Ok, Helgen is officially part of Falkreath hold, right?

Problem is... it has city walls, whereas Falkreath - the capital of Falkreath Hold - does not.

Basically, you're saying that the capital of a hold is less protected than a city in the same hold that isn't the capital?

And I can understand just about every other minor hold capital not having any walls... because no city in the hold has any walls. But, I would naturally expect the capital of a hold to be the best-protected city in the hold. Doesn't that just make sense?

So, why does Helgen have walls, but Falkreath doesn't? Heck, the game doesn't even treat Helgen as a separate load area; to prevent glitches at the start of the game, Helgen is basically the equivalent of "open cities mod" in the vanilla game... so the walls are entirely pointless! Ok, I can understand the need to keep the player from just running off before getting his bindings off, but can't you just have Helgen hold, and have the Jarl of Helgen retreat to Falkreath - the SECOND largest city of the hold - after the Dragon attack?

Maybe it has walls since it's closer to the border? That's my guess.

Helgen is a village and an important Imperial military border fort. Because of that, it has walls built by the Empire or older Nords to guard the Pale Pass.

Falkreath is protected by Helgen (and another fort) from the east and nature from west (no big army can easily go through that wilderness) so it does not even need walls. It also probably ain't rich enough to build them either.

I don't think Helgen has anything to do with Falkreath.

Falkreaths not even that close to it. Whiteruns closer.

Helgen is wierd and illogical on many levels.
But I think it's just a minor town near the border, nothing else.

And if it is part fo Falkreath.

It's just a diferent design, closer to the border maybe.
Maybe it's militery in origin. And therefore looks more fortlike.

Falkreaths too windey to have walls, and fairly tricky to invade.
It's all diferent levels.
And also it's a minor hold, so it probabely does'nt need them that much.

I agree that it's proximity to the border would be a big reason for Helgen's walls. It's sort of Skyrim's first line of defence. It's also likely that it was built after Falkreath, and the move from one city to another was just impractical.

There's also the cemetery in Falkreath, which is its defining feature. It'd be an insult to the ancestors to move away, you know?

Helgen also strikes me as a strong military point. It would be unlikely that the Jarl would want to live in a centre of Imperial power. Notice how there's no palace in Helgen?

Helgen is an Imperial military outpost, Falkreath is not.

good point, but why invade falkreath no nird would invade a cemetery and falkreath is protected by the jerall mountains from outside invaders.
And as some guy said that helgen is right beside two passes.

Helgen is in Falkreath Hold.

Helgen was also am Imperial Military Holding that guarded a very strategic mountain pass. If Military Tactics are taken into account, it's very plausible that Helgen would be much better fortified than Falkreath. The only way an invading army could take Falkreath is if Helgen were taken first, so the town in the strategic pass was fortified much better than the Hold Capital.

You'd think that being big on lumber would mean they'd at least have a wooden wall up.

Just a thought: Helgen could have been added under Falkreath hold after the disaster.

That is no where near true, check your map.

Anyone else want to comment on his next line?

I don't understand what makes Helgen "weird" or "illogical"...

Was it constructed out of marshmallows and poo?

Falkreath is like Dawnstar a very bad job from Betheseda, lore wise these citys even were capitals of kingdoms. And what they are in Skyrim? Villages.

I agree Falkreath needed a wall. I think the same is with Dawnstar and Morthal. That and a few stand alone guard towers and it would have been complete.

I think that some of the bandit and Forsworn castles and forts scattered across Skyrim are better defended. I'm surprised the Imperial and Stromcloaks don't occupy the castles and forts and the bandits live in makeshift camps or hidden in caves.

Helgen may have had a wall as it was more of an Imperial garrison town or the major prison town - hence the Imperial executions being held there. If it was heavily Imperial then it wouldn't need the presence of a Jarl.


Dawnstar massively let down. Morthal was the other let down. They don't even have good shops. All the other cities / towns are great with the exception of a few without walls.

Winterhold would make a good dlc turning it back into a thriving city again. That place seems so boring as it is.

Dawnstar was supposed to be an Imperial garrison town with a major dock centred around the mines. What we got was not even remotely what I expected.

I was expecting Dawnstar to be like a new Gnisis or Raven Rock with an Imperial garrison fort situated alongside it.

And for the current states of Dawnstar, Morthal, Falkreath, and Winterhold being different from the Lore:

The setting of Skyrim is two hundred (200) years after Oblivion.

When was the Lore dated as a description? Early 3rd Era? 2nd Era possibly?

Easily possible that situations have changed.

I mean how they never reclaim a fort that has almost all intact walls and lockable gates. Or even put the fires out.
Theres this sound fort on the border, and they leave it to bandits. One border guard down, still on fire, and they do nothing.
That's stupid. It's not like rebuilding would take that long to do.

It probably has something to do with the fact that it was just hammered flat by a Dragon. And the fact that it only took one Dragon to lay waste to an entire Imperial Army Military Installation.

They're a little timid about going back.

So does that mean that falkreath is screwed now?

Oops, editing my post for misinformation.

Helgen was an Imperial city. That's why it had walls. But it did not have guards or all the way to the floor gates like other cities They didn't have to open the gates for you when you were brought in. Which probably means they are usually kept open. Helgen was basically just a big Imperial Fort with people living in it.

And they've carted away all the stone from the buildings that got wrecked somehow? To do what with it?

Well:

Most of Winterhold is sitting on the bottom of the Northern Ocean.

As for the others, who knows? It could have been on renovations on the Blue Palace or Castle Dour in Solitude, could have been used to pave new roads around Skyrim, could have been during all of the upheavals after the Oblivion Crisis.

The point, is that the descriptions are from the earliest years of the 3rd Era (around the time of Potema's rule over Solitude). There's a lot that can change in that time.

Referring to Falkreath, primarily. Also, the bottom of Winterhold's cliff has no rubble in it, not even from the natural ledge that collapses. And I don't see how the place was every a seaport if they had to cart everything two hundred feet into the air.

The Great Collapse was pretty damn weasel-y, overall. More could have been done with it.

You can't seriously say that all evidence of a city was completely removed. Skyrim is one enormous quarry, and you're not going to dismantle your own city because of a recession when there are dozens of similarly disused forts and ruins that have survived for thousands of years. They just don't care much, and we're not meant to think about it.

Oh common, that's no way of arguing. We all know that this isn't the reason - simply Betheseda wan't to do more real towns. And it exist for everything some curious reason that could be. But that is not the point exept for Winterhold ( Even for a destroyed town that is more like a village (acording to a ingame book) it is to little, and of course Winterhold is complet boring, why aren't there for example a archelogical team, treasure hunter or some old warrior Cast from old Winterhold - I mean theres ist nothing, al no ruins) it doesn't make really sense or isn't well done, that this "major cties(!)" are so little villages.
Yes the 5 cities are mostly well done, but the others are bad work - everywhere the same architecture and well they are simply boring.