137 replies to this topic

[Anthropoid]

A year or more ago, I was a pretty active Oblivion player and consumer of mods. Over the past couple weeks I've been getting active again, getting new installs, ObMM, BOSS, WryeBash, TES4Edit, OOO, and sundry mods . . .

I'm getting to the point where I'm really happy with my 'rebuilt' Oblivion install, and so far everything is working fine (though I'm still a bit baffled by what exactly WryeBash does, I did do my first Bash patch and it works so, its all good so far!). Earlier today I installed the Maskar's Primary Needs and Hygiene as well as some of the mods suggested to work well with that (Camping; Better Cities). I am, at this moment installing CraftyBits

My question for this thread is about (a) village mods, that is mods that add whole villages.

Related to this are: ( mods that add player ownable houses/shops; and © mods that add NPCs.

In the past I had the "Region Revive Lake Rumare" and maybe one or two other small vilalge mods added. I absolutely loved the Region Revive, though at the time did notice some small performance issues. That was without Wrye Bash, so assuming I can effectively use that I'm guessing I should be able to run that mod fine and intend to download it pretty soon.

There was a second 'village' mod I really enjoyed that added some sort of 'brewhouse' that the player could own outside of Anvil and it seems like there were other merchants associated with that mod. The Brewhouse one was neat because, it was an inheritance so you could have a pretty cool house right from the start of a new character.

Looking at TES Nexus, there are a LOT of mods that turn up with a search on "village."

Apart from Lake Rumare and Brewhouse, would anyone suggest particular mods that add new villages?

[zilav]

Can't go wrong with http://forums.bethso...odiil-thread-2/

[Nephenee13]

All of Arthmoor's villages, MTCExpandedVillages (there's a patch for compatility with Region Revive), Lily Vale, Charming...uhh...there's a few more, not at home so I can't check right now.

I may make a patch to make Arthmoor's Urasek compatible with Sacred Oak, haven't decided if SO is worth it yet.

[Nephenee13]

By the way, I highly recommend Town of Charming, it really is just delightfully, well, charming.

There's nothing really to do there, other than grab a drink and enjoy the view of the IC, but still. Charming!

[Anthropoid]

Ah! Thank you much! That is exactly what I was hoping for

[Spiffyman]

In addition to Arthmoor's, I also use Mudwater and Brina Cross Village.
Neph: I always thought MTCExpanded conflicted with Arthmoor's Faregyl Village since it says it edits Faregyl Inn. If I'm wrong, that's great since it was the only reason I haven't tried it yet.

[Anthropoid]

There is a patch to make MTCexpanded work with Arthmoor's

http://oblivion.nexu....com/mods/42098

[Nephenee13]

In addition to Arthmoor's, I also use Mudwater and Brina Cross Village.
Neph: I always thought MTCExpanded conflicted with Arthmoor's Faregyl Village since it says it edits Faregyl Inn. If I'm wrong, that's great since it was the only reason I haven't tried it yet.

Dreamed1 put out a patch for that, I've just spent an extensive amount of time in Faregyl and can confirm it works perfectly. I didn't even realize that taht store wasn't part of Faregyl Village originally.

Ah, and Brina Cross was the other village I was thinking of. Wish I'd know about Mudwater back when Kelira was trudging through the Blackwood.

Edited by Nephenee13, 30 August 2012 - 03:39 PM.

[dreamed1]

I love villages! I guess I'm going to have to try that Charming mod. It's new and I haven't looked at it yet.

As others have said, all of Arthmoor's villages come highly recommended. In a lot of cases they're better integrated into the game than some of the vanilla villages. Sutch is my favorite: all of my characters so far have an ambition to stop adventuring someday and settle down in Oyster Bay, watch the sunset and swap stories with an old sailor. MTC Expanded Villages is a little favorite of mine, that mainly just adds to some of the existing villages, but also adds a new village up in the mountains. If you use it, you'll need the patches for Faregyl and anything that adds to the Weye area, like Region Revive. Brina Cross is outstanding. Mudwater is really, really well done and adds a nice touch to a neglected area of the map.

A couple that haven't been mentioned yet, Dragon Captions Villages adds several vanilla-sized towns (which is to say, small), with a few short quests. The locations are well chosen and the towns are nice. Wellspring Vale is pretty; too pretty for me to pass up even though it feels much more like a mod-added town than any of the others mentioned. There's also Verona House Bloodlines, which adds a huge, well-laid-out town along the shores of Lake Rumare. It's also a large quest mod, but I haven't run the quest yet.

[Decrepit]

I might have overlooked it, but I don't recall seeing mention of AFK Weye, which with patch blends well with Region Revive - Lake Rumare to transform Weye into a bustling community. Some very nice quests with AFK Weye.

-Decrepit-

Edited by Decrepit, 30 August 2012 - 05:50 PM.

[Gekko64]

stalhrim village and wellspring vale

[Arthmoor]

A village thread with no mention of Shezrie's Towns? You guys are slipping

[Nephenee13]

Ok, so now that we've got a good number of mods listed, which ones are definitely incompatible?

I know that Sacred Oak is incompatible with Urasek, since they literally occupy the same physical location. However I've toyed with just picking Sacred Oak up in its entirety and shifting it to the other side of Fort Urasek, which AFAIK isn't used for anything.

I don't use Region Revive Lake Rumare, so I'm unsure how extensive its changes are.

[shinobi2008]

I second AFK_Weye and Region Revive. I have not been to other villages yet although they are installed into my load order.

[Arthmoor]

Region Revive alters significant chunks of Weye, an inn on the IC Isle near the stables, another house down toward the AU, another small village bit east of the arena with another one east of that next to the water, one more village on the north side, and a farmhouse across the lake from that.

[Vargr]

I use All of Athmoor's villages, Shezrie's Towns, AFK Weye and Verona House Bloodlines. Makes the world space seem pretty well covered to me.

[dreamed1]

Ok, so now that we've got a good number of mods listed, which ones are definitely incompatible?

Shezrie's Towns are definitely incompatible with MTC Expanded Villages, because of Pell's Gate. Pretty much anything that alters Weye (AFK Weye, Region Revive, MTC etc etc) is going to need patches to be compatible, but thankfully most of those patches already exist.

For the most part I think that village makers have been pretty successful in avoiding the same areas of the map, whether by chance or design.

[garx]

As a big time village fan, I can come up with only two that haven't been mentioned yet. Runestone Village, and Stalhrim Village. I also use a couple which are too big to be considered villages, but are well worth mentioning. Bartholm, and MTC Thieves Grotto.

[Gekko64]

MTC thieves grotto is good, too bad it conflicts with Heart of the Dead and you end up with a buried dungeon IIRC

[Nephenee13]

Shezrie's Towns are definitely incompatible with MTC Expanded Villages, because of Pell's Gate. Pretty much anything that alters Weye (AFK Weye, Region Revive, MTC etc etc) is going to need patches to be compatible, but thankfully most of those patches already exist.

How bad is the conflict?

[Gekko64]

pretty bad, they both add a village with the same name in the same general area so you can see it's not going to end well

even though MTC villages are great, imho Shezrie's Towns is even better so I choose that

[Psymon]

Well talking Villages and conflicts and the recent new home (more public than ever before) of WAC - shezrie's villages do conflict pretty heavily with WAC.

In fact it amazed me at how one of the outlying villages south of Anvil ended up being right on top of one of the goblin camp. The whole of north valenwood to mod and they both choose that exact spot. WAC also will conflict heavily with most sutch mods and very badly with Arthmoor's sutch. Both in the placement of spawn points in the village and in the goblin camp on the southern tip of Hammerfell.

It is interesting how with village like mods there are several villages that are very near to, if not right on top of other village mods. We say cyrodiil is mod crowded, but there are definitely very popular areas to mod. I can think of mods that if used together would fill the entire region from fort urasek down to Bravil with fort after village after fort after village.

[Nephenee13]

pretty bad, they both add a village with the same name in the same general area so you can see it's not going to end well

Yes, but thats still not unsalvageable.

Dreamed got MTC compatible with AFK_Weye, so perhaps something similar will be possible with Shezries. I'll look at it in the CS when I'd done with Sacred Oak.

[Gekko64]

that would be awesome indeed. let us know

[Arthmoor]

True, but Dreamed handled the conflict by more or less removing most of the MTC content in Weye. While a useful solution it's not ideal.

[Nephenee13]

True, but Dreamed handled the conflict by more or less removing most of the MTC content in Weye. While a useful solution it's not ideal.

True, but since from what I can tell, Shezries Pells Gate >> MTCExpanded's Pell's gate, it would still be worthwhile in order to keep MTC's changes to other vanilla villages.

[Arthmoor]

Shezrie's Pell's Gate is an entire city that's separate from the village. Depending on what MTC does there, the two may not clash as much as it seems.

[Anthropoid]

Good lord! Tamriel must be like a giant metropolitan area if you were to install all of these communities!?

Thanks for the tips guys!

Installing all of Arthmoor's and already have Lake Rumare Revive. Will sort through which ones seem least likely to cause me problems and keep installing till I've got a bunch.

ADDIT: also, if none of you guys have ever checked out "Brew House" it is in my memory one of the more entertaining 'village' mods that I used to have. It seems to have been updated since the last time I had it installed which is a good sign. I have it installed, but just haven't made it over there to Anvil yet.

http://oblivion.nexu....com/mods/37978

Edited by Anthropoid, 31 August 2012 - 12:03 PM.

[Cryonaut]

Also, if you feel like a rather dark, gritty town that really pushes your machine to the max, there's Coldstone, which comes with the Dark Tower.
http://oblivion.nexu....com/mods/31183

[dreamed1]

True, but Dreamed handled the conflict by more or less removing most of the MTC content in Weye. While a useful solution it's not ideal.

I agree with the less than ideal comment. I made the Weye patch by request, so users of AFK Weye could still enjoy the rest of the MTC content, like Brindle Home (especially) or Blankenmarch. But basically you lose almost all the Weye content. There's only one essential, quest-related structure in MTC's Weye additions. So I only kept that and moved it somewhere that wouldn't conflict. But I much prefer the Region Revive patch, which is what I use in my own game, as it keeps all the original content and I think they make a nice aesthetic blend.

True, but since from what I can tell, Shezries Pells Gate >> MTCExpanded's Pell's gate, it would still be worthwhile in order to keep MTC's changes to other vanilla villages.

In Pell's Gate, MTC villages adds a player home (with associated quest), a couple farms, a smith, etc. The charm of the player home is it's riverside location, garden plot & chickens, as part of a small farming village. I don't really see placing the home in or next to a city like Shezrie's version of Pell's Gate. But I suppose if someone really wants to do it they could.

Back on topic: Coldstone looks really interesting. But it's HUGE (in terms of filesize). I wish there was a version that just added the town and didn't have to deal with all the tower additions that probably make up most of the mod's size and I probably won't use anyway. I downloaded it a while ago, but am really hesitant to install it yet. Probably have to wait for a new build that's more oriented towards dark characters. I'm moving in the opposite direction right now.

Edited by dreamed1, 31 August 2012 - 02:13 PM.