Skyrim will have 5 "massive" cities. I'm just wondering, will one of these be much larger than the others, like Vivec or Imperial City?

Is there anything to suggest this on the low-res images of the map seen on the wall in Beth's offices?

I'd like to know this capital thing as well...

I also wonder if the Throat of the World will be visible from all of Skyrim, kinda like the Imperial City in Oblivion... probably.

well wouldn′t be much of a fantasy game if it didn′t have a big, aw inspiring city ^^

Hopefully none will be as confusing as Vivec <_<.

Though I guess the NPCs will be a bit more helpfull....

I hope that the cities are almost equally big with their own look. Maybe the one witch the region is controlled from can be a bit bigger, but not like IC was in Oblivion.

I'm assuming Solitude will be the "Vivec" of Skyrim, because not only is what was once it's rival, Winterhold, not one of the "major" cities on the map we've seen (it's not in bold while the other cities are), but it was one of the most powerful and influential counties in Skyrim back in the late 3rd Era. Unless things have radically changed I have a good feeling Solitude will be very impressive.

I hope the cities are BIG, and have more life to it. I mean seeing a person go around with 5 guards around... not alive. having a bigger city, children, etc will ad a more realistic feel to it.

And if I had to guess I'd think Dawnstar would be the capital, since its the best positioned.

Niker

I think windhelm will be the largest. If you look on the http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/10/video-behind-the-scenes-of-skyrim.aspx @ 2:55 you'll see it looks to be pretty robust. It's hard to tell any exact details though!

Windhelm was supposedly once a capital city for the first empire.

Found this interesting tidbit on another forum:

I was fairly under welmed with the imperial city. the only thing about it that was more than usual was that it had more interiors than any previous city from previous tes games, as far as I know.

Vivec was actually not that confusing, getting lost was kinda a problem but less because of the layout of the city and more because of the lack of any compus, each specfic areas and factions were in a canton with its own name. if you were looking for the mages/figher guild you went to the forieghn quarter, and so one. in that respect Vivec and the imperial city were the same, just the lay out was different. (vivec= square cantons. Imperial city= radial circle with the tower in the center.)

Just look at this size comparison chart:
http://i55.tinypic.com/11ghjc1.png

The Imperial City was visible from all of Cyrodiil pretty much, and that made it feel much smaller. Sure, the Throat might be visible, but I hope it's not like the one huge point you can see from everywhere, more like just a part of a huge mountain range.

It should be Whiterun... at least size-wise.

I'd imagine that yes, there will be one city in the game that's larger than the others, I don't know if it will be a capital or not, but it will likely serve a similar role to Vivec and the Imperial City. The real question, is, which one will it be? I don't think the area it takes up on the map is necessarily a good indication as some cities may be more "dense" than others as well, Vivec in Morrowind for example, while certainly covering more exterior cells than other cities, was also built out of multi-tiered cantons, making it so you could not judge its size by the area it takes up on the world map alone.

Another question is, how big will this "big city" be? Because in past games, some players found the major cities a little underwhelming. Will this be the case in Skyrim? I don't know, but since the map size kis supposed to be similar to Oblivion, I could see this being the case, though in this regard, the fact that the game has five major cities rarger than Oblivion's nine (with one already being in ruins.) could work in the game's favor, as the individual cities could perhaps be made somewhat more expansive.

I think that each side of the civil war might have their own capital. One side currently hold the official one, while the other might have a powerful/large city as their temporary capital(if they win they move to theofficial one). That's just speculation though.

I am kinda doubting there will be a capitol, in the sense that there was in OB. both because of civil war and because the capitols tend to be the biggest cities but not the best (I think the capitol will be defined less about its size but by the quality of the services there and the wealth of its inhabitants.) unless we see a shivering isles style split city.

I want to be able to get lost in a slum.

I hope they are at least the sixe of the IC if not bigger.

i doubt there will be a litteral capital like vivvec and imperial, due to the cival war. however i do want there to be at least 1 city on the scale of the imperial city. bruma and anvil imo were too small.

from my understanding the only MAJOR city in obliv was the imperial city, so that leads me to believe there will be 5 cities on the scale of the imperial city

I'm not sure why people are referring to Vivec as the 'capital' in Morrowind. I always thought it was Mournhold?

As long as, unlike Vivec, there will not be these fellows called Ordinators who hate me for the rest of the game for inadvertently wearing some mismatched pauldron of their fallen comrades' armor, a big capital city will be awesome, even if one seems unintuitive in a province whose counties and towns, not cities are noted in lore for their relative significance.

And I'm pretty sure that Vivec was just the largest city and regional hub of Vvardenfell, and that Mournhold, "city of light, city of magic" as the guards incessantly said was not only the seat of the monarch, but the capital of Morrowind.

Skyrim isn't a nation-state. Why would it have a capital?

Haha. Yeah. I would get lost for days in Vivec.
Then, when I walked up to an Ordinator for directions they would scream, "Die, outlander!" and smash their ebony mace into my face. :sadvaultboy:

I'm pretty sure Skyrim's "capital" will either be Solitude or Winterhold. They're both extremely influential cities....

I'm thinking all 5 cities are going to be the big, awe-inspiring cities. I'm thinking that they all will be Vivec/IC size.

Because it's a nation-state?

I don't think the one in the screen we have seen is as big, the others on the map compared do give the feeling they will be atleast as big. But those shapes may not reflect the city as much as it influence.