Oblivion

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Created by

David Brasher

Uploaded by

David Brasher

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About this mod

NPCs from two forts ceaselessly attack each other. You can join one of the sides and try to change the outcome of the battle.

Permissions and credits
Mod: Battle Between Two Forts 1_0
Game: TES IV: Oblivion
Author: David Brasher
Release Date: 5/17/11
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CONTENTS
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1. Information on the Mod
2. Installation
3. Version History
4. Conflicts, Known Issues, and Troubleshooting
5. Copy Status and Credits
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1. INFORMATION ON THE MOD
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In this mod, NPCs from two forts ceaselessly attack each other. You can join one of
the sides and try to change the outcome of the battle. Two forts and two small armies are added
to the game.

The NPCs on the two sides respawn really fast and there is always some action going on
somewhere as the two sides try to simultaneously attack the opposing fort and defend their own.
Three archers defend each fort and are stationed high on walls where they are difficult for
attackers to reach. Eight soldiers with swords or axes attack the opposing fort or fight
against attackers from the other side that they meet while advancing toward the target.

The battleground encompasses about five exterior cells. The two forts face each other
across a small valley, and many battles occur there. Each fort occupies about one cell of area.
Behind each fort is a cell where reinforcements arrive. If game settings are turned up high, the
weather is not bad, and it it not dark, you can see one fort while standing on the walls of the
other. You can see incoming and outgoing attacks from this position.

The two forts are located south-east of Anvil, one to the north of the other. One is
built out of wood, and the other is an old stone fort ruin. To start the mod, go to the forts
and talk to people. You will need to wait for a pause in the battle, because the soldiers won't
talk to you while fighting. You can talk to the people on each side and decide which side you
want to help. The Orcish mercenaries don't have much to say. They are just there for the money.
To join their side, you will need to talk to their employers who are Wood Elfs. To join the other
side, talk to any of the Imperials. When you join one of the sides, you will instantly become the
enemy of the other and people from that side will attack you on sight.

There is a sort of a scoreboard which pops up in the upper left corner of the screen
during combat when someone dies. It does not pause the game. This scoreboard compares the total
casualties on your side to the total casualties on the enemy side.

Each fort has a banner on the highest tower. You can climb to the top and activate the
banner to pull it down. A scoreboard will count how many times you pull down the enemy banner.
(They will raise another banner when you are not there to prevent them.)

If you want to quit playing for awhile to do a quest or shopping trip or want to change
sides, talk to the people again to temporarily or permanently leave their faction. The scoreboard
will stop showing up on your screen. The enemy will stop attacking you. To resume playing, or
join the other side, go talk to people from the side you want to help.

This mod is leveled at +10 Offset. The enemy and ally NPCs are 10 levels higher than you.
So this mod could be played at any level but would be more difficult when you are below level 5.

All the NPCs in this mod belong to evil factions. Regardless of lore or common sense,
this makes it so you do not get fines for accidentally hitting or killing allies. The guard
type of people involved in the battle are set up so that they will not arrest you for assaults and
murders. NPCs may, however, get mad and attack you if you hurt them. If they will not accept your
yield, then you may have to run away and escape them until they calm down, cast invisibility to hide
from them, or slay them in self-defense (which will look bad on the scoreboard and rob you of a
useful ally.)

The soldiers and banners respawn rapidly. The containers respawn in three days. The NPCs
also respawn in three days, but other conditions will almost always make them respawn quicker than
that. Soldiers and banners respawn according to their distance from the player. They respawn when
you are on another part of the battlefield. Archers respawn on the walls and banners on the staffs.
Melee soldiers respawn in the cell behind the fort they own and charge toward the enemy fort, pausing
only to fight enemy soldiers occupying their own fort, or soldiers headed to attack their fort.

This means that if you want to loot corpses, you should do it now rather than later, because
the corpse may not still be there when you get back. This also means that you can use your position
on the battlefield to help improve the numbers on the scoreboard. Like if you are standing on a field
where your side won and most of the fallen are enemies, you can remain there and prevent them from
respawning and let the few that do respawn get stomped on by your comrades.

If you are on a field where you lost and your allies are all lying at your feet, you should
leave so that they can respawn and so that hordes of enemies don't come after you who have no allies
to help you.

Knowing that archers respawn on fort walls, if your side has firm control of the enemy fort,
you can leave and have the banner and the three archers respawn again so that your mass of comrades
can overwhelm them and you can pull down the banner again to improve your score.

If you are tired of being on a certain part of the battlefield, and aren't seeing much
action, go to a different spot. The act of moving will cause certain NPCs to respawn, and certain NPCs
to become more active in computer memory. The act of moving will change game dynamics and you might
need to fight hard to reestablish your side's dominance, but it certainly won't be dull.

This mod was constructed in response to a request by oanswat and the basic design
parameters are his.

If you are looking a big intense battle, this might be a good mod for you.
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2. Installation
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Before installation, back up you distantlod files.

Extract (decompress) the .esp, meshes, sound files, and distantlod files to your Oblivion
directory. The default is:
C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\
Mark the box next to the "Battle Between Two Forts" plugin.

Alternately, extract someplace else. Then move the .esp, meshes, sound files and distantlod
files to Oblivion\Data. Mark the box next to the plugin.
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3. Version History
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V 1.0 5/17/11Initial Release
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4. Conflicts, Known Issues, and Troubleshooting
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This mod is compatible with "Unique Landscapes - Cliffs of Anvil." It places one X-marker
in a cell edited by that mod, but functions flawlessly with it. This situation probably does
not even show up on conflict reports.

This mod conflicts with "Roads and Bridges" which edits the area. You can fix the problem by
downloading the patch which is in the optional files section at the download point. The patch is placed
in the load order after the other two files.

Distant LOD is a bit tricky. Results will vary depending on the settings you are using in
your game. The issue is the wooden fort. Some of the objects it is built with are not as visible
when distant as others. The new VWD mesh is included in the mod and I believe I have things working
properly now, but I saw so much strange stuff while working on the mod that I am not absolutely certain
that my results when I play will transfer over to the computers of others.

Low level processing in Oblivion is not very reliable and does not always behave as expected.
For instance, if you wait, the NPCs seem to teleport to their destinations rather than walking and
encountering the delays and obstacles and dangers you would expect them to. Low level processing or not,
NPCs are less likely to do stuff when you are not watching. They might stand around instead of fighting,
or dawdle on their way to battle when they are not in a cell that is loaded in the 5X5 exterior cell
area Oblivion can keep loaded in memory. In testing, it seems that NPCs outside this area are retarded
in action, not arrested. They do continue on with their assigned duties albeit at a slower, less
consistent pace. For this reason the battleground was intentionally made small so that most of it would
be in memory no matter what part of it you occupy.

This mod has enough NPCs in one location using AI packages and scripting that it could cause
lag on weak computers or computers overloaded with mods or with background processes.

Combat AI in Oblivion leaves something to be desired. The NPCs have AI and scripting that
has been heavily tested, and the battleground has been carefully path-gridded, but sometimes NPCs just
aren't very smart. For example, sometimes if an archer on a wall is shooting melee troops on the ground
with arrows, the troops will just stand there looking baffled and getting shot. Other times they will
rush up the ramps and along the wall walk and slay that archer in no time flat. There seems to be a
lot of randomness.

The battlefield is so large that out of the 22 NPCs in the mod it would be rare to have more
than 16 in one cell at a time. It is flat-out built such that it is almost impossible to get 19 in one
cell. There will usually be much less than this. But if there does happen to be a lot, you may
experience the Oblivion design flaw where some NPCs stand around while others fight, or may experience
the above-mentioned lag.

In outdoor cells, there is no autosave. Be sure to save your game now and then so that if
your game should crash for some reason, you will not lose your score and/or loot.

If you locate a bug, contact David Brasher on TES Nexus so that the situation can be
examined and the bug can hopefully be fixed.
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5. Copy Status and Credits
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Credits:
oanswat for mod concept.
Bethesda for making Oblivion in an open format anyone can mod.

Copy Status:
Public domain with proper attribution and courtesy notification. Abiding by that, feel free
to modify this, share this, or use it in whole or in part in another mod.
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