Epic Cities - Solitude

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1.5

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Last updated

11 May 2019 11:58AM

Original upload

03 June 2018 11:09PM

Created by

Faram AKA Biohazard

Uploaded by

biohazard19x

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About this mod

A large scale overhaul for the city of Solitude which aims to make it feel like a massive and epic historic medieval city. Worthy of being called the Imperial capital of Skyrim, with a heavy emphasis on high epic fantasy style and sensibilities. New statues, towers, flags, buildings, NPCs, music and more.

Requirements

DLC requirements

DLC name
Dawnguard
Hearthfire
Dragonborn

Nexus requirements

Mod name	Notes
Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch

Mods requiring this file

Mod name	Notes
Epic Cities - Solitude (Russian translation)

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Credits and distribution permission

Other user's assets Some assets in this file belong to other authors. You will need to seek permission from these authors before you can use their assets
Upload permission You are not allowed to upload this file to other sites under any circumstances
Modification permission You are allowed to modify my files and release bug fixes or improve on the features so long as you credit me as the original creator
Conversion permission You are not allowed to convert this file to work on other games under any circumstances
Asset use permission You are allowed to use the assets in this file without permission as long as you credit me
Asset use permission in mods/files that are being sold You are not allowed to use assets from this file in any mods/files that are being sold, for money, on Steam Workshop or other platforms
Asset use permission in mods/files that earn donation points You are not allowed to earn Donation Points for your mods if they use my assets

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Translations Russian

Translations available on the Nexus

Language	Name
Russian Author: Koul99	Epic Cities - Solitude (Russian translation)

Changelogs

Version 1.50
- Decent update so I'll try not to forget anything.
- Replaced the Nordic portcullises with more appropriate medieval ones. Integrated my 'Authentic Medieval Solitude House Door' into the mod.
- Improved the upper city area by making one more block to break the repetition.
- Made new unique Oblivion inspired trees to replace the aspens.
- Improved the generic statue base mesh.
- Some misc clutter and static placement changes.
- Added moss shader to the brothel.
- Added snow shader to some statics which needed it.
- Added some new static objects to make the city look more detailed and less empty.
Version 1.45
- Edited the upper city area in the mountains, now instead of just one block type making up the upper city there are two so it looks less repetitive. I plan to make a total of 3 so it looks even less obvious and repetitive.
- Changed the windmill tower flag to be larger.
- Added two new statues to the upper city area. These are mostly placeholders until I learn how to make new statues from in-game characters and assets.
Version 1.40
- Made the tower windows only illuminate at night and not 24/7 as they were previously.
  
  Added moss to some of the statues to further ground them into the world.
  
  Un-ticked the full lod checkbox on some unnecessary banners and flags to help reduce object load.
  
  Merged the warrior statues into the potema statue to further help with performance.
  
  Added a new armor set to adventus in the form of ‘knightplate’ armor. It has the same stats as steel plate but looks more knightly as the name suggests.
  
  Added a few new banners.
  
  Changed the elder statue behind the winking skeever to a simple tree and base for now. Still need to think of something new for that area.
  
  Added a large stone skull to the top of the catacombs to add more personality to the area.
  
  Added a trellis to the bards college with instruments to make the bards college stand out. Might make a new unique sign for it too.
  
  Added two more songs for a total of 3 songs that play around the city. One song got really old really fast.
  
  A few other things but I’ve probably forgotten them.
Version 1.30
- Began work on the Castle Dour courtyard.
  
  Added knightplate armors to the Blue Palace guards.
  
  Fixed the collision on the Thalmor statue.
  
  Adjusted some clutter here and there. Moved some trees around etc.
  
  Added snow shader to the Potema statue.
Version 1.25
- Began work on the Blue palace courtyard. Added some statues to it and overall made it looked more finished. No more rocks and crap in a place of obvious authority and a symbol of elegance and power.
  
  Improved the statue near the entrance. It now shows two guys fighting to give the impression it’s a tourney statue. No more horseman. A working readable inscription will be added in the next update.
  
  Minor improvements to the execution area. Added a torture rack. Iron maiden coming soon.
  
  The ‘Heart of Steel’ now has a unique sign! Adventus still sits outside as the interior is still unfinished. If you can make a badass interior for the mod, please do.
  
  Improved the area after the windmill. Moved the towers and shrunk the tree down. It was too big.
  
  The thalmor statue is now made of gold (appropriate I think given it’s the high elves). Also added a Thalmor banner to the entrance so you know it’s the thalmor HQ.
  
  Added a new statue near the bard college. Also moved the Roman statue to the bard college.
  
  Temporarily disabled the statues I has added to the temple of the divines. I’m gonna make better statues soon hopefully.
  
  Re-added the chains to the Potema statue. Now embedded in the mesh.
  
  Improvements to some textures and other things I can’t remember.
Version 1.15
- Bug fixes:
  Adventus should now properly trade with the PC again.
  The inscription should work now, hopefully.
  Fixed a grey face bug.
  
  Misc:
  All statues now have proper textures and are no longer are copy pasted loading screen statics.
  Removed specularity on the tower meshes. They look too shiny with enbs to the point of overriding the normal maps.
  Smoothed some rock textures as there was too much visible noise and shimmering.
  Moved one of the statues (the one behind the Winking Skeever) to the graveyard area.
Version 1.5
- Decent update so I'll try not to forget everything.
- Replaced the Nordic portcullis'with more appropriate medieval ones.
- Improved the upper city area by making one more block to break the repetition.
- Made new unique Oblivion inspired trees to replace the aspens.
- Improved the generic statue base mesh.
- Some misc clutter and static placement changes.
- Added moss shader to the brothel.
- Added snow shader to some statics which needed it.
- Added some new static objects to make the city look more detailed and less empty.
Version 1.2a
- Fixed the purple towers. Sorry about that. An oversight on my end.
  
  Included the Improved carved mountain wolf mesh.
Version 1.2
- A lot of things so I might forget a few.
  
  Redid the Minas Tirith mountain area. The walls now have houses and buildings embedded in the mesh itself. There will be some noticeable repetition but it's a start and hand placing each house and building there would not only be too much work it would tank performance way too much.
  
  The new towers meshes now have proper glowmaps so now Solitude will seem more cozy and alive. Now you can see the lights of Solitude from Rorikstead and beyond.
  
  More towers and flags added, mainly near the Temple of the Divines.
  
  Adventus was hopefully fixed this time.
  
  Some textures improved along with the mesh lighting properties of the statues.
Version 1.1
- Major redesign of the large mountain area next to solitude. Inspired by Minas Tirith from the LOTR trilogy. I know it could be better when it comes to the transition from the rock to the castle walls but I am trying to keep the mod as performance friendly as I can and do not want to add unnecessary statics at the moment. Open to suggestions on this matter.
  
  Fixed some of the meshes. They now have correct normal maps and new HD diffuse textures, mainly the statues.
  
  Fixed the greyface bug on the NPCs.
  
  Some more towers were added to add to the epic castle feel.
  
  Some adjustments to the Potema statue. Disabled the chains at the moment because I plan to finalize the statue and make it one static in nifskope.
  
  Minor adjustments to some statics. Removed the sleeping tree sap tree next to the mage shop as it was a placeholder for a new unique tree model.
  
  Adventus will now sit outside his shop to sell you his goods as the interior was a mess.
  
  Minor bug fixes.
Version 1.05
- Improvements to the entrance. Added more verticality and more connected towers. Inspired by classic fantasy castles and Beauclair Palace from The Witcher 3.
  
  Added collision to one of the statues that needed it.
  
  Imperial city style long Solitude banners.
  
  Improved some flags, boosting performance.
  
  Improved the Blue Palace. It now has unique blue towers.
  
  Fixed the Relief texture bug.

EPIC CITIES - SOLITUDE

THIS MOD IS HEAVILY FANTASY INSPIRED. IT'S OVER THE TOP AS ALL HELL AND THAT's KINDA THE POINT!
MOD IS ALSO OPEN RESOURCE. DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH IT, JUST GIVE CREDIT AND DON'T CHARGE MONEY FOR IT.

150 ENDORSEMENTS! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ENDORSED!

Brief Overview:
A decent sized overhaul for the city of Solitude with an epic fantasy twist.

When I first entered Solitude, I cannot put my disappointment in words. It was crap, plain and simple. No two ways about it. Too few people, too much empty space, not enough history for such an old city with so much lore behind it. It was smaller than a village with walls. I found this old file on my Google Drive and even though all of my F:NV mods perished with my laptop's HDD, this one did not. This mod has been in my head since Skyrim first came out so I took that file from my drive, spruced it up and released it.

Solitude is the Imperial capital in Skyrim and I wanted to bring a little bit of Cyrodiil back into Skyrim as I think it should have been. Vanilla Solitude is a little medieval-y in the vanilla game but falls short of the greatness it should have had. This mod tried to go all out into bringing that epicness into the game.

There are a lot of new statues, new buildings, npcs, notes, armors, music and more. The mod does a lot, just making an exact list would be a pain and I honestly lost count of everything I've added, but if I had to make a short list here goes:

FEATURES

>NEW ARCHITECTURE

New large spired towers surround the city ala classic medieval fantasy architecture as seen in other fanstasy titles. New spire towers, round towers with crenellations and bastions. Shadiversity's videos helped give me much needed ideas for realistic castle design. Also classic castle style red flags for the spires and blue flags for the blue palace which are visible from a distance. The towers also have working windows with lights which light up at night and extinguish during the day.

>MORE BUILDINGS TO GIVE A GREATER SENSE A SCALE TO THE CITY

A mini city now exists in the mountain that overlooks the city (inaccessible though and exists purely for cosmetic reasons). It was heavily inspired by Minas Tirith from Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy with the large blade like cliff dividing sections of the city. There is something similar here but the mountain divider has a large wolf head carved into the mountain itself, fitting I think and it looks pretty epic too.

>NEW UNIQUE ARMORS

A lot of new armors were added to break the monotony and add greater variety and uniqueness to some characters.

The guards in the city will wear new unique medieval style guard armor while the guards outside the city aka the Haafingar guards will still wear their regular vanilla armor. This was done in order to make the city guards seem more unique and make the city stand out more. Only the city guards will wear the medieval style guard armors.

The elite Blue Palace guards will wear Knightplate to show their status and to make the city feel more knightly as opposed to Windhelm and the rest of Skyrim.

Ser Bolgier Bearclaw is a great warrior and the housecarl of the Jarl of Solitude. He now looks and feels the part and now wears unique golden knight armor and would give 'The Mountain' a run for his money. He also has a unique medieval claymore suitably called 'The Bear's Claw'.

Guard captain Aldis wears unique black and red knightplate with the Solitude insigina to show his position as captain. No longer will he
wear generic steel armor and guard armor. This is Solitude dammit, the imperial capital!

The Knight from Chorral will wear unique knightplate with a Chorral insignia on the breastplate along with a Chorral kite shield and a sword with Chorral's sigil on the sword's pommel. Chorral overload I know.

>NEW CLOTHES FOR THE BARDS
No longer will they look like commoners. They will look like get this.... bards! A feather cap and clothes fit for these aspiring minstrels.

>NEW UNIQUE ARMORS AND WEAPONS for the unique NPCs and for the player to aquire.
Various unique knightplate armors that the player can buy from the new armor vendor. Exquisite Knightplate is similar to Nordplate in stats but looks more like armor a classic knight would wear. There is also a new relic armor set you can buy which belonged to the 'Silverfall Paladin' of legend. It is powerful but not OP and is quite expensive to balance things out.

>NEW STATUES

Stone and marble statues to reflect the city's history. Statues are an important part of medieval cities. There are a lot of new statues from a large imposing statue of the wolf queen to statues of old kings, tourneys and knight heroes. Pictures speaks a thousand words so check the images to get a better idea of them.

>A BROTHEL ALBEIT IT'S CLOSED

An old brothel with a note explaining it's closure. The building itself has a unique exterior and pretty much looks like a medieval fantasy brothel. Seriously why were they no brothels besides the bunkhouse? Does Bethesda live in a perfect world where everything is sunshine and rainbows? Why do they shy away from this stuff? I guess if they went down that road the casual kids wouldn't be able to buy it which means less money for Todd's retirement I guess. He can probably already afford an island on Fiji as it is.

>A DE-LEVELLED ARMOR SHOP
An armor vendor who doesn't care about your level because he knows the world doesn't revolve around you. He sells ancient relics of past heroes ala classic RPGs as previously mentioneed. I hate level scaling. I hate it. I hate it! What's the point of going to a new city only to find the blacksmith selling you the same random levelled crap that everyone else is? Seriously, what's the point? I grew up on old school CRPGs and I used to feel as giddy as a school boy walking into a large city, going to the armor shop first thing and drooling all over the heavyplate and unique armors while being a level one squire who at this point couldn't even pick up and swing a sword properly. The blacksmith is the father of the Chorrol knight and will sell you the best armors at level one but the prices are slightly inflated to balance things out.

I also recommend you use TDF armor and weapon restriction for even improved balance. Restrictions are a good thing Bethesda.

>NEW MUSIC
Some classic medieval style tunes will play around the city to further reinforce the medieval feel and Gregorian chanting will play in the Divines Temple instead of generic city music. Seriously, why was there generic town music playing in there? Not anymore, now when you go inside, steel yourself as the Divines are watching and the music will reflect that.

>READABLE NOTES
Mostly flavor text and for fun to help fill in the gaps. Totally lore friendly.

>NEW NPCs
At the moment only a few unique npcs are added. One of them is Ser Jory, a knight from Chorrol. He was meant to be a more fleshed out character. Friars are planned along with more knights and bards.

>ELVEN GARDEN STYLED BLUE PALACE COURTYARD

>IMPROVED CASTLE DOUR COURTYARD

EXTRA NOTES FROM YOUR'S TRULY (A MINI RANT)
I felt that the direction Bethesda took with Skyrim, to make everything gritty and realistic in a fantasy setting was a huge blow to the game and it backfired miserably and made everything dull and bland. There isn't enough epic fantasy here. What's worse, Skyrim fails at the gritty realism aspect too. The Solitude Arch clearly defies the laws of physics. Fires burn forever, sealed off dungeons still have candles and burning braziers inside them along with fresh food. The cities are unrealistically small without a sustainable population or farms to feed them. Where are the brothels, where is the filth and corruption? Are you telling me things are this idyllic in a world like Tamriel? Beth did the same thing in Oblivion, stripping out all the nuanced politics, The Colovian-Nibanese division, lack of prostitution, slavery and racism. Everything was cheery and Bravill was cleaner than the cleanest medieval fantasy city.

Apart from the theme song, nothing about the game screams epic. The cities are small and undetailed, the dragons are pitiful and pathetic wyvern-esque lizards, the armors and weapons are dull and colorless, the npcs even more so. Even the Nordic farmhouses, they don't scream Nordic. Where is the woodwork? Where are the classic Nord architecture tropes? The farmhouses were just plain wood. Everything is the opposite of epic and fantasy when it should be the opposite. Sorry for my minor rants, I can't help myself and have a love/hate relationship with the TES series.

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy the mod.

Cheers, Faram

FAQ
Q. Will you be making more city mods?
A. Epic cities was part of a planned series but at this point, I'm surprised I even got Solitude to stumble out the door as it is. Windhelm was supposed to be next , with towering viking-esque statues and an old city feel with smaller Nord viking houses and a larger stormcloak presence like soldiers living in tents and blacksmiths working around the clock in the blistering cold to fuel the war effort. Even Solitude wouldn't have compared to it's epicness! It would have been opposite to the dump that was vanilla Windhelm. Oldest human city in Tamriel my foot!

Q.SSE Edition?
A. Sorry, not for the foreseeable future.

Q.Why the huge fires? (Redundant post V1.15)
A. As for the large fires, this was more of a technical thing rather than a design decision. The largest fire was meant to be a beacon and was supposed to be placed on top of the mountain all LOTR style but Solitude uses occlusion bounds and culling for performance and placing it on the mountain top made it invisible in-game. Also, if things are too small and if they are out of the occlusion bound area they will not render and will flicker when you get close or pan the camera. To avoid this, I had to scale them up and place them in very odd places. This was the only way. I was going to place it in the Tamriel worldspace but there are enough LOD shortcomings in the mod as it is and I do not want to add to them. It would require multiple esps and changing the occlusion bounds thus leading to complications and not breaking the game completely is a modding philosophy I intend to follow.

Q. Some meshes/textures aren't up to my high standards. Why did you release this? Have you no shame?
A. I'm sorry my work isn't up to your exacting standards. Why don't you open up Photoshop/Blender yourself and see how well you do? You don't like something, by all means, make your own mod.

NOTES ON PERFORMANCE
Mod was made with performance in mind and is one of the main reasons I don't wanna open Nifskope and blender for a while. Rather than use multiple objects in the CK to make a single structure I decided to go the extra mile and painstakingly combined statics in Blender and Nifskope so only one object would be used to show a single structure, thus saving on performance.

Report on performance if you can.

REQUIREMENTS
Mod has been cleaned with Tes5edit. No ITMs or UDRs.
Mod requires USLEEP and thus all DLCs

COMPATIBILITY
Not compatible with any mods that edit the interior of the Solitude worldspace which means not compatible with other Solitude overhauls. Doesn't affect the exterior so you can use exterior Solitude mods just fine.

Fully compatible with Legacy of the Dragonborn out of the box.

Fully compatible with Bells of Skyrim, no patch required. Load my mod after it.

Compatible with Blowing in the Wind. Load my mod after it.

Compatible with Skyfalls and Skymills. Load it before my mod or you will get two large Solitude windmills.

Compatible with Skyrim sewers I believe. Every RPG game needs sewers under the cities.

BUGS
As I stated earlier, mod is unfinished. Bugs I am currently aware of are:

>The brothel closure note is on the ground and not pinned to the door as it should be.
>The de-levelled armor shop 'The Heart of Steel' doesn't have an interior. The blacksmith is sitting on a stall outside the shop. If anyone wishes to make interiors let me know.
>The 'Silverfall Paladin Shield' has a unique enchantment which mimcs the Dawnguard Rune shield aura effect but for some reason equipping the shield makes all NPCs remark that you have an active spell going on and will remark and I quote 'cut it out'. I don't know how to fix this.

If there are bugs I have missed, let me know. When I get around to it, I will do my best to fix them.

CREDITS
Bethesda for Skyrim and the CK
Nifskope
Blender
Paint.net
Cities are Cities by multidirectionel for the original inspiration
Darkfox127 for his tutorials
ChrisKley for motivating me to finish and release the mod. Seriously, this mod wouldn't exist without him.

I will try not to miss anyone.

NEXUS ASSETS USED:

CLUTTER/STATICS/MISC
Solitude Towers Flags - iLita (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48032)
Modder's Resource - Pillars - Incaendo (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/91288)
Modder's Resource Pack - Oaristys and Tony67 (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16525)
Resources for modders - Runspect (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26132)
Modder's Resource Pack - The Witcher Extension - Oaristys (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/68755)
Mr Siika Castle Seaview Kit - mr_siika and Tamira (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/53461)
Scarla's Toybox - Modder Resources - Scarla (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69705)
Komodo's Lair - Snow Elves - Komodo (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/70800)
Flag banner - GreyFox77 (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27282)
Stendarr Statue Modders Resource - Edhildil (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/65664)
Vampire Castle - zardalu (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16645)
Strotis Treebench - Stroti and Tamira (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/46787)
Strotis Market Stands - Stroti and Tamira (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/46785)
Malo Statues - Malo (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54152)
Antique statue - Tamira (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28732)
Lor Modders' Resources - Lor (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/84433)
Thalmor banner - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/72431/

Trees - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62849/?tab=description
Portcullis - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/94780

ARMORS/WEAPONS:
Galanterie - German Inspired Longsword - Billyro (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/83206)
Scottish Claymore - Billyro (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75116)
Traveller's Shield - Billyro (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/80145)
SPOA Silver Knight Armor - dopalacz (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32275)
SPOA Silver Knight Shield - dopalacz (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34496)
W3's Toussaint knight armors resource - Medtech (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/88431)
Knight armor - Medtech (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/90850)
zzjay's wardrobe - zzjay (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/53442)
A Steel Heater Shield - Abakus (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5916)
Witcher 2 Armor Collection - CDPR-Afrotoast42-Lordofwar-Redxavier-TH3WICK3D1 (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78385/)
Alternate Shield of Solitude - ImJustAGamer and Abakus - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28674/?

EXTERNAL ASSETS USED:
https://robostimpy.deviantart.com
https://opengameart.org/content/rough-coloured-concrete
Roof - http://bgfons.com/download/5587
Red Cloth - http://www.onlygfx.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/stained-light-red-fabric-texture-2.jpg
Rock texture - https://www.deviantart.com/agf81/
Grey rock texture - http://www.openwebgraphics.com
Bark - https://opengameart.org

MUSIC CREDITS:
Gregorian Chant Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Pippin the Hunchback Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Teller of the Tales Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Village Consort Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Epic Cities - Solitude

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Version 1.50

Version 1.45

Version 1.40

Version 1.30

Version 1.25

Version 1.15

Version 1.5

Version 1.2a

Version 1.2

Version 1.1

Version 1.05

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