Open Cities Reborn Mod

Installation Requirements

Official Oblivion patch version 1.2.406.

Shivering Isles patch 1.2.0.416 required for the New Sheoth module.

Bartholm 7.0+ is required to use the open cities version of that city.

Blood & Mud is required for the open version of Ryan's Blood & Mud.

The Quick Install

Ok, for those of you who want to just jump right in, Open Cities Reborn is packaged as a BAIN archive for easy setup. That was probably somewhat obvious though :)

First: Make sure BAIN is set to allow OBSE plugins to be installed. You will need to be using Bash 291 or higher for this. Right click the "Package" column header, then find "Enable installation of OBSE plugins" and make sure it's checkmarked.

00 Core - All files here are required. This folder contains the necessary OBSE plugin file as well.

01 Blood & Mud Version - Use this if you wish to alter Bravil to fit in with the Blood & Mud version. This requires Ryan's Blood & Mud in order to work.

Pick only one file from the 01 folders. Do not use them both!

10 Outer Districts - If you want the Prison and Arcane University opened as well, install this folder's contents.

20 New Sheoth - If you have Shivering Isles, this will turn Bliss and Crucible into open cities.

30 Bartholm - If you have J.Sera's Bartholm 7.0+, you can elect to have the city opened with this.

Landscape LOD compatibility:

Pick one of the combinations in the 40 folders based on which combinations of mods you're using. If you don't have any of the specified mods, do not use the 40 folders.

Pick another one of the combinations in the 50 folders based on the combination of mods you're using. If you don't have any of them installed, do not use anything from the 50 folders.

Activate the rest of the files and you're off and running.

For those of you who want a bit more detail for installations, or prefer manually installing, read on:

Installation - Switching From Open Cities Classic

You will need to first remove *ALL* files associated with Open Cities Classic in order to use these new layouts and perform a clean save, including the ESM file. It does not matter which version of OCC you are using, failure to follow this procedure properly will result in major anomalies. If I hear about seeing braziers where guards are trying to stand, and tales of Ayleid ruin towers where a building should be, I'll know you didn't do this right.

The procedure is as follows:

* Load your game, and move to a location away from any of the cities. Don't use an interior attached to a city for this. Save and exit the game.

* Deactivate any patches you installed for other mods first. Load your game, then save in a new slot and exit the game.

* Remove the patch ESPs from your Data folder. Keep them somewhere safe if you want, but they need to be out of the way.

* Deactivate the city plugins, and the ESM file. Load the save you just made and save again in another new slot.

* Uninstall Open Cities Classic from the game, either manually or by using BAIN. Make sure the plugin files are gone once you do this.

* Rebuild your Bashed Patch if you have one, as it is possible it may have pulled records from the plugins.

Once you've done that, proceed with normal installation as outlined below.

Installation - New or Existing Game, First Time User

Main Components:

* As a precaution, backup your saved games. You never know.

* Unpack the files from the archive into a new folder. Don't just blindly dump into your Data folder. It won't work.

* Just in case, if installing to an existing save, make sure you are not standing outdoors in a city.

* Copy everything from the "00 Core" folder into your Data folder now.

* Copy one of the ESPs from a 01 folder, but DO NOT USE BOTH.

LOD Compatibility:

There are 7 folders that start with "40". The naming on these should be self explanatory. Choose the LOD files that match most closely with the mods you are currently using.

This is not strictly necessary but landscape LOD will look wrong if you don't use one.

There are also 7 more folders that start with "50". The naming on these should be self explanatory. Choose the LOD files that match most closely with the mods you are currently using.

This is not strictly necessary but landscape LOD will look wrong if you don't use one.

Optional Components:

* If you want the IC Outer Districts, you need to copy everything from the "10 Outter Districts" folder into your Data folder now.

* If you want New Sheoth, copy everything from the "20 New Sheoth" folder into your Data folder now.

* If you want Bartholm to be open, copy the ESP file from the "30 Bartholm" folder into your Data folder now. Make sure you already have Bartholm 7.0 installed first.

At this point you should be ready to activate the plugins. You should consult the load order section for tips, or just use BOSS to take care of that for you.

* Install any needed compatibility patches.

* Rebuild your Bashed Patch if you have one. It's possible it may need to pull records from the plugins you're using now.

When you get done, it is highly recommended that you update your LOD using tes4lodgen if you are using RAEVWD so that the rearranged city layouts will be correct from a distance.

Once the game loads, you need to allow 24 game hours to pass for AI to fully update in each city.

Once the main mod is settled, you need to upgrade any patches you are using for other mods.

Uninstalling Open Cities Reborn

Oh, now why would you want to go and do a thing like that? :)

But, since this isn't going to be for everyone, and you may decide you don't like what it does, the following procedure needs to be followed to remove the mod:

* Load your game, and move to a location away from any of the cities. Don't use an interior attached to a city for this. Save and exit the game.

* Deactivate any patches you installed for other mods first. Load your game, then save in a new slot and exit the game.

* Remove the patch ESPs from your Data folder.

* Deactivate the city plugins, and the ESM file. Load the save you just made and save again in another new slot.

* Uninstall Open Cities Reborn from the game, either manually or by using BAIN. Make sure the plugin files are gone once you do this.

* Rebuild your Bashed Patch if you have one, as it is possible it may have pulled records from the plugins.

* Regenerate your LOD so the proper visuals are restored.

You will need to allow 24 game hours to pass for AI to recover.

Load Order

Open Cities Reborn is stable and has given plenty of people trouble-free play. But it is still wise and proper to observe some load order placement to get the best experience possible out of it, as well as avoiding any potential conflicts that might result in crashes.

I would strongly recommend the use of LOOT to manage your load order. All of the Open Cities Reborn files and patches should be supported by the current version. If you prefer to manage by hand, read on :)

First off, it's best if the cities you're going to use are all set to load late in your order. The later the better, but it's not always possible ( or best ) to load right before your bashed patch if you have one. The main reason for this is because OCR makes major alterations to both landscape and path grids. Both of these types of records are winner-take-all, and anything loading later that alters the same records will severely distort your pretty new cities. Or send your NPCs to their deaths. Neither of which is fun.

Weather mods such as All Natural, Natural Interiors, Weather Inside, or any other mod altering interior cell climate/weather behavior need to be tagged with an appropriate Wrye Bash tag and the data imported into your Bashed Patch. This is usually accomplished with the C.Climate tag. If in doubt, ask. Someone should be able to provide an answer. Manually moving files like this too far down in your load order can cause other unrelated problems to occur.

Open Cities Reborn should load *AFTER* any of the Unique Landscapes mods. Landscaping and path grids near the cities will need to take priority. If conflicts such as land tears remain, these will need to be corrected with ESP patches. Please report any such conditions with a full accounting of your load order so they can be investigated.

Open Cities Reborn needs to load after Knights of the Nine, and any patches affecting it such as the UODP and SM Plugins Refurbished.

Strictly speaking, overhauls such as OOO, MMM, Frans, and by extension FCOM should not be load order dependent with Open Cities Reborn. Usually these overhauls will load well before Open Cities Reborn anyway due to their own requirements.

Open Cities Reborn should be loaded after any mods which make changes to the following quests:

Nocturnal's daedric artifact quest.

Dark Brotherhood quest "A Knife in the Dark"

Dark Brotherhood quest "Affairs of a Wizard"

Dark Brotherhood quest "A Kiss Before Dying"

Dark Brotherhood quest "Following a Lead"

Dark Brotherhood quest "Whispers of Death"

Mages Guild quest "A Plot Revealed"

Main Quest "Defense of Bruma"

Side quest "Caught in the Hunt"

Side quest "A Brotherhood Betrayed"

Side quest "A Brush with Death"

Side quest "Paranoia"

Thieves Guild quest "Lost Histories"

The reason for this is because these quests have targets within the cities that needed to be changed or they would be pointing to the wrong worldspaces, leading to confusion even though the quests themselves would not be broken.