I'm gonna guess that military is military and The Empire and Thalmor at least are organized military institutions, the Stormcloaks not so much. I just can't see the priorities not being fortify it, clean it....then clean it at least once a day. Of course it maybe that they haven't had time to do anything but basic fortification fixes. And I maybe way off base.

I agree with the OP. Being Thalmor, thus very proud and obviously highly superior to any other race on Nirn, those establishments should be immaculate. The others lack as well.

Yes...yet another poster that cares.

This is just the thing - the exterior isn't the issue. You have soldiers whose first and worst enemy is boredom. You're not going to order them to stand idly by waiting for the stormcloaks to come and attack. You're going to keep them busy doing the most pointless things you can to keep them occupied. It's all about discipline. The Thalmor and the Legion (who are both meant to be well organised military wise) would encourage discipline in their soldiers, and so part of that is that they would spend some time making the fort exceptionally clean. Cobwebs in the corners wouldn't have any excuse to be there.

Have you ever gone to a US military base? I believe that they spend the first hour of the day cleaning until the place is LITERALLY spotless.

Besides that, your reasoning doesn't make sense to me. It takes less than five seconds to right an upturned table so that it can be used to eat off, for sake of example.

You killed the only maid cleaning all the forts. Yes. YOU.

the details are what TES games are about, so this is somehwat important. although noone in beth games has ever been too fond of cleaning anything (the brotherhood of steel, the outcasts, any caves/forts/ruins with respectable people in past TES games) and noone in TES has ever been good at fort up-keep (ever seen the forts in cyrodill? they are totally ruined despite being in places most nations would want to set up a guard post, and with cyrodills crime rate [a bandit/goblin/worse beastie along every bend in the road] you'd think they would do something with those forts)

I care. What I really don't care for... is your opinion and your attitude.

They are out of lemon pledge?
Joking aside I'd say that they don't clean up the forts because they have better things to do, like watch their asses for invasion. It is a triangular "war" going on. Thalmor have to watch out for the Legion and Cloaks
Cloaks have to watch out for the Legion and Thalmor
Legion has to lookout for Cloaks (and possibly the Thalmor, who they are obviously prepping to go to war with again)

With enemies on all sides, you generally don't worry about the upkeep of the ancient fort you are staying in, save keeping it defended and intact.

Also, they are military outposts. Everyone is on watch constantly, especially in a time of war. No time for leisure

EDIT: Misspelled 'leisure'

EDIT 2: Also with the war going on, it is stated that the Empire is so downtrodden that they are having to recruit locally, meaning they have very few forces they can redirect to Skyrim for a civil war. That would mean that training and learning how to fight, care for your equipment, and keeping watch are the priorities.

The Thalmor are too high and mighty to bother helping Nordic structures.

The Cloaks just need mead and wenches to keep them entertained.

Not to mention I doubt the warring factions expected the war to last long so they may have saw it as a pointless task to furnish everything, which would increase debt as well.

off topic... look out for the buckets in closed off areas in forts n dungeons then youl see where people go to do there doings .

not sure about the houses tho, hmmmmn...

It's all about immersion and if you don't care, why are you here?

Anyways, I agree with OP, all forts are literally the same inside (outside varies a bit but not too much). Also most of the forts are always filled with hostile enemies, unless you're doing the civil war quest and regain some of the enemies' forts. Problem with Skyrim is that things don't really come back to life when things get destroyed, no progress with time. (just like Kvatch in Oblivion, no rebuilding, just left it there to rot) It's a nice change of pace too if you finally found a decent fort with decent people living in it .. or enemies living in it, etc.

I agree with the OP. This bothered me as well, especially Northwatch Keep. An absolutely filthy and disorganized fort was not what I was expecting. If the place hadn't been filled with Thalmor I would have thought it abandoned by the way it looked.

(And yes I am also someone that cares about the toilets and dresses in Skyrim, deal with it.)

It makes more sense for a neglected state of a crumbling empire to have their forts in disrepair than the central area of a flourishing superpower to have all their forts in disreapir.

The cities are a bit odd as well. A major city? With what? Roughly 20 NPC's? All entirely generic? Considering NPC's in Skyrim are shallow already it wouldn't be a loss to make a few generic NPC's with a few generic houses. Would make cities feel more alive. Separate it with different loading areas, and make a few named NPC's in high places, (you'll be doing quests for actual important people, like the local Baron, or the court Mage, an advisor, or a knight) not 'fetch this mammoth tusk' or 'deliver this book.') Slums outside the walls, inside a bit more middle class folk, then maybe inside another wall (concentric castles ftw!) the inner city with the temples, barracks, palace...

Well said Stormy. I agree with all of that.

In closing...pick that damn table up, soldier. We are Thalmor, not some lowly Imperial scum.

I don't think the Thalmor are bored, in fact they're quite busy hunting and torturing civilians. Cowebs are the least of their worries. Also, please don't compare a modern day American base to a medieval fort. Seriously.

And if you absolutely have to, have the decency to compare with one in a war theatre (like Northwatch keep). I guarantee you that American bases in France and Germany during WWII and bases in Vietnam during the conflict of the same name had "cowebs" in corners, and worse things. I'm sure the forts in Summerset Isles are cleaner, like army bases in the US are cleaner.

Finally, it looks to me like Northwatch Keep is just an abandonned fort recently taken over by the Thalmor as a base of operations for their torture missions. I don't think they've been there for ages...

The only fort whose dinginess really confuses me is Fort Greymoor. It's got a live-in 'I come with the place' maid, for cryin' out loud. What is Agnis doing if not spending her time cleaning and cooking? That's her job!

^This is the reason. When civil war started each side started to capture old forts on strategic places. There haven't been enough time and resources to rebuild them. There's a war going and no one bothers about rebuilding something until it's over. And about Thalmor they haven't probably been there for long and it maybe that they aren't planning to stay there long anyway so it would be waste of everything to rebuild it.

Stop it with your use of logic. Didn't you get the memo: forts make no sense.

Someone may have said this before, but if the forts were built a long time ago, and there is a war going on, then there’s not really time to make them look pretty. To both sides of the war, they are strong strategic positions to be defended. There would be no time, or point, improving how the forts look when they could be improving the defence capabilities of the forts.

They just put up temporary wooden barriers to mend fortifications.
IMO it would have made less sense to have two dozen pristine fortresses dotted around the country side.

I don't even think the OP is asking for such a thing. Occupied forts don't need to be pristine, but why would there still be overturned tables lying around and cobwebs all over the place? It takes very little time and no money at all to fix such things.

Because they don't care?
They're there to do a job, and that job doesn't entail spring cleaning. Consider the trenches of WW1, then apply the logic and circumstance to the forts of Skyrim.

The trenches of WWI are a bit different than an occupied fort that is not under constant fire. I don't expect the forts to look pristine, I know they are old and crumbling. I do expect them to look lived in though. Helgen's Keep looked lived in. Northwatch Keep looks abandoned.

Oh look, it's the WWI stereotyping thing. Ignoring the fact that yeah, there was the Middle Eastern theatre and the Eastern Front, WWI trenches were pretty alright. They had to be, because it muddy, filthy trenches are breeding grounds for disease and vermin. Sure, being in a trench on the Western Front was pretty [censored], but you won't get far with the trenches and British poets tropes.

There's a design philosophy from someone famous (can't remember if he was from the movie or games industry) that states that dirt and grit always makes a scene look "better".

Design pristine clean levels and people will complain "things look too plain", "empty", "too simple" "too clean" etc

It's a little different from "in the Trenches" and "base", The Forts are their base. Weather the general soldier cares about how clean something is or not, or even the upper rank's, it's about keeping moral up. Keeping the general soldier busy, if it's building fortifications, cleaning, watches or anything else that can be thought up. That is what is important in any military. Idle hands and all that. Plus a clean uncluttered room is tactically speaking better to fight in. Nothing like backing up in a sword fight and tripping over an overturned chair or table.

In the trenches it's all about getting through it alive, nothing else matters. So no in the trenches you don't care about cleaning. Fixing up your fortifications yeah that you would care about, because that could be the difference in getting out alive.