fielding those questions for me.

Display Name/Vorians: Oh wow, all this time I had no idea, every time you dropped by to comment or offer some help with my mod. Well, thank you very much for your help over the past year or two!

Psymon: It is hard to distinguish tone over a forum, and I think you and I are both guilty now of misreading each other. Just so you know, I am committed to making this mod the best mod I can possibly make, and right now it is not at such a level. Even disregarding the dirty edits, there is much more that I want to do with this city to make it more immersive, so I do not plan on saying I am finished yet. It's true that I have been for the most part unaware of http://imgace.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/what-year-is-it-robin-williams.jpg, as Vorians put it, but I am eager to learn. And am hopefully soon going to have a cleaner imperial City out.

How compatible is this with UL: Imperial Isle?

UCM: Congrats on this release. Chalk me up as one who read about this a long time ago and kind of assumed it was dead. It was an ambitious project and those usually die. Glad this one didn't. I'm not reinstalling Oblivion yet, but I will definitely watch for any more progress for my install in a month or so. Thanks for your hard work!



Seems like this was answered three posts above... I don't think it really is as this mod expands the city to cover most of the isle.

See previous posts on page 1. Basically no.

@The UCM

1.
Vorians is right. I was thinking about your mod as a part of BC. BC is the project allowing people to enjoy several good "city mods" along and for this reason it keeps the place into my heart and - more important - in my load order.
But I understand how many time ,work...and love you have given to make your mod. And I can imagine how much you are happy reading about the idea of removing part of it to merge your mod with another one. So I'm silenced by myself .For now.
2.
I've decided to check out your mod in game.
I must remove:
- UL IC
- AFK_Weye
- Roads and Bridges
- and BC Imperial City

But there are mods adding NPCs to Imperial City area or making they traveler to/from IC:
- Verona House
- David Basher's Vampire Hunting ...
- TIE
So , How much the path grids are changed by your mods ? Have you touched the sewers, Water Front district ?

Thanks to the very, very generous Arthmoor there is now an improved, cleaner ESP for download on TES Nexus, check it out. Any bugs are still welcomed.

wkomarecki: The waterfront is heavily affected, I'm afraid. I wanted more poverty, more ships, and less of that giant wall. Sewers, I'm pretty sure, are untouched.