I think the ability to raise an army and declare war on some or all of Skyrim would be fun, although hard to implement. Even if it is extremely unlikely to be a feature in the game would you like the ability to do this?

It's not something I'd like to see as a main focus for the game.

Oh of course not. I would want it to be an option presented to the player.

I'd like to some kind of development of the idea of those Goblin Totems from Oblivion.

I never got around to trying to make that work...but I think the idea was to find two Goblin Clans.

A and B

Put A's Totem in B's base and B's Totem in A's Base

Then when they go running into each other's bases they fight to the death, and ultimately all their bases are belong to you.

Maybe not an army, but I could see maybe a group of 5 or 6 NPC's that you could put in armor of your choosing and give them weapons to follow you with. Kind of like companions but more of them.

If it isn't a large part of the development focus then it'll just be a gimmick. This kind of feature is the kind of thing that needs an entire game devoted to it to be pulled off to satisfaction, and I don't want to see TES go that way.

Same here, it sounded interesting when I first heard about it, but then I saw how far apart the caves were and simply gave up on it.

I would want one aspect of the main quest to focus on a very big battle, possibly between an army lead by you and an enemy one. I don't really care for "declare war on cities", unless it's part of the main quest.
A feature like that shouldn't ever be implemented just because we want war and armies...

But as I said, some really big battles in the main quest would be nice (between armies). And by armies I mean like 50 people in each army... instead of the ridiculous army of like ... ten in Oblivion.
It pretty much all depends on this new engine...

That Battle for Bruma sure was disappointing.

Plus I had leveled far enough that the enemies were all infinitely more powerful than my allies who were for some reason the ONLY ****ING THING in the game that didn't level with me.

Sigh.

I don't see why a big battle has to let you interact with everyone. While you won't usually find me defending invisible walls, this is a rare exception. Just make most of the battle background scenery that changes to reflect how the battle is going. The area of the battlefield that we can actually fight on only has to accommodate thirty or so NPCs for it to feel more pivotal than any normal skirmish, and as NPCs die others can spawn so that you really feel like you're in the thick of it.

As long as the 'invisible walls' aren't actually invisible - a seething mass of men or perhaps just an orderly formation that you can't barge through would be enough - then you're in a real fight, and if the game can handle processing the NPCs that you're fighting against/alongside then all it has to do is display the rest of the battlefield.

Fallout 3 actually did a pretty good job of that in one of it's expansion packs.

In Operation Anchorage you end the DLC in a relatively large area with about 8 unnamed re-spawning allies fighting off about 12 unnamed and re-spawning enemies. It worked out pretty well.

It seems to me that adding something like this would be rather pointless, since the main focus of the series is on questing and exploring, and I expect this will remain so in Skyrim. If a feature like this were in the game, it would probably just be done in a half hearted manner, which would just make it boring and a waste of the resources it took to implement it. I think I agree with greatcarbuncle here, things like this need to be the main focus of a game for it to be done well.

I could see a few instances of large battles during quests, of course, but these would probably have to be scripted events. Allowing players to actually declare war on anyone they please at any time just sounds like something best left to Civilization to me.



That's because Bethesda tried to make some large, epic battle but the engine simply couldn't pull it off. Hopefully, though, Bethesda has learned from that mistake. If Bethesda is going to try to do battles like what the Battle of Bruma was MEANT to be, then hopefully, they'll have an engine that can do it properly. Otherwise, they just shouldn't try, not every story needs to have battles involving thousands of combatents on either side, sometimes, it's okay to just have the player facing single or small groups of enemies too, as the engines in Oblivion and Morrowind, at least, seem to handle that much better.



I've noticed that problem with a lot of quests where you have allies, actually, Breaking the Siege of Kvatch was also one that suffered from it. Generally when I did that quest, it would not be long before Savlian Matius, or however his name is spelled, was the only guard left alive, and only because he was essential. Hopefully if we get quests where allies try to "help" you in Skyrim, they're actually helpful, as opposed to getting killed by the first group of enemies you fight during the quest. Otherwise, I'd honestly rather it be like Morrowind where you spend a long time traveling across Vvardenfell to get people to support you as the Nerevarine, and then when you need to raid Red Mountain, no one comes to your aid anyway.

Let's be at least a little realistic here. Truly big battles as in the Total War series are not going to happen, not with the amount of physics and unique character models used in TES.

If they even try, it will look terrible, as we'll end up with a dozen or so soldiers representing an "army" again. Remember that the consoles literally have less than 500 MB of RAM. Not. Going. To Happen.

Lol, nice one

On topic, I think that would stray a little too far off from the TES series. Sounds more like you want a first person Age of Empires.

I always liked the idea of pulling the strings from behind the scenes. If there is to be a big battle, what if you were duelling with the big baddie with the battle raging in the back ground? The engine could whip up some low poly baddies for background images and have a truly epic backdrop while you throw down with

Hopefully they will improve on 10. Though there could be potential as if you look at the xbox game viking there were 100 upon 100 of enemies on the screen and even on dead rising. also do you really need the graphics to be exellent as if they have better graphics the longer it takes to develope. so bethesda could do this ptentially at the estimated number of 30-40

It doesn't sound very TES like. While I'd like huge battles I think they should be story tied and not just something you could do.

No, I have a hard enough time in combat with just one friendly...how would I keep from killing all of my army myself? :rofl:

No, I don't want my own army, I don't understand why this idea is so popular amongst TES gamers. TES has always been about your character, not your characters personal band of sidekicks. I'd love to join a faction that at some point declared war on another faction and have a huge battle, that would be awesome.. but I don't wanna be a commander of an army, atleast not for more than a single battle.

Lol. Hehe, the AI must be smarter. This is much based on the engine, so let's hope for that.

Someone else wrote here as well about Morrowind. I have to say I also loved the way Morrowind did the final battle. You ventured into the enemy's land alone as a champion and came back as a hero. No huge battle, yet incredibly good.
This basically means that a battle doesn't have to be between huge numbers to be cool, epic or good

I'd still like to see at least one or two really huge battles in the main quest. Like you experience the attack of dragons, and people try to defend a burning city in chaos. Then it would be really cool if the streets are crowded with terrified soldiers and such.

I think it would be cool to have my own bandit faction, and then raid other bandits, take their camp, and have some of them join my faction.
After a while I could be the most powerful bandit leader in all of Skyrim, with a lot of bandit settlements/outposts around to aid me. This would make me one of the most powerful men/women in Skyrim, and should grant me some respect and political power, and of course enemies.
A large band of bandits should be able to take control on some of the smaller towns, but none of the well guarded cities.

An army for yourself, no, but I really hope there are REAL massive battles in Skyrim. And by real I mean at least hundreds of NPC's for each side.

...and more than just one.

Maybe it could work if they turned it into a minigame. You could have a headquarters with a map on a table with the miniatures and everything. You click on the map and it turns into a kind of RTS interface and you command the units you've obtained as any general normally would. You wouldn't actually see the city getting taken over except maybe through a cut scene. After the battle you leave your headquarters then travel to the city to see it occupied by your troops.

Of course then there's all the issues with screwing up quests this way. It could work if enough time and effort were put into it but I think those resources are better put elsewhere.

Heh, and ES Ender's Game

Aye, a turning point that could provide an alternate ending or different paths depending on how the battle went. Nice.....but improbable?