Thoughts on the Civil War Questline *spoilers*

[Neriad13]

I recently played through it as an Imperial soldier, under General Tullius. I came away with a mixed bag of opinions on it. Some things I thought it did extremely well, but other things sucked very badly.

Cons​

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- My gosh, the lag was horrible. Whenever there was a situation with a huge amount of NPCs, the game struggled to keep up with the demand. There were times when I was fighting frame-by-frame. And that was why I was playing this on Novice difficulty.​

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- For such a large and important fighting force, the Imperial Army has precious few notable NPCs - three, to be exact. Rikke, Tullius and Hadvar are the only soldiers that do anything that matters in this storyline. The army is such a vast, cosmopolitan organization. And yet I never found out anything about the majority of my comrades. Oh, occasionally I'll hear an ambient conversation at one of the camps. But that does precious little to help the notion that I'm the only living being in a sea of expendable bodies.​

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- The final fight with Ulfric was a massive disappointment. There was all this great buildup that he too had the power of the Voice, that he ripped a man in half with it. I was expecting an awesome fight with the charismatic rebel. But...I just hit him a few times with my flaming sword and he died. He didn't even give me a good Shout. Dang flammable humans. Of course, as I was playing this on Novice difficulty, perhaps this isn't an entirely fair assessment.​

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- In the entirety of the war, I only participated in one defensive battle, when Ulfric attacked Whiterun. After that, it was as though the Stormcloaks just gave up. One by one, the Imperials took Stormcloak forts and reclaimed Stormcloak holds, with no fear of retaliation. There was no struggle for power in this war - the Dragonborn's side is automatically the one destined to win. It would be so interesting if the player ended up on the losing side and then had to constantly look over his shoulder for enemy soldiers.​

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Pros​

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- The few notable NPCs in the war were great ones, each of which embodied the diverse opinions of most of the denizens of Skyrim. I loved Rikke's clandestine faith in Talos and hatred of the Thalmor. Her opinion on the war mirrored my own - the Aldmeri Dominion was wrong, but a violent rebellion is the wrong way to solve the problem. Tullius was a stranger in Skyrim with no personal stake in the war's doings but he came to respect the land he'd been sent to. And Hadvar is a boy caught in the times, doing what he thinks is right.​

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- These quests offer a completely unique experience in the entirety of the game - the chance to fight alongside an army in massive battles, with dozens of combatants on either side. It's something you don't get in dungeons, daedric quests or plain exploration. There's something very satisfying and epic about charging at a wall of enemy soldiers with a host of your comrades behind you.​

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- The battle for Windhelm was excellent and even a bit of a challenge to complete. The familiar streets of a town I know were transformed into a flaming maze filled with enemies. Fighting my way through to the Palace of the Kings while havoc rained down around me was a great deal of fun.​

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- I loved how the political geography of Skyrim changed as you progressed through the storyline, for better or worse. When a Jarl was exiled and replaced, it gave a real sense that you were the one changing this world and not all in a good way. Such as, when Maven Black-Briar finally nabbed the title of Jarl. And those two very pro-Ulfric blacksmiths in Windhelm who are now furious at me.​

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So, what did you think about it?​

 

[Llokin]

I was also a bit dissapointed with the difficulty of the quests, played them through on the stormcloak side on adept (first playthrough) and in all of the battles it seemed inevitable that the side I was backing would win, the imperial soldiers couldn't withstand anymore than a shield-bash from me and their arrows seemed to be made from marshmallow.
The quests were all in all quite good tbh though despite negativity, next time i'll definately switch to master for them though.
I would suggest stormcloaks if you want a laugh though, Ulfric gives a large build-up to this reward you will be recieving for your valour in a battle. - It's a "Hide Shield", gave me a good laugh.

 

[LeAmericain]

I never experienced framerate drop on the xbox 360 in the big battles. I played on the stormcloaks side and the fight with Tullius was even more disappointing. I killed the Legate, and by the time I had Ulfric had already beaten Tullius. I never had a defensive battle and all the battles were painfully easy on Adept (perhaps its because I started at like level 43 lol) There were also about 3 named stormcloak npcs, Ulfric, Ralos, and Gadovar or whatever his name is. My main complaints are the shortness of it all and the fact that i didn't feel like much was changing, nobody seemed to acknowledge or care that I pretty much single-handedly defeated the Empire in Skyrim

 

[Neriad13]

I was also a bit dissapointed with the difficulty of the quests, played them through on the stormcloak side on adept (first playthrough) and in all of the battles it seemed inevitable that the side I was backing would win, the imperial soldiers couldn't withstand anymore than a shield-bash from me and their arrows seemed to be made from marshmallow.
The quests were all in all quite good tbh though despite negativity, next time i'll definately switch to master for them though.
I would suggest stormcloaks if you want a laugh though, Ulfric gives a large build-up to this reward you will be recieving for your valour in a battle. - It's a "Hide Shield", gave me a good laugh.

Oh man, the same thing happened to me, except that I got a steel shield. On my dual-wielding character. I just went "Wut." and sold it immediately. Perhaps the war is taking a toll on the finances of both armies?

I never experienced framerate drop on the xbox 360 in the big battles. I played on the stormcloaks side and the fight with Tullius was even more disappointing. I killed the Legate, and by the time I had Ulfric had already beaten Tullius. I never had a defensive battle and all the battles were painfully easy on Adept (perhaps its because I started at like level 43 lol) There were also about 3 named stormcloak npcs, Ulfric, Ralos, and Gadovar or whatever his name is. My main complaints are the shortness of it all and the fact that i didn't feel like much was changing, nobody seemed to acknowledge or care that I pretty much single-handedly defeated the Empire in Skyrim

Ah, now there's my problem. I play on my PC. There's only so much that poor computer can take.

Wow, that's sad. You didn't even get to lay a finger on the boss.

After the war was over, I went to see Jarl Elisif and her court and they were all acting like nothing had happened. I saved every single one of their butts and not once did they acknowledge the heroism of their army.

 

[LeAmericain]

Well I didnt want to spoil anything but you do get to kill Tullius, its just the hes in the 1 knee essential pose and Ulfrics all like "So....you dragonborn kill him" so I killed him but it wasn't very satisfying. And I went to the Blue Palace and all the Jarls were in the basement acting like nothing happened...I mean they disliked me but they didnt say "Oh the stormcloaks have won NOOOO"

 

[cmp007]

a buddy of mine said he completed that before the game and it made it where it glitched alot. he said there was on dungeon or something he would walk in where he had to do a quest and when he walked in he walked into a hhole and had to reset. there were a few other things i cant remember. is that common or maybe a fluke?