Civil War is over in Skyrim and Stormcloaks won, so...

1. When I encounter four Imperial soldiers escorting a Stormcloak prisoner, and I attack them, why do I get a BOUNTY on me? The Holds are all now controlled by Ulfric supporters, so surely attacking Imperial remnants (escorting a captured Stormcloak, no less!!!), far from being illegal, it is surely a Nord patriotic duty! This makes no sense

2. I found an Imperial camp near Dawnstar after the Stormcloak victory and there is an un-killable Imperial Legate with whom dialogue is impossible. Er, so what I am I supposed to do about that?

Stop kicking people when they are down

I suppose try fiddling with his essential status in the console if you're on the pc. Other than that, that's quite odd indeed and something that needs fixing.

Just add insult to injury. Every time MR. Invincible gets up, beat him down again and envision your character calling him names... lol

It is a tad annoying

And as for getting a bounty, in reality Ulfric actually tells the player to 'deal with' any Imperial camps you find, which means after a Stormcloak victory, any Imperial troops still in Skyrim are in effect just bandits-with-standardised-equipment

Wait until some mod fixes it.

Don't think Bethesda will ever fix/change this. I hope I'm wrong though.

To avoid the bounty just release their prisoner first. They will attack you immidiately when you do so and you get no bounty by killing them.

There is a way to remove their essential tags through the console, if you're playing on the PC. Check out the wiki pages.

Similar can happen with an Imperial victory. There just needs to be some polish added to the in game reactions/changes after one faction dominates the other.

Until such comes along nothing you can do but ignore it I am afraid (or like other people have suggested - console commands).

i love nothing more than to kill imperial pig dogs. Any imperial supporter i find in skyrim is quickly put to death, for they are undeserving of the gift that is life.as the saying goes. Shoot them all and let god sort them out, god recognizes his own. For Talos supports Skyrim!!!!

Which is kind off. It would have made more sense to go around getting surrenders, overseeing withdrawals and taking action where there were hold outs (unless we really want to make Ulfric seem like a murderous tyrant...).

Of just have the remaining Imperial forces disappear.

Sure, but then your fellow Talos worshipping Stormcloak supporting Ulfric certified authorities... will put a bounty on your head Go figure!

Yeah, when all is said and done, no matter which side wins the civil war, nothing in the game really changes. Other than a few Jarls and some guards' uniforms. It really makes the whole thing feel pointless.

For me it's the exact opposite. Why does every stormcloak camp have an unkillable commander?

Why can't I ask them to disband/withdraw? Why is it a crime to attack stormcloaks that I find wandering around in the wilderness?

Even worse, why do those imperial convoys that escort stormcloak prisoners always tell me to bug off, this is Imperial business, when I'm the 2nd highest ranking Imperial in Skyrim right now? Sure maybe I'm not wearing my gear, so they tell me to bug off. But I should be able to counter, "At attention Soldiers, you are in the presence of ____"

And lastly, why does the civil war end without a single NPC recognizing that it's over? Some people still talk about Ulfric as if he was alive. Others talk about the war as if it's ongoing. And worse, I got nothing of value in exchange for my service to the empire, save my own commander's personal sword. No bunk, no barracks, no payment, nothing.

I can't shake the feeling that the Civil War quest line wasn't finished up properly, or is still missing some triggers.

Yes, a big fat 'Community Bug Fix' like the ones for Fallout New Vegas is probably our best bet

Neither can I, but I believe Bethesda (or the community) will rectify it.

They rarely do.
As far as I know the vampire quest conflicting with the main quest bug in Oblivion was never dealt with either.

Quoted for truth!

The Civil War quest line is the second most important quest line in the game!!!! After the civil war has been decided one way or the other, the local camp commanders should be amenable to an (intimidate) style dialogue option to get them to:

-- (dialogue success)-- disband and go home (if Stormcloak remnants)/leave Skyrim and go home (if Imperial remnants)

-- (dialogue failure)-- FIGHT!

Indeed post war, clearing out local remnant camps should be 'miscellaneous quests' given by the Jarl's stewards, which you can either do diplomatically or violently. For extra added goodness, for every remnant camp massacred (rather than disbanded), more bandits (former soldiers turned bandit) should spawn in a given hold in which it happened.

A part of me wants to disagree about it being in complete or missing some triggers.

Part of me wants to say it was just badly designed to begin with.

Despite the way they use it to start the game off, it's presence in the game feels very lacking. Other than a few static camps, the occasional escorted prisoner or the rare clash between a while six people (3 Imperials and 3 Stormcloaks), it may as well not even be happening. And when you do get involved and things actually start happening, the war consists of what? Taking a few forts that were occupied by bandits moments before and have the crapiest defenses I've ever seen. And somehow, taking these forts gives control of the entire hold. There's only two sieges (Whiterun and Windhelm/Solitude), but even those are pretty sad. That is if you even want to call them sieges. It's like they just let you in the front gate. No ladders, no siege towers, no scaling the walls. Just some catapults to make some flashy explosions. And then you beat it and what happens?! You get a speech, some Jarls are changed and the guards change their uniform. Then life goes on pretty much exactly like it did before you did the lame quest chain.

That just seems like it was badly designed from conception.

edit: I guess I can remove the spoiler tags since the thread got moved.

In my game the STormcloaks won hands down. I like this Nazi hating group! All hail Ulfric!!

I support this idea. I don't want to need to go right in and attack them if I don't need to, and a peaceful option would work much better for a non-bloodthirsty character. With my Paladin, I just walk into Stormcloak camps and stick around until they attack me, imagining that my character is saying something like, "By order of the Empire, I bid you return to your homes and villages.". They always say no of course, as evident by the swords then swinging towards my shield

Move along, citizen.

Had the same thing happen to me. Hopfully they fix it soon.

Why was this moved to Cheats, Hints and Spoilers? It is basically a bug report that gives no plot secrets away