For most of you who may know me I have always been bugged by how Oblivion had a lack of military strength that you would expect to see in a flourishing Empire, or even one that is under threat of a Civil War. I mean you almost never saw men of the Legions; it was all guards. Hopefully in Skyrim they will add more military forces, not Legion forces since the Empire collapsed by this time I believe, if it follows what I have read in the Imperial Library, but more like Nordic militia and mercenary groups that the government has hired.

I'm starting to ramble so let's here everybody's opinion.

I guess I just never interpreted it as "no military". I just assumed there were no sizable forces stationed where I was playing.

Legions are powerful, but not powerful enough to dominate a province. It's likely though that there would have been legion towns for the soldiers and perhaps their families. Power structures don't collapse overnight, so I'd think it would be reasonable for the commander of the legion in Skyrim to name himself King/Duke/Count of the area he controls, and become another factor to deal with.

Yes that would be interesting and would be a bit interesting. It would make things a bit more feudal like from the Middle Ages.

I always assumed there wre no legions in Cyrodil because they were all stationed in the other provinces.

Somewhat like Imperial Rome (and many other empires), where the legions were settled in border provinces and provinces that had a risk of unrest or civil disorder. All Imperial Rome had within Italy were elite guards like the praetorians and militia's.
Also: the Romans couldn't really pull back those legions to deal with issues in their heartland, without risking incursions, uprisings or usurpers in the power vacuum a departed legion left in it's wake.

The Legions where just too thinly spread in oblivion- but everywhere outside the cities was basically lawless (and yet pyschically repoted to the towns)

I'm defo for some sort of organised military structure- and military conflict
It also depends if Skyrim has a bigger NPC headcount- oblivion couldn't do an Army of 100 v 100 thanks to the detail-that-didn't-pay-off in every NPC

Would you be prepared to see a generic soldier? perhaps with a repeating Face/build?

The reason you don't see any sizable forces is due to the average power of the machines they were targeting. If you have a PC, create a full actor copy of an imperial legion soldier about ten times and it will begin to lag. A sizable force, in my opinion, would be about fifty at least. That would still be a very small amount of soldiers for a force. And from my experience with goblins, fifty of them cause my machine to stutter quite a bit.

I disagree with the OP. I'd like to see a culture with a non-professional military in Skryim. A.k.a. a militia.

I think the point was that the Legions were spread around the other provinces: Cyrodiil, being in the centre and therefore quite safe, was largely empty. Besides, there are Legion troops in the Imperial City.

The real question is- Quality or Quantity?

Mount and Blade- brilliant large scale battles- but then I don't mind crud graphics. Though it is pretty good on high settings.
Do't forget those are instanced battles- not in a continous open world context ( as in, life carries on etc in the nearby town. I know MB is on a big map) with all the other calculations going on

I would like to see Patrol versus patrol- they did it in Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3 to an extent- If thats possible it depends on the engine- on which we know nothing other than its new and in-house

I think some groups of patrols should exist in Skyrim. Fallout 3 had them, which I really liked. But perhaps a bit bigger? Fallout 3 had like a patrol of 3 if I remember correctly.

Perhaps 8-9 at most I think, for one single patrol.

There should also be some patrols near and in the cities. In Oblivion the guards just walked around on their own. In Skyrim I want a few guards to patrol together (but don't overdo this, keep it a bit rare). That would be pretty neat.

i think it would be awesome if they added patrols and an army, and maybe added it as a faction or something like that.... you could join the imperial legion in morrowind i think.... right?

yeah you could

But as far as I know Skyrim is set after the dissolution of the Empire- so that bums :/

So in reality a centralised army above pillaging strength is probably unlikely

The joinable imperial legion was one of my favorite parts of Morrowind. It needs to be brought back. And yes, a few military outposts and forts wouldn't hurt either.

I agree with the idea that there may not have been actual legions in the Imperial City, using ancient Rome as an example. However, the city guards gave it a very medieval, feudal feel instead, and although maybe they didn't want to overplay the Imperials = Romans we had from Morrowind, it doesn't fit them as well, like say the Nords having a unified, highly trained force.

Not that Nords can't have proper armies...it's just they're made up of volunteers who are farmers in the summer, raiders in the winter, or professional soldiers, but with no formalized drill practice or standard issue gear.

I think it makes sense for Cyrodiil to not have a strong Legionary presence actually. Like most RL Empires, their forces would need to be in conquered provinces where there is more likely to be trouble then the home-province :shrug:

I can assume with all the talk of civil war though, that there will be some kind of military showing up now and again.

I liked to compare what we saw in Oblivion to the Praetorian Guard in Italy actually.

dont count on it. unless they have created the super engine of supremeness which i wouldnt bet any money on, its not going to happen. they are supposedly going to make it work on existing consoles and so they are extremely limited on the number of AI they can have at one time and the quality of the AI as well. so expect another sparsely populated world.

they could do what some other games have done like two worlds 2 and assassins creed and just have generic nameless PCs walking about that dont actually do anythign other than go from point to point but that would be a huge change from previous games. i couldnt get very far in daggerfall so im not sure how they did npcs in that game but in morrowind and oblivion they all had names except the guards. personally that would be the way i would prefer to have them do it.

It was forbidden to take soldiers near rome, then caesar did it and rome became an empire

I'm expecting Nordic tribes, with their longhouses and meadhalls and their own warriors. In the major cities I'd like to see Nordic guards, as we have seen in all the past games.

The only military in Cyrodil at the time of TES IV were the small forces that the individual Counts and Countesses kept on their towns and territories. Sure there were a few Legion troops patrolling here and there, and of course the guard in the Imperial City, but it was clearly stated many times in IV that the Legion wasn't in Cyrodil because they were in the other provinces trying to keep order and hold the Empire together after Uriel's death.

in Oblivion there couldn't have been all the forces were stretched thin combating the Oblivion crisis and protecting the cities thats why the group you can get for the attack on the great gate is so small, but there are a lot of guards in the IC

Anyone ever notice how in the trailer for Oblivion they show a lot more soldiers on the Bruma wall than there really are in the game?

I go to the grocery store all the time and don't see a single tank or solider, therefore the United States has no military obviously.

ok.... this may get long winded and boring so bear with me

Seeing as how this game is derived from a fuedal eroupe it is about spot on.

Dukes earls and counts would have raised there own small armys of knights and filled in the rest witrh conscripted militia in the time of war.

The emporor would have held rank over the actual legions, small bands of his legions would rome to act as a police force to keep the dukes and earls or counts in check. During a time of war pesants would be conscripted into military forces, armed with spears and cheaply made weapons. These forces would be commanded by knights and groups of knights would act as calvalry. The reason that countries like england had so much force is because they saw that trainging the peasants as archers and pikeman on a regular bassis wasnt expensive and would allow them to rouse a experenced semi professional army on a moments notice.

Most of the same can be asid for rome. They did have a constant standing army [the legion] but it is a large loce of spent resources for a highly trained soldier to die in combat. Slaves and the merchant class could be recruited during a time of war or invasion

I feel this way all the time, man.