How do I switch sides in the civil war? (using cheats?)

[enderes]

A while ago I joined the Imperial Legion, but now I regret it & wish I had joined the Stormcloaks instead, and I'd like to know if there's a way I can "undo" that choice.

My reasons:

First of all I know the 2 factions are like total mirrors of each other, but it totally goes against my character. For one, she's a Nord. And though she doesn't care much about race, she's a devious & cunning kind of person, and things like taking part in a rebellion & killing a leader in order to take their place are right up her alley. And my next character is going to be a Breton fighter with a little bit of a moral code of honor, so siding with "the law" in this way would be right up her alley. And I'm dead-set on having each character take the opposite path wherever there is one (Stormcloak vs Imperials, Vampire Lord vs Werewolf, etc).

 

I know that even after you join a side, you can choose to switch to the other while doing a certain quest (The Jagged Crown), but I already completed that quest (it's the last one I've done so far in this questline).

 

So is there another way? Perhaps using console commands?

 

Is it possible to use the console to remove character from the faction, and reset the questline (change all the civil war quests I've done to "not done"), and get the first 2 quests active again ("go talk to X about joining Stormcloaks" and "go talk to Y about joining the Legion")? Would that cause any conflicts from things done in the questline so far (such as NPC's killed, or items been retrieved & destroyed or given to NPCs, such as the aforementioned Jagged Crown), that would make the quests un-doable a 2nd time? Or would any such changes reset if the associated quests are reset? Could I perhaps just restart the Jagged Crown quest (as if I'd just picked it up in my journal to begin with) and then when I do it again, give the crown to Ulfric instead this time?

I am guessing these things are doable, but my understanding of console commands is very basic. I know how to use them, but only if I'm told the exact text to type in (including which punctuation marks to use). It all looks like computer code to me, & I'm not quite that tech-literate.

 

If someone can figure out the right combination of commands that can somehow do all this, and then write down the commands for me, I can go enter them into the console & see how things play out.

[Skateboards]

I've never done this myself, but this should work.

Load up your save, then type the following:

 

save backup
StartQuest CW02A
ResetQuest CW02A
StopQuest CW02A
save backup1

After that, quit to the main menu and reload backup1
In theory, this should restart the Jagged Crown quest, and then stopping it will return the game to a state where that quest hasn't been completed before. You may want to drop any item rewards you've gained from that quest and disable them via the console, to avoid duplicates.

Now, after that's done, you have a choice.
If you want to start the Stormcloak variant of the quest, and pretend you've been fighting for the Stormcloaks all along, type:

 

StartQuest CW02B

If you'd prefer to redo the Imperial quest, and then switch sides to the Stormcloaks when given the opportunity, retype:

 

StartQuest CW02A

This would be for immersion purposes of course, perhaps you could incorporate the change of heart into your characters story.

Good luck! Hope I helped.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Lukezkee

[Skateboards]

Oh, and keep that first backup save for if everything goes to s#*!. You can never be too careful with the Skyrim engine. It's notoriously buggy, and meddling with quests is risky business.

[enderes]

First of all, THANK YOU for responding.

Second, I manually back up my saves frequently (I even use multiple rotating saves). Regarding the commands you gave me, I assume I only need to type the middle 3 into the console:
StartQuest CW02A
ResetQuest CW02A
StopQuest CW02A

But the other 2:

save backup

save backup1
...I assume that's just generally telling me to make backups of my saves, right? Or are those also console commands I should enter? I've never used the console for making or backing up saves (never even though it was possible), so if that is what it means, then how does it work? Might it conflict with my manual backps?

 

And then I have a couple questions about items. I'm guessing that when I reset the quest, the boss draugr will respawn with the Jagged Crown on him just like before. I'm not sure if the object itself still exists in-game after I gave it to General Tullius, but hopefully that won't be an issue, as long as I can loot it again from the draugr. And the quest doesn't really give any reward item rewards as far as I can recall (there's none listed on the USEP). The quest I have now says I need to deliver "a message to Whiterun" but as far as I can tell there's no quest item involved (no letter in my inventory.)

 

So that just leaves the Ebony Dragon Claw. I don't know if the claw is directly required for the quest, I think it's only used to open a doorway in the ruins that leads to the boss, and I believe it's counted as a "quest item" just until the quest is done. I have it in a chest along with other special items that I've kept from completed quests. When I reset the Jagged Crown quest, do you think the claw will respawn inside the ruins? Or if the door it opens will still be open from my previous run through there? And if I should drop & disable the claw that I already have, how exactly do I do so? Like what's the console command to disable it?

[Skateboards]

Yes, the save commands were only for backups. I strongly suggest keeping those saves though, as it's very important that have a save before doing this, so you have something reliable to fall back on.

As for duplicate items, it shouldn't really matter whether you have any when doing the quest, just remove them from the game afterwards if you have any dupes.
You may want to keep the Ebony Claw on your follower in case it doesn't respawn in the ruins.
As for the Jagged Crown, if you don't want Tullius to have two in his inventory, google the item code for the Jagged Crown, travel to Tullius, open the console and click on him, then type UnequipItem <item code>

From there, restart the quest and go on as you normally would.
Once the quest is finished, you can disable any unwanted items by dropping them on the floor, clicking on them, and typing Disable

Quick save before you disable objects though, as it's very easy to miss the item and accidentally disable the floor or something like that.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Lukezkee

[enderes]

As for the Jagged Crown, if you don't want Tullius to have two in his inventory, google the item code for the Jagged Crown, travel to Tullius, open the console and click on him, then type <b></i>UnequipItem <item code></b></i>

 

Well remember that my goal here is to join the Stormcloaks, so I'll be giving the crown to Ulfric. I haven't checked if Tullius still has the crown or if it was automatically removed from the game once the quest was completed (how do I even check? try to pickpocket him & see if it's in his inventory? Or does he walk around wearing it on his head?

If both Ulfric & Tullius having a copy of the crown at the same time would interfere with the quest, then I better go do all that stuff to get rid of the first. If not, then I just won't worry about it. If this character can join the Stormcloaks & do the whole civil war on their side, then an extra crown in the general's hands won't ruin the immersion for me.

[Skateboards]

Ah, well, yeah, either way it doesn't really matter. The duplicate Jagged Crown will likely never be seen again. If you come across Tullius and he's wearing it just type the unequip code into the console

[enderes]

It's not working :(

I went in and typed the 3 commands,

StartQuest CW02A
ResetQuest CW02A
StopQuest CW02A

 

Nothing happened when I typed any of them. And the "Message to Whiterun" was still in my quest journal.
It occurred to me that the commands you gave me were ONLY for the Jagged Crown quest. But since it's part of a quest chain, and MTW is the quest AFTER it, it's probably impossible to have both quests in my log at the same time.

So I looked up the ID for the Message quest (it's CW03, which makes sense compared to the other). I then typed into the console

ResetQuest cw03

And a message popped up onscreen to say that Message To Whiterun was completed (as if I'd just finished it normally). It was no longer showing in my journal. I then tried re-typing the commands for the Crown quest, but still nothing happened with any of them. No Jagged Crown quest in my journal.
I also reloaded the save (without having saved after doing that part), and tried typing StopQuest cw03. It had the exact same result as when I used ResetQuest for it. But still the commands wouldn't work for quest cw02a. Nothing happens, no effect.

I think the problem is that you're telling me how to force a quest to begin, but because it's a quest that's ALREADY COMPLETED, it can't just "begin" at all. The game won't let me start a quest that's already listed in the "completed quests" part of my journal. I think we need to use some sort of command that does the equivalent of changing "cw02 = completed" to "cw02 = not completed" or "cwo2 completed = false" or whatever. Need to remove Jagged Crown from the record of completed quests, THEN try to re-start it.

Any clue how to do that?

[GodofGames2468]

when given the mission jagged crown, u take the crown to Ulfric instead of General Tullius. personally, I'm a Stormcloak