OG Oblivion’s AI goblin wars are the stuff of legend. Oh, by the way, someone wrote in an obscure forum post or article you likely read after you thought you’d turned over every interesting stone in Cyrodiil, you can cause full-on goblin wars just by nicking their totems.
Naturally, it’s not taken Oblivion Remastered modders long to turn their attention to making this cool system with some typical 2006 limitations into something with even more wacky potential that’s less reliant on you deciding to spend hours personally playing puppetmaster.
Enter modder NaiadGirl’s ‘Enhanced Goblin Wars‘. While it’s not the first mod for the remaster to try its hand at improving the gobbo war mechanics – ImmortanJoel’s ‘Goblin Wars Remastered‘ scored that honour at a glance – it does look like the most detailed and expansive add-on for goblin fight club sickos right now.
It makes the goblin wars dynamic rather than static. So, instead of there only being two goblin wars that start without your input in the base game, with any additional ones only happening if you personally get involved and trigger them by moving the seven different tribes’ totems around the map, the gobbos will now start fresh conflicts on their own.
“Every 5 in-game days, a new Goblin War has a 20% chance to trigger,” NaiadGirl wrote, “Surrounded by shadow, sneaky goblin thieves steal a rival’s totem when no one’s watching, and place it in their respective lair. The War Chief of the wronged tribe will embark with a group of Greenskins to the opposition’s lair, and attempt to take back what is theirs! That is, if they’re able to cross Cyrodiil alive…whether they succeed or not, they’ll be causing trouble in the countryside and cities alike.”
The mod also makes sure the goblins can pursue their totem no matter where in the world it ends up – even if that involves assaulting and breaking into the Imperial City itself, a tweak that’ll be endlessly helping if you still fancy nicking totems yourself to cause chaos.
Plus, the modder’s included an optional Amulet of Goblin Friendship found near Vilverin, which as its name suggests will make every gobbo refrain from trying to bash your skull in. Very handy if you want to kick back with the popcorn and watch a goblin skirmish unfold from right up close, because the arena’s just too boujee a means of fulfilling your need to watch some NPCs have a bloody barney.
It’s worth noting that the mod can add some extra complications to the quest Goblin Trouble by moving the totem it involves about, but NaiadGirl reckons it “shouldn’t be game-breaking” so long as the quest marker still points to the totem in its new location.
Make sure to check out the rest of our cool Oblivion Remastered mod coverage, including our recent interview with the modder who managed to make the first ever tweak to its world just one day after release.