I Am Just Wondering, How come all the forts are old ruins?

It would be cool, to go to them for shelter and see Guards stationed there.
Especially because of the oblivion crises you would think that people would take shelter somewhere.

And i'm on 360 so no use mentioning mods that could bring them back.

that's a good question, I never really ever thought of that.

dont know why there ruined... probly some ancient war?

and if i remember as i was looking for mods for my PC verson... they dont have any for the Forts

I think it's due to the wear and tear after the collapsing of the Ayleid empire but i don't know any details in full. I'm off to the lore section to find out more...

The buildings are just very old that alone makes them fragile.
plus the fact that it are fort ment for war so it was problably damaged in war.

They were used for defense in wars and there hasn't been a proper war for aeons so I guess they kinda collapsed due to disuse.
Also:
The Empire controls an entire continent so invasions are rare. An invasion from Akavir would have to go through another province before reaching Cyrodil and most of the other provinces have fully functioning forts with garrison troops.

every fort in all of cyrodil was damaged and torn down, but no citys have any signes of damage ( piles of bricks by a rebuilt wall) and thier were forts right next to the capital, but no books or history abought them. if the emporer wasen a complete idiot he would have had a couple of them rebuild just in case a ginourmus army started invading them... no wonder he was killed...

I don't think the forts would safe him from underground assassination.

well technically

some ayelid ruins are remains of old cities so really there are cities with signs of damage ^_^

Well lets not forget the emperior taking only 3 guards underground and then going through the underground instead of taking the whole legion on the surface.....AND lets not forget him leaving only a prisoner to protect him....

Is Morrowind, Vvardenfell's abandoned fortresses made sense, since it's set on an desolate island in which the imperial have had only 20 years to settle, and where the Dunmer have all but cloistered together into cities apart from the Ashlanders.

Cyrodiil, as seen in Oblivion, should have been the jewel of the Empire, obviously. I don't know at all why there was so much miserable drab and broken buildngs in Cyrodiil.

Bethesda's Sheer Laziness Wiped out every single fort in cyrodil.

No. Bethesda simply apostatized to the fake and cretin mainstream. Repent! Repent!

Amidst this gamesas knocking, I have a great feeling they WILL "repent" with TES V. I think it's gonna be just swell! :wub: :hehe:

I suspect many of them were frontier forts during the time that Cyrodiil hadn't conquered all the remaining lands. Also, some forts are from the Reman Empire. And given the chaos during the Second Era after the Reman Empire collapsed, many of the forts were probably sacked or abandoned one by one.

And since Cyrodiil is in the heart of the Empire, they don't need forts anymore (they have a castle in each city), so there was no point in restoring them.

The ruined forts make sense from a lore-deprived gaming perspective: You need places that the player can explore, with enemies and loot. The caves and Ayleid ruins alone are too repetitive, so at least one more setting was needed. (Imho, it's still too little variety, especially compared to Morrowind's 9 dungeon styles, but that's not the issue here.)

From a lore perspective, the ruined forts don't make any sense. None at all. The Emperor would have to be excessively stupid to allow to let a working defensive system go to ruins, and Uriel certainly isn't stupid. Also, the monsters inside the ruins are a *threat* for the citizens, so even if they couldn't be saved for some mysterious reason, the Emperor would rather have destroyed them instead of allowing breeding nests for all kinds of monsters in the heart of his empire.

What's really disturbing (imho) is that so few players actually notice this blatant inconsistency. As if most players needed a big green arrow pointing to those inconsistencies to even notice them. Bethesda got away with that pretty well, so there's little reason to expect that they won't pull similar stunts in future games.

Before just simply assuming that the various fort ruins were and are gaffs on the part of gamesas, let us explore another, more lore-friendly, explanation.

First, we must remember that Cyrodiil itself is a mesh of two culturally distinct regions, Colovia and Nibenay, each of which had their own governments and dislike of the other. In fact, the two regions had warred with one another on more than one occasion.

Colovia, in particular, was known as "The Colovian Estates", which was a patchwork of petty kings. (Yes, I know that there are similar fort ruins in the Nibenay region, but just hear me out on this end.) In fact, Cuhlecain, Emperor Zero, was one of these petty kings. One can assume that each king, warring with his neighbors, especially during the dark times between the Second and Third Empire, known as The Interregnum, would lead one to believe that forts such as those found in ruins now would have been popular.

Now that we have explained how the ruins could have likely come about, now we must explain why they lie in ruin and not in upkeep. For this explanation, I will point to High Rock and how the Septim Empire dealt with their forts.

"This bucolic landscape is marred by the grim fortifications that perch atop every hill and crag, a reminder of the constant warfare that has been the scourge of the province. In the past, each petty lord, secure in his castle, enriched himself with tribute from all who traversed his domain, a circumstance clearly incompatible with the free flow of commerce. Now Tiber Septim has begun a program of demolition of these myriad fortresses, a wise policy that should facilitate prosperity while removing a potential refuge for subversives." (http://www.imperial-library.info/pge/highrock.shtml)

Now couple the quote above with this statement regarding a certain action taken by Tiber Septim during his initial conquest of Tamriel: "After the complete and total defeat of all his opponents, Septim began using Numidium to crush the neutral royal families of Tamriel so that he could enthrone only persons he knew to be loyal." (http://www.imperial-library.info/tsod/numidium.shtml)

I would, therefore, conclude that the reason that the forts lie in ruins is due to their being controlled by the various royal households that made up the Colovian Estates and the Nibenay Region during the Interregnum and Septim Conquest. Tiber Septim had them destroyed to remove them as refuges for his enemies, encourage free trade throughout his new Empire, enthrone new people for the regions that he could trust, forbidding their resurrection and/or upkeep to prevent the same from rising in the future.

Yours in the Scrolls,


___The Word Merchant of Julianos

Then why didn't the Red King Once Jungled simply transform all the forts into shining palaces for his loyal nobles when he was waving his CHIMtastic hand across the province?

The forts are long-ruined and useless for defense in a province that doesn't expect foreign invasion anytime soon. Many of them were probably in ruins before the Septim Empire began. And Cyrodiil already has walled cities with castles. And given that most forts can be easily entered and exited, due to having fallen apart, and the fact that only the sub-levels are intact, they're not much use in terms of fortified defense. And they're not too different from the Dunmer strongholds in Vvardenfell, only much less intact.


Maybe it slipped his mind.

Don't question the gods, my friend.

(Which is my way of saying that my knowledge on the subject is exhausted. :ahhh: )

Cyrodiil used to be a lot more feudal and unstable. Same as European castles. And notice how even the provinces's poorest houses have stone foundations and the roads are all paved by rough, uncut rocks? Where do you think it all came from?

From a logical perspective, the ruined forts make (a bit) more sense. The Emperor would have to be excessively stupid to allow such a disorganised defence system to be continued. Many of the forts are placed in places without any strategical positions. They would just waste money. Though, leaving them to rot and not reusing the stones is also a waste.
Oh, and I agree, having a http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Fort_Ash just isn't very bright.

However, I like The Word Merchant's explanation. Conflicting, small kingdoms. Some forts remained active, though, long into the septim era, possibly just a hundred years or so from the Oblivion Crisis. Take a look at http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=783203&st=0.

They're in ruins because the orc maids no longer clean them up.

Lots Of people are saying 'Because They Don't Expect Invasion' When The Emporer Knew His Death Would Ensure The Opening Of The Oblivion Gates That Could Destroy Cities!. So The Forts Would Have Made A Good Fall Back Position If The Cities were lost! You Are All Saying that the castles would stop invasion when look what happened to Kvatch!

The Emporer should AND could have rebuilt the forts to station soldiers at to fight of the Deadra.



:gun:

If he had don that it would be interfering wiht time wich would make things worse.