Scalewise, that is. Not really a complaint, in the truest sense at least, as its still massive compared to most games and few are as good for roleplaying and mods, just an observation.

I'm going to compare to Oblivion, as Fallout suffer from some of the same things (in the settlements at least). I'm not going to get nto the story or lore of Oblivion, tought I liked them, but the worldbuilding and size.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that Cyrodiil is 'L' (inverted and on its side) shaped and curves around Elsweyr the province is huge. Just walking/running through the Great Forest, from Skingrad to the Imperial City, feels like you are actually walking miles. The 'untamed' land to the east really does feel large and wild. Going from Anvil to the Vile Lair is a massive journey without fast travel. There are at least a half dozen villages unmarked until you find them, such as Aleswell and Hackdirt. The map is actually big enough to fit them in. With an average speed (i.e. 40/50) I often found myself checking my map three times or so before reaching my objective to see how far I still had to go, and often found a horse useful.

Skyrim?

The province looks big on the map, but cliffs, mountains, and such actually make it smaller, or at least thats my theory. Same as with Vvardenfell. I often find myself setting out to nearby points of interest or quest locations, and then checking my map and find i've overshot them by around a third again the distance I had to go. Thats infact what inspired me to post. There is no ROOM to drop villages, as some of the villages are the actual 'cities' of the game. The closest thing to villages i've found are the occasional Inns and Orc Forts.

Onto that. The cities and settlements. These, I think, are where most of the subconcious 'nagging' comes from, that feeling of 'too small'.

Leyawiin had roughly 21 buildling, and the castle, and it was supposed to be far from the largest town. Conrast this to any Skyrim town/city and its disapointing. Whiterun has a close number, a few discounted due to being part of the Dragonsreach, but its a much smaller place, as you either follow the path around either way, and a short distance ahead you come around to the hall of the Companions. Riften is just tiny. As is Windhelm, a 'great city' that has less than twenty buildings you can enter, and less than half of that actual houses.

But least contrast these two below. If we discount the 'castles/forts' (but to be fair leave in the blue palace), we ignore one buidling in Bruma and like six in the middle left of Solitude. There are, what, a dozen or less actual houses/buildings out of all thos e'location' ont he Solitude map? Hell, throw in the bastle and blue palace, and we still probobly don't reach the number of actual inhabited cells that Bruma contains.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Bruma_Map
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Solitude_(Skyrimhttp://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120124135439/elderscrolls/images/a/a2/Solitudemapkey_03.png

We'll ignore Winterhold, as it barely exists. Its four buildings and a couple of ruins. Dawnstar, Falkreath, and Morthal however... Well, they are simply not even worth having a map maker, and its laughable to call them cities or even towns.

Sigh.

I'm honestly not raging, just profoundly dissapointed. I miss how epic Cyrodiil felt, if only in scale. Vvardenfell and Cyrodiil and The C-Wasteland all felt like scaled down versions of the places, or how the places should be. Skyrim just feels like the scenery for a trainset. I love the game, and thats partially why its such a shame. I love to roleplay indepth, using things like hardcoe mode in NV, and to have my charcaters 'live'. But that feels almost impossible in a capitol city with less buildings than a real village. Even for screenshots, its difficult pretending that the character just stays around one area of a settlement.