Stormcloak Vs. Imperials...hmmmmm.

[ElricOfGrans]

To provide input with significantly less substance, I tried out the civil war quests and regretted having followed them. The plot is poorly contrived, the quests are dull, unimaginative and unrewarding, and you are left dissatisfied when it is all over. I would not hesitate to call the civil war the worst quest line in Skyrim. It certainly had some potential, and I respect Bethesda for having a go at what would have been a challenging plot-line for them to write/code, but I do not like the end result and would not recommend anyone waste their time with it.

[fms1]

To provide input with significantly less substance, I tried out the civil war quests and regretted having followed them. The plot is poorly contrived, the quests are dull, unimaginative and unrewarding, and you are left dissatisfied when it is all over. I would not hesitate to call the civil war the worst quest line in Skyrim. It certainly had some potential, and I respect Bethesda for having a go at what would have been a challenging plot-line for them to write/code, but I do not like the end result and would not recommend anyone waste their time with it.

I have to agree to a lot of this, and add that in Whiterun after the Battle of Whiterun some homes are inaccessible other than through the use of console commands, 1 such home is a quest target for a thieves guild quest, which leaves completing the full quest line broken unless console commands are used (coc), unless completed prior. And you also have all the rubble cluttering your game in and outside Whiterun, and some in Solitude.

[assasseon]

I for one thought the quest was one of the best in recent Elder Scrolls history. I have a bit more leeway to things like waves instead of actual hordes, mostly because I honestly don't care that Skyrim was written with consoles in mind. The simple fact that I spent a good fifteen minutes on a simple fort guarded by 30-100 people is awesome, regardless of the fact that I couldn't see them all at one time. Furthermore, wouldn't reinforcements have to come in from lower levels? The cities (all two of them =( ) were cool but underplayed a bit compared to forts. I still have yet to do the Imperial questline, simply because I trust a government that I have a direct choice in more than an Emperor 500 miles away. The story wasn't written out as well as it could have been, but I don't care; I spent more time killing than reading.

 

Just wanted to throw a couple lucky pennies in there!

 

Off Topic: I thought it was a great decision to PC port as it is easier for modders to fix the PC version than it is to waste extra time, money, and disappointment making a console port for the game and pushing the deadline. Plus I trust Bethesda a lot; I've loved and will love any game put out by them and their team.

[BrettM]

@CyrusAmell: Thanks for the information on what happens to the Jarls if the Imperials win.

 

The Stormcloack ones are also less sympathetic, the Riften Jarl and Dawnstar Jarl being inept & stupid rulers.

One of the reasons I took so long choosing a side is that there are inept and stupid rulers, as well as good ones, on both sides at the beginning. Siddgeir, for example, was certainly not a shining example for the Imperial side. Whichever side wins, some of the good jarls on the other side are replaced by bad ones, while some of the bad ones on the other side are replaced by better ones. Either way you still end up with a mix of bad and good. Utopia is not an option.

 

A couple of the Stormcloak jarls are not as bad as some make them out to be. I don't think Vignar is particularly senile, and I can't imagine that he would do any harm to Balgruuf's children. Dengeir is also not as much of a paranoid idiot as he seems, but has a firm practical understanding of the point assasseon made above: local rule is better for freedom because the people have more direct access to their rulers. I rather like Dengeir's take on the matter and on Ulfric.

 

One interesting question is whether Ulfric is smart enough to realize the potential political power of the Dovahkiin if the Stormcloaks win. Nords are bound to respect and listen to such a powerful figure right out of Nordish legend, so the Dragonborn might be able to stir them up if Ulfric steps out of bounds. If Ulfric is truly power mad, then he's going to have to try to manipulate us and, eventually, eliminate the competition. If not, he is going to have to give great weight to our opinions on political matters. The Empire can just ignore us, at least for now, but Ulfric can't afford to do this.

Edited March 3, 2012 by BrettM

[CyrusAmell]

One interesting question is whether Ulfric is smart enough to realize the potential political power of the Dovahkiin if the Stormcloaks win. Nords are bound to respect and listen to such a powerful figure right out of Nordish legend, so the Dragonborn might be able to stir them up if Ulfric steps out of bounds. If Ulfric is truly power mad, then he's going to have to try to manipulate us and, eventually, eliminate the competition. If not, he is going to have to give great weight to our opinions on political matters. The Empire can just ignore us, at least for now, but Ulfric can't afford to do this.

 

If this were in any way realistic Ulfric would be showering us with lands, titles and honors in an attempt to bind us to his service. We certainly deserved to be Jarl more so than some of the candidates, hell they replaced the Morthal Jarl with some miner who lived very far from town and had no reason to support the Stormcloacks.

[lquebecois]

ok this post is a big spoiler with the Dark Brotherhood so if you don't have The achievement Hail Sithis, don't read it.

 

 

At the end of that quest, you have to kill the emperor of tamriel so if you're planning to do those quest, go with the stormcloack, it'll be really silly to let the empire rule Skyrim, all of this to kill the emperor after, kind of way to destroy the empire, so WTF? but, if you want to be a nobble hero that do everything to make people free, go with them, because honestly, the stormcloack harass everyone that isn't with them (the big exemple is the imperial in Whindelm that got harassed by 3 stormcloack soldier because they think she is a spy. This and the fact that the battleborn got rhobed by them after you control whiterun

 

 

[RedRavyn]

There's a similar thread that deals with this subject. I said it there and I'll say it, here ... there's enough mud to sling around. As people have pointed out, there are pros and cons (at least theoretically) to siding with either faction. Sadly, though, your choices have absolutely no effect on anything of importance in the game, so those pros and cons remain theoretical.

 

This was a rather pathetic attempt to introduce some moral consequences questing into the game. Unfortunately, Bethesda never carries through with things like this. Sweeping questlines are nearly always left "unfinished". Kvatch and the Bruma Mage Guild burned for an eternity in Oblivion. Neither were ever rebuilt. Neither was the Temple District in Imperial City, after the end of the Main Quest.

 

Nothing has changed in Skyrim, and the Civil War questline is a shining example of a company that has developers who are starters, but not finishers. If you side with the Stormcloaks, shouldn't a big thing be made of the re-instatement of Talos worship? The Dovahkiin should be heralded as Champion of Skyrim for that reason, alone, to say nothing of ridding the country from the menace of the returning dragons. That is, ostensibly, what the war is all about, Ulfric's power-grabbing notwithstanding.

 

As mentioned, earlier, Whiterun is left in shambles, from a game-play point of view. The developers completely ignored the task of cleaning up the mess they created when they made houses off-limits. I guess they know they have a captive audience with the console gamers, and expect the modding community to fix their mistakes and finish their jobs for the PC users.

 

I haven't gotten involved in the Civil War questline in eight playthroughs. I won't. It makes no sense to do so, since there is no clear-cut advantage or disadvantage for the player to choose sides. Even the "negotiation phase" of the Main Quest is a joke, with the Dovahkiin making political decisions for the Empire. Stupid is what it is. You have a criminal (remember, the Empire was going to execute you) rising to the point at which you can decide who's going to be Jarl of several hold capitols in Skyrim? And you can do this in less than a week of in-game time? Absurd!

 

Bethesda was so intent upon putting the player in the position of peacekeeper for the Main Quest that it completely missed the opportunity to let the player make a decision which actually affected the game in the Civil War questline. There are three sides to any war. There's "A", which wants to destroy "B". There's "B" which wants to destroy "A". And there's the middle-ground, called "peace". Now, after, the contrived nonsense of the player negotiating a temporary cease-fire, why not carry the fiasco to the next step, and have the player negotiate a lasting peace?

 

After all, a united Empire is good for everyone, even though you hear a lot of "Skyrim is for the Nords!" in this game. I'd love to be able to make some choices that actually make sense, forging a lasting peace between Skyrim and the Empire, even if Skyrim secedes from it. Frankly, I'd like to see the Thalmor thoroughly crushed. Take the war to the Aldmeri Dominion. I have dragons on my side, for Pete's sake! Systematically wipe out every last Thalmor stronghold. Give the Dominion a choice -- rejoin the Empire, freeing up Elsweyr and Valenwood in the process, or become a scorched cinder. The Dominion cannot stand against the combined might of the Empire, weak as it is, with the backing of the Dovahkiin and a flight of dragons, to say nothing of the ferocity of the Nord people, who will surely want to get a little revenge.

[BrettM]

Sadly, though, your choices have absolutely no effect on anything of importance in the game, so those pros and cons remain theoretical.

How could it be otherwise, though, if Bethesda is to leave room for future sequels to the series? For the main quest there is no choice at all: Alduin gets defeated by the Dragonborn and this fact will be a rock-solid part of history in all future content. For every other quest line, any choice apparently offered must be an illusion that can be glossed over or it must be something that would never be definitively recorded in history, leaving all doors open for the devs to use in filling in the backstory for the next TES game. It would be impossible for them to accomodate all the variant outcomes of real choices.

 

The rebellion, for example, is left in an inconclusive state no matter which side you chose. The jarls for the other side are all still alive and the foe still has troop encampments scattered around Skyrim. Those troops could still turn things around and restore those jarls to their thrones, and the victor of the side you chose could be killed in the process. All that a TES 6 history book has to say is that both Ulfric and Tullius were killed during the course of the war -- without saying exactly how or when -- before it concluded with ... whatever outcome Bethesda decides is desirable. The devs may not even know themselves which way it will play out, because the decision does not have to be made until they start brainstorming the next chapter of the story. If we were allowed to negotiate a lasting peace, this would leave Bethesda with a dilemma because the possible outcomes are mutually exclusive and there is no possible explanation that would cover all of them.

 

What's the solution? Perhaps it would have been better for Bethesda to give us no choice at all rather than such a transparent illusion of one. Let the political situation be part of the background flavor of Skyrim and let us be content with the chance to whack a few Thalmor here and there, which can be done by supporters of either side. OTOH, perhaps they deserve some credit for trying to give us the best illusion they could despite the impossibility of giving us more than that. It's hard to say which path would generate more complaints, as some players are unhappy when all quest lines have a fore-ordained outcome.

[henkuberogus]

Sadly, though, your choices have absolutely no effect on anything of importance in the game, so those pros and cons remain theoretical.

How could it be otherwise, though, if Bethesda is to leave room for future sequels to the series?

 

This notion that the player's actions need to be carried over across a series even at the expense of actual choices within single games is such a gross form of pandering. Just show some stones, declare a canon ending and build your sequel on that.

 

I mean, with branching paths your hands are always going to be tied by how much script/dialog/stuff you can afford to put in but if Obsidian could provide legit choices in New Vegas so can Bethesda.

Edited April 9, 2012 by henkuberogus

[Korodic]

Concerning the Stormcloacks, you have the benefit of being the right-hand man of a King which would certainly have more benefits than being a soldier under a General. Though I am sure you will get the Emperor's gaze soon enough. So in the short term, serving Ulfric will net you more benefits (or should atleast).

unless he just so happened to die.