What were the civil engineers thinking when they designed the Imperial City?

[beefpelican]

I was playing Oblivion the other day, when I noticed something that had never occurred to me before. The design of the Imperial City doesn't make much sense. There are walls on the outside, which makes sense, given the monster hordes outside the city gates, but there are also huge walls in between each of the city sections. Why would they make these? I have a couple thoughts, but none that really make too much sense.
1)Makes the city more difficult to conquer.
An enemy would have to conquer each segment separately, and re-breach the walls every time. Still, a more sensible design in that case would be circular, ala Minis Tirith in Lord of the rings.
2)Quarantine Zombies.
This would make sense according to normal zombie rules, but Oblivion zombies aren't a result of infection but of magic, and they don't spread like other zombies, so not that idea
3)Making load times easier in the game
This is meta logic and will not be tolerated!
4)It's pretty.
That much manpower and wasted stone for aesthetics? Probably.

So what do you all think?

 

[sms_117b]

I'm going with it's pretty, What? It is.

 

[SantoUno]

To give the game designers spots to put loading screens and to enable fast traveling across the city.

3)Making load times easier in the game
This is meta logic and will not be tolerated!

Oh, gosh, sorry then.

I'm out of ideas. Good game nonetheless.

Wait I got one! If you went on a murderous rampage without walls the entire fucking city would be after you!

Wait, that would actually be fucking awesome.

 

[Axolotl]

Surely a more important question is why is the richest, largest and most powerful city in the entire world smaller than almost every other city in every other game?

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[El Poncho]

Well, it's a fortress I guess, castle in the middle gives you more time to prepare/escape the attack.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

I was playing Oblivion the other day, when I noticed something that had never occurred to me before. The design of the Imperial City doesn't make much sense. There are walls on the outside, which makes sense, given the monster hordes outside the city gates, but there are also huge walls in between each of the city sections. Why would they make these? I have a couple thoughts, but none that really make too much sense.
1)Makes the city more difficult to conquer.
An enemy would have to conquer each segment separately, and re-breach the walls every time. Still, a more sensible design in that case would be circular, ala Minis Tirith in Lord of the rings.
2)Quarantine Zombies.
This would make sense according to normal zombie rules, but Oblivion zombies aren't a result of infection but of magic, and they don't spread like other zombies, so not that idea
3)Making load times easier in the game
This is meta logic and will not be tolerated!
4)It's pretty.
That much manpower and wasted stone for aesthetics? Probably.

So what do you all think?

#4 really is the "right" answer.

But also recall that most cities were not really designed, they just slowly grew, and as such do not always follow a completely logical design. Hell, you should see the way New Orleans' streets are laid out. It's like they were designed by M.C. Esher.

 

[Ultrasnail]

i think each section was created individual. so they never thought lets build a city then give it a wall but rather, market district then add a wall... errr another district area place then a wall.
after that they relised it looked silly and added an awesomer wall.

 

[Jark212]

but there are also huge walls in between each of the city sections. Why would they make these?

To funnel in invaders to where Imperial archers could cut them down, the idea is to slow down the invaders to buy time so the defenders could ware them down...

 

[TsunamiWombat]

The city was originally an elven design, blame it on the Ayelieds.

 

[edcalaban]

1. No reason for the gardens or graves to be open to the rest of the city. In fact, given that undead critters exist and there are hints of necromancy having been a problem in the past then walls are likely a damn good idea.

2. The arena is walled off to keep the riff raff from the self-important people.

3. The mages are walled off because they're MAGES. How many mundanes would feel safe around a guy who can snap his fingers and set you them fire?

4. Seperating the merchant distract limits spy penetration.

5. I'm putting too much thought into this, so we'll assume somebody had a lot of rock at hand and a lot of soldiers to distract.

 

[beefpelican]

1. No reason for the gardens or graves to be open to the rest of the city. In fact, given that undead critters exist and there are hints of necromancy having been a problem in the past then walls are likely a damn good idea.

Point, but they did put those graves right next to the citadel...keep your friends close and your potentially hungry corpses closer, eh?

 

[Eisenfaust]

I was playing Oblivion the other day, when I noticed something that had never occurred to me before. The design of the Imperial City doesn't make much sense. There are walls on the outside, which makes sense, given the monster hordes outside the city gates, but there are also huge walls in between each of the city sections. Why would they make these? I have a couple thoughts, but none that really make too much sense.
1)Makes the city more difficult to conquer.
An enemy would have to conquer each segment separately, and re-breach the walls every time. Still, a more sensible design in that case would be circular, ala Minis Tirith in Lord of the rings.

The problem with minas tirith is that if the enemy has taken one of the outer rings, its a little hard to be a massive coward and run since it'd take you straight to the enemy... with the sectional one it might be easier to reach the castle but its bloody easier to escape... usually an unconquered segment you can run through...

 

[ultrachicken]

Maybe the architect was high?

 

[edcalaban]

1. No reason for the gardens or graves to be open to the rest of the city. In fact, given that undead critters exist and there are hints of necromancy having been a problem in the past then walls are likely a damn good idea.

Point, but they did put those graves right next to the citadel...keep your friends close and your potentially hungry corpses closer, eh?

Well duh. Isn't that how everything works?

 

[Premonition]

Because they're a huge fan of the term: Balls to the walls?

 

[JWW]

In Cyrodiil, its probably for strategic purposes. In reality, I'd say its due to loading times and aestetics.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Fire/invading army buffers. A fire will have a hard time eating the whole city when you have 40ft stone walls in the way, same thing with an invading army. But yeah, concentric circles seem to make more sense. So basically, its lazy construction to make the game designers job easier.

 

[UberMore]

They probably went "It's pretty and looks very grand! This'll do!"