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So I'm back on Morrowind after a long break, and to make things interesting, I decided to try out a new challenge that I'd like to share here: conquering the whole of Vvardenfell, Solstheim and Mournhold.
I got the idea from this thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11571
The big question would be, "how do I conquer the land?"
Currently, I've set up all my criterias for a place to be "conquered", and devised some specifics for every place of potential interest, be it caves, ruins, towns, minor camps, mines, even shipwrecks.
General criterias that apply everywhere would be as follow:
- Every quests (or at least as many as possible) related to the place finished.
- Every unique souls in the place trapped.
- Every unique objects or items that can be interesting (as in, any loot or treasure of interest) looted.
- Every hostile NPCs pacified and their disposition bumped to 100, except for those that have to be killed (quest target, holding an important object that can't be stolen...)
- Every hostile creatures killed.
- If there are slaves, free them all.
After that, marking the place as conquered is important to remember that you did it: I originally wanted to directly write the message in front of the entrance of cave using the mod Chalk (http: //mw.modhistory. com/download-95-14690), but I'm playing on a french version and it's too complex to translate... instead, I'd use two types of marks:
- a map note left at the entrance with some text saying that your PC conquered the place ( my personal text will be "This place has been claimed by Nerevar's descendants. All hail Moon-and-Star, Savior of the Dunmers".)
- An object placed at the entrance of the place/in the center of the town, which I may detail afterward. Some such marks can be cumulated.
In a way, this is an ultimate completionist run: create a perfect character that will power level before starting the serious things, doing all quests, collecting every unique objects/books/souls/spells, killing as least people as possible (inspired by this thread (warning: it's in french) http: //forum.wiwiland. net/index.php?/topic/45940-la-plus-dingue-des-collections/page__p__600579__hl__collection#entry600579) and claiming the entire island by right of being the Nerevarine and master of all factions.
Of course, some parts can be left out for those that would find it too hard (like the power leveling). but those requisites were created to make things more interesting.
If anyone has any suggestions, is interested, or anything else, don't hesitate to post!

Assuming you have no family, friends, school, work, or general obligations of any kind for the next several years...I have no doubt you will succeed.

Then I'll have to be very, very patient to achieve this, I have exams in a few months... I'll play when I find the time to.

I might chip in on this topic (since it's still somewhat high on the front page despite the last posting date) and note that from my perspective, just becoming head of as many factions as you can is effectively "conquering" Vvardenfell.

* The major organized military powers on the island seem to be the Imperial Legion and the three Great Houses (Hlaalu, Redoran, Telvanni). Indoril has some presence in Vivec (Ordinators), but it's much weaker due to its efforts to resist imperial occupation. All military factions presumably answer to the central command in Imperial City, but the leader of each faction probably has a good deal of control over their respective army, provided they don't attempt to go full revolution. So if you rise to the head of the Imperial Legion and one Great House, you effectively sit at the high command of about 50% (2 out of 4) of organized military presence on Vvardenfell. At worst, that percentage can be reduced to 40% (2 out of 5) if Indoril were assumed to be about as strong as the other military factions on the island. Note that you can technically control 2 great houses (and thus 60%-75% of Vvardenfell's organized military presence) if you abuse the glitch to be in Hlaalu plus another house, but I consider that cheating and therefore irrelevant.

* You also control the flow of mercenaries and unorganized soldiers on the island once you are Master of the Fighter's Guild, so even individual random mercenaries are mostly on your side.

* You control the flow of organized crime on the island as Master Thief of Morrowind's Thieves Guild. As for the rival crime ring (The Cammona Tong), their presence is greatly diminished because you kill a lot of their members for Larius Varro, blackmail/kill their leader in Orvas Dren and completely sever their connection to the Fighter's Guild. As Master Thief of the remaining organized crime faction in Morrowind, almost no professional thieves will dare to steal from you.

* As a Factor in the East Empire Company you maintain a high level of control over a large amount of Vvardenfell's trade and commerce, so even factions you don't lead will be very reluctant to offend you on that level alone.

* It is extremely difficult to even try to send an assassin at you, because you are Grandmaster of the Morag Tong, and in the process of playing the game you completely destroy all the Dark Brotherhood outlets in all of Morrowind--so you basically have sole control over who is killed and who isn't.

* You are the highest ranked member of the Blades in Morrowind, so you can make large use of the Empire's spy agency. It also becomes very difficult for the Empire to do any spying on you, because they'd have to hide any spy attempts from all of their own agents in Morrowind.

* As Patriarch of the Temple, you have control over the media--you can censor or uncensor what you want (in other words, you control the Dunmer media), have access to the most restricted archives in Vivec's libraries and it becomes extremely difficult to persecute you for religious crimes. On the flipside, you can in turn brand enemies as heretics and imprison them in the Ministry of Truth as religious criminals. The Ordinators/House Indoril are very reluctant to side against you, even if you can't control them directly. Through the Tribunal plotline, all Almsivi other than Vivec are killed, and Vivec ends up on very good terms with you after the main quest. Vivec's favor also means the Buoyant Armigers are on your side as well. Finally, you have direct command over whatever small military strength the Temple has in its Crusaders and whatnot. As a Primate of the Imperial Cult, you have a similar, if lesser amount of control over organized religion in regards to most non-Dunmer.

* The main perk to being Arch Mage of the Mages Guild is that you have complete access to one of the largest research organizations in the Morrowind (the biggest rival being the Telvanni), and are the largest that specializes solely in research. You want some experiment figured out, and the entire guild will work to take care of it for you. Being Arch Mage is implied to be a powerful position, and people like Trebonius and Ranis Athrys certainly make use of their power at times. You have control over the guild's mage-oriented mercenaries, though people seem to look to the Fighters guild when they want hired muscle. You have a good amount of control over the types of magic people are allowed to study, (necromancy, etc...) but you have to follow the Guild's central charter in this regard. You also control the most efficient transportation service on the island.

* You are an (adopted) member of the Urshilaku tribe, and the chieftains of all the other tribes are indebted to you. So overall, any Ashlanders who aren't exiled are basically on your side.

* Also, as the Nerevarine, you have a massive amount of popularity with even people who aren't in factions. Doing all the Daedric quests puts you on the good side of most of the Daedric Princes as well.

* Finally as the player character, you are ridiculously strong in your own right, and you are rich enough to buy anything you could possibly want that can be purchased with money.

Ultimately, once you finish all the faction quests, you are easily the most powerful individual in Morrowind. Going faction by faction, you have more overall support than even Duke Vedam Dren, Vivec or King Helseth do. Essentially, nothing gets done in Vvardenfell without you knowing about it, and you can control what gets done on a greater level than anyone else. Duke Vedam Dren for instance, has to go through you in order to get something done that involves one of the factions you lead, which is almost all of them. Overall, at the end, you have the sort of power over Vvardenfell that a President or Prime Minister could only wish to have over his or her respective country. So I'd say being head of the maximum amount of joinable factions is "conquering" the place well enough.

It's too bad though, that the entire place gets blown up in the end. Oh well.

This would take a dedicated year IMO... well there are about 1000 NPC's in Morrowind from what I remember which isn't too extreme, as well as nearly 500 quests total including expansions. That really isn't too bad, I managed to 90% Morrowind in about 4 months the first time I played it but I was spending an average of 5 hours a day as well lol. I'd wager I could do the same in 3 months now that I know more than I did then.

The soul trapping and persuasion would get annoying, but after you power level and make thousands of potions to sell to creeper you will have plenty of money to work with and your personality will be 100 in a few days.

Hostile Creatures respawn once their corpses disappear or you leave the cell so that's not possible

Getting every item is the most difficult part other than the soul-trapping and will take months to do. This would be almost unmanageable unless you were fiercely dedicated to it's completion.

Then again, Morrowind isn't anywhere near as large as TES 1 and 2 so that works in your favor and VVardenfell as a whole can be jumped across. Plus there are a lot of pseudo-empty areas. and congested places like Vivec where you could knock off like 150-ish NPC's right off the bat.

Yeah, I think 3-4 months at 6 hours a day with no days off and if you had the game windowed with the wiki in the background and combed every area 4 squares at a time.

That said, you would get bored pretty fast playing in such a fashion because it would turn into a job. If you did manage this I'd imagine you'd be one of a handful in the world that have.

First thanks for the advices!

I started my new character yesterday and figured out my strategy to power level. For now, I reached level 11 and just maxed my Intelligence (Endurance will be maxed two levels later.)
Right now, my method to make enough money to pay all the training is to craft waterwalking potions at Caldera ((thanks to Ernand Thierry's resstocking supplies) and sell them to the Creeper and other merchants. But it raises a question for me: if I continue working my Alchemy skill now (as it is a misc skill, will this affect either the way I level or the maximum level I can reach?

Also, a question for later in the game: apart from Fadase Selvayn and Elbert Nermarc, are there other guaranteed sources of soulgems? (as I'll need a lot of every type...)

Anyway, thanks again!