Crowhaven was a place where a rich noble lived. And at least one fort was used by the Mages Guild, before the necromancers overran it.

I also think that not all forts should be concentric
why not have a artillery castel http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/img_400/se_deal_01.jpg
and i also think littel vilages such as brindel home should have a small wooden motte and baily fort just to keep trolls out
http://www.conisbroughcastle.org.uk/Education/Key%20Stage%202/motte-n-baileyCastle.jpg :spotted owl:

I don't think he had those for all his Life. The http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/life_uriel_septim.shtml describes how he changed after his imprisonment, I reckon that is when the visions came.

erosion from the wind and rain? they're supposed to be old just like the Ayleid ruins.

if people leave them, every wall falls apart in 5 seconds. I thought everyone knew that! But they could be like that just because they were from at most when reman cyrodil was alive

An equally important question would be.... in games, particularly Daggerfall, but to some degree all of the games... when it says so and so has returned to their castle/manor/whatever, and you go... and it's a full on dungeon packed with attack on sight monsters, how the heck did x noble/person/whoever get in? And how do they live there?!

maybe after the greater empire was built and the imperial city being the most safest place, well not entirely safe, but maybe they had no use for the fort and was to much work to tear down and the traps would be dangerous to take out anyway.

Except that Uriel Knew how he was going to die-in the sewers.

Nothing Could change that, so he accepted his Fate.


Kinda like the thought some people put into a tired bethstomping Post :rolleyes:

I think people who maybe started the game with Oblivion or are forgetting their lore are overlooking the fact that every game has stressed that Uriel BARELY held the empire together, and even then, only because he was significantly better than his immediate predecessors to the throne. I think a cross-empire consolidation of forces or reconstruction of defenses all over Cyrodiil was outside of the empire's capabilities.

Not being able to consolidate their own province is dire, and does not shine well on Imperial fortune it all. But all sources and ideas indicate that the Empire isn't that weak. Tiber Septim only died a couple of hundred years ago, as "the richest man in history".

I think the entire representation of the Empire in TES 4 was completely problematic in this regard. Disproportionate and misleading.

Although descriptions of the grandness of the past and descriptions of the decrepitness of the present condition of the Empire were often so overlapping that it was often confusing (especially since books about the past will still use the name Septim, which can be misleading), I think it's been made fairly clear that a lot of people don't rightly know how Tiber Septim did it the first time at all. In Daggerfall people casually speculated help from the daedra or some type of "deal with the devil" in order to do what he did.

In the present day, I think what little power the Empire is able to amass is so diluted across the provinces that yes, Cyrodiil would be the very first province to be neglected in order to hold the Empire together. Morrowind seemed to have, proportionately speaking, a high occupation force to population ratio. And the attrition and fatality rate of serving in the Legions on these 'fringe' provinces like Morrowind, Elsweyr, Black Marsh and Skyrim seems to be high. The rest of the Empire certainly seems to regard them as still somewhat wild and dangerous. Also, a lot of the forts in Cyrodiil itself are outdated. They're like castles spread across the various countries of Europe from the times when the countries used to be broken down into individual principalities or fiefdoms, before imperial nationhood emerged. And a lot of them were used for things like the Akaviri invasion, in a time in the distant past when Cyrodiil routinely expected foreign invasion (either from overseas or other provinces/kingdoms.) So when the Empire doesn't restore and man all these ruins across their own province (and most are ridiculously closely placed together anyway, even assuming a feudal society) it's asking an overstretched empire to focus too much of its power and resources at home. For a lot of its history Rome itself, for example, was not heavily defended during the Roman Empire.

I do think that the fact that these ruins invariably became homes, often within eyesight of farming villages or cities, of cults of necromancers, the undead, rogues and thieves and cutthroats, goblins, vampires, psychotic cult worshippers and the like, they should have at least levelled these fortifications at some point.

That Devil was Vivec.

Ruins for the sake of ruins. Daggerfall had a lot of that too.

But otherwise, convincing explanations have already been laid forth. The Empire simply didn't need defense; if we take its close anologous Rome, the city had already expanded way beyond the Servian Walls during the height of Imperial power, and no new defenses were built for almost five hundred years. The legions too, would be concentrated in the periphery, which needed to be defended and reminded of its subjection, plus having a lot of potentially rebellious troops and generals near home could be an immense folly... So they were sent to places like Morrowind instead.

Quick someone call Arkay, we have a necromancer!

LOL

I was searching the fora and didn't see the date of the posts .

This forum has some pretty old threads, its not that big of a deal haha. But a mod prolly should close this thread now though

To be honest, there's little logic behind the abandoned forts nor is there any point in arguing for a lore-friendly explanation. It depends on whether or not you want to assume Cyrodiil, as the capitol region, is fairly stable and centralized due to its close proximity to the Imperial City OR whether you want to assume Cyrodiil, as the capitol region, should be a heavily guarded military strongpoint. The logic of the former sort of compliments the relation between Morrowind and Oblivion's legions - for instance, I suppose that the Imperial Legion would have more of a reason to maintain their strongholds in the "frontier" provinces such as Morrowind than in their rather hospitable and familiar native province. In order to remain imposing and vigilant towards the hostile Dunmer, the Imperial Legion in Morrowind has to be organized and disciplined, whilst the Imperial Legion in Oblivion is more of a public attraction. One is the U.S. Army whilst the other is the volunteer fire department.

As for the forts themselves, it really is just a matter of gameplay. Oblivion had its Daedric planes and abandoned mines, and whilst dungeon locations have grown more unique over time, lots of developers still like to have some traditional stone DnD-style dungeons. The forts in Oblivion pretty much are Bethesda's throwback to these classic dungeons of 90s gaming.

Its hard to upkeep a bunch of small forts in a jungle environment, and once the jungle was removed they were already inhabited by thieves and zombies. Perhaps the better question is what thieves and zombies have to do with each other, and how are they planning on overthrowing the empire...

This seems most reasonable answer.

I always assumed it was this:

The Empire realized after they conquered all of Tamriel that they couldn't build tons and tons of forts like they did in their native province; it is just not cost effective. So, they devised a better idea. Build less forts but make them much bigger. This allows for the Imperial Military to house more than just a battalion or a regiment, but instead they can house whole legions. Also, this more centralized system can be controlled easier and be directed easier; legions can now march as a single unit for most of the time. Patrols can be conducted easier since there is a central hub, the Imperial City for example. Centralized command is important for a military; Napoleon easily proved this with his "divide and conquer tactic"; in which, he would keep his army as one (most of the time) and attack smaller bits of the enemy force.

Also, think about the supply problem they were facing. There are no roads leading to most of these forts, and some are in the middle of a swamp. It is easier to again centralize. The Empire won't have to have many small thinly defended caravans; instead, they will have large caravans with official legion escorts and not having to rely on mercenaries (like the Fighters Guild or Blackwood Co.).

For the city walls thing, everybody expected any attack to take place by land or sea; not from magical portals that could appear anywhere at anytime. Kvatch is one of the most strategical cities in Cyrodiil, for it's built on top of a high steep mountain with the only route to it being a hairpin road. The Imperial City has the greatest strategical advantage due to the fact that it is on a island that rises upward. Even that didn't help; the gates just appeared right inside the walls.

The old forts in the 3rd Era are now obsolete. There are no feudal kingdoms holding small fiefs; the many lords having been replaced by the eight counts who serve the Empire in their walled cities.

Now I do agree with the fact that the infested forts right next to the roads don't make too much sense. I assume that the legion tried but could not catch the bandits that can quickly disappear into the wilderness.

Edit: I think my answer was just a detailed version of a earlier post but I hope it makes things a bit more clear.

Pretty good explanation. I'd also imagine that at least some of them are from the Reman Dynasty and the Second Era, a lot of stuff happened during those times.

Edit: I mean, Pale Pass and Sancre Tor were pretty old. I can't imagine why the other forts couldn't be similarly ancient.

They were not repaired.

Ok, For 1, they couldnt have been destroyed in the time of Tiber Septim, or even in the past 100 years.

It is pretty unexplainable.
For 1 example. The Gray Prince lived in a fort, a "Grand Fort" with lord laviticus?
For a second example. Dagails father worked in a fort, which unless he lived an obscenely long time and has a wife near the end of his life then that fort should still stand

But no, it is unexplained. Its as unexplained as the fact that for some reason in all ayleid ruins the ancient ayleid skeletons were magically resurrected and are now evil.

Its as unexplainable as the fact that the arch where Uriel's assassins comes from is not able to be gone through, and that for some reason Uriel dies from 1 hit with a mace.

As unexplainable as the fact that in the past 2 games for TES, you start out 18 and get out of jail!. WTF?!
As unexplainable as the fact that the blades in morrowind are just secretive agents, yet in Oblivion everyone knows about them, even though in a loading screen it says they are secret!

Its as unexplainable as the fact that Gaenor cannot be touched yet he can touch you!
Its as unexplainable as the fact that some random elf dude used a scroll thats lets you jump extremely high while just ending up giving away your acrobatic skills before you hit the ground, obviously killing you.

So there are some lore questions that cant be answered. This is one of them.

Like Ayleid Ruins, they're likely from various time periods, some newer and some older.

Oh, and the Gray Prince was born after his mother left the fort forever, and Dagail was an old elf mage, so she's likely pretty old.
[/nitpicky]

The forts are remnants from a time when Cyrodil was actually under threat from attack, and have varius ages but are of the same architecture. I believe that Dagail's father served in one under Tiber Septim (I might be wrong, but I thought it said in the second era) but older ones, like http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Fort_Alessia are apparently from the first era.