On my first playthrough of Skyrim, one of the first things I did was the civil war questline. I thought it was a lot of fun to change the course of Skyrim's history as a Stormcloak soldier.

But now I'm playing a character who has no interest whatsoever in Skyrim's politics or the outcome of the war, and I've noticed something odd. If you don't do the quests, the war never progresses... Skyrim is simply locked in an eternal state of war. And even worse, the fighting doesnt continue forever, it just freezes in time forever! absolutely nothing about the state of Skyrim's civil war changes until you, the player, participates in it. This seems a little bit silly to me...

Why can't the war continue as it normally would after Ulfric escapes from Helgen, and then you can decide to join in from the very start, forget about it and then jump in later at whatever point the war is at, or just ignore it completely and let it resolve itself? I know the TES universe has always revolved around the player character, and I understand why it's done that way. For example, the return of the dragons can't be resovled without the Dragonborn, and the game isn't any fun if someone else is the Dragonborn, so there's no reason for that to progress without you. But in the case of the civil war it seems strange. Your character has nothing to do with the war unless he decides to join a side and become a soldier, which I don't always want to do.

Does anyone else wish it was possible for the war to be fought without you?

That is what the DLC is for my friend.

Never give for free what you can sell for money.

Yeah, it's pretty stupid how they seem to wait for you before doing anything. It would be nice to come along a fort and find them fighting over it.

I'm not sure whether I agree.

For one thing, the constant tension from the political climate is a nice touch for as long as the war goes unresolved. On top of that, I, personally, also think that it's nice that the "stalemate" doesn't see a significant change until the Dragonborn involves himself/herself (because, really, with the Dragonborn around, the battle becomes rather one-sided ). And if you adventure for long enough around Skyrim, you'll have to participate in the war in some way or another, which I think is a good way to show how it affects everyone, even the chosen of Akatosh on their journey.

All that aside, I think a dynamic warring country would be difficult to accomplish from a design perspective (not that I'm any expert). Still, perhaps it's a nice idea. This is one of those things I'd have mods fix, since someone can fall on either side of the issue, this way everyone is pleased since one can choose whether or not to use the mod.



The PC wasn't the Dragonborn in Oblivion

I really think BGS needs to focus on a much smaller scale story for next TES. A small scale story about villages, not cities, because that is what they build. A small scale story about battles between small groups of warriors because that is what they build. The stories and the scope of these adventures needs to shrink untl they can match their lore and their stories with the gameplay. The civil war battles were more like gang fights between two small gangs and my character could have killed every singl soldier on bth sides of the war in one fight while killing alduin and every single dragon dumb enough to follow alduin all in the same battle.

This game is so much better when I stick to the smaller stories inside the game and take part in the smaller, less "epic" battles. All the "epic" battles were really hilarious and not in a good way. By the way I still really dig the game it was my fav of 2011 so no I'm not a "hater" or a scourge of negativity I just want gameplay to relfect story and lore and I found the civil war battles to be really joketastic.

well, you know, YOU are the player, why in the world the game should progress on its own?
if it does, when you reach a certain time limit the war should end or you should not be able to join one of the factions and do the quest
time limit quests? no thank you

Because it's impossible to script. To let entire cities change hands every now and then also becomes boring. Imagine walking into Whiterun after a siege, then coming back a week later and see a new siege, and then again and again and again and again...
It wouldn't make any military sense for the two sides to constantly trade forts, cities or what-not. It just wouldn't. So they decided to do what they could with the limitations they have, and that's the system you see now.

And it's not entirely impossible for their to be a stalemate between two armies, which is what we have now, and both armies just need someone to change things around for them. Somebody more powerful and special then the common population, and that someone just happens to be you.

The answer is simple : you can join a side and "unblock" the situation at any moment, not just right at the beginning. That means that the quest line must be available and fresh even after 100 hours invested. So it was decided that the situation should be somewhat frozen. You'll still see that the war is there in the random encounters in a small scale, and in the main quest. If you didn't finished the civil war quest when doing the Dragonborn storyline, there's a subplot concerning them.

i totally agree

This DOES happen. I was walking near Riften when I came upon a tower filled with dead Riften Guards. I found a note on one of the tables warning them that an imperial patrol was spotted nearby but that reinforcements were on their way.

Thats hand placed, it doesn't actualy "Happen" ingame IIRC.

Also your lucky you didn't try it out for the Imperials, then you'd find that you do THE EXACT SAME quests with just Stormcloak spawns.....

Thats for immersion purpose more than anything Claypool.

Radiant story could have been used to remove this annoying aspect of the TES games where nothing happens until the player does something about it. some people would love to observe thank you. and 3 imps + 3 Stormies doesn't really make a war ;p

That is the only instance of that in the game. And yeah, it's hand placed and never changes. So aside from the rare random clash between Imperial soldiers, there's really no indication that a war is even happening. Heck, most of the forts aren't even occupied by soldiers until you start the questline.

Well, you could call it a play presentation choice.

If you do not progress the Dragon Born story the dragons do not appear to muck up your world.
If you don't progress with the war story...that doesn’t start grinding away mucking up your enjoyment of the Skyrim world either

I suppose you could fault them for that, but you could just as easily say, "Thank god the main story stems don't get in the way if I don't care about them. You could argue either way.

My first character joined the Legion at day one. But when I created my second character I didn't want to touch the civil war at all. And it was annoying that it requires my attention to bring that crap to an end.
I think it should be that if you complete the main quest after few days Imperial Legion captures Ulfric and executes him public in Windhelm when the player visits there.

They could always script that a messenger comes to the player and gives the player a letter that the war is coming to end soon, and if the Dragonborn wishes to help to resolve the war he should join the Legion / Stormtroopers (lol) immidiatley or he will miss the chance to join the quest.

Nah, let them bluster and posture until I get around to dealing with them. Until then, they can sit tight and fume over things.

A Daedra lord wait for you before he invades Tamriel in Oblivion so waiting with an war is trivial.
I thought it was cool then the stormcloaks took over an fort I had cleared for bandits, so war changes some.

http://www.checkitplanner.com/captivate/intro/work.htm
yes I laught for a long time then I saw the mill in Ivarstad.

No because that would essentialy make the civil war a timed quest and a lot of people don't want those in a TES game. Everybody plays differently at their own pace. Some people play 100+ hours before starting the main quest for example. It would be a bad game design to suddenly have quests you can't start because they are already over because you didn't start it on time.

The war does go on. I haven't gone anywhere near the Civil War quest, yet I occasionally seen Stormcloaks and Imperials fighting with one another. Just because the fighting isn't apparent sometimes, doesn't mean there still isn't a war. Both sides need time to strategize and regroup, which IRL, takes ages (i.e. just about every war in history).

Now, if you spent 2-3 years in game days and there's no progress, then that's different, but you'd also be a lunatic for playing that long.

I don't think it should have been timed, but I do think there should have been more clear and present signs that there actually was a war going on. This could have been achieved by:

1. Having lots more large scale radiant encounters with opposing forces in the wilderness fighting each other.
2. Opposing forces breaking into bar fights in neutral holds.
3. Cutting off initial access to some of the holds before quests are done to gain entry due to martial law.

Overall the way they handled it, as is typical makes it seem like the whole world revolves around our character, which although it technically does, they did not really even make an attempt to mask it.

all these people make points about scripting and gameplay issues, which are all valid.

If you want a lore/immersion-based answer, it's relatively simple: the two sides are deadlocked. With their respective advantages and disadvantages, neither side can gain the upper hand. This is WHY the player's involvement is so critical.

1. It does already happen, but it couldn't be large battles because there are limits on computer and graphical power.
2. That would be fun.
3. That would svck because it severely limits the player in doing what he or she wants to do. Skyrim (the game) isn't about the Civil War. The Civil War is only as important as the Forsworn Conspiracy.

It should have been more important. It was one of the first things we ever learned about the game, and for it to be relegated to being some cute little side thing like the Forsworn is a slap in the face to the severity of the situation. They made it sound like it would be important, but it turns out it wasnt. You shouldn't really expect to be able to waltz wherever you go with something like that going on. The loss of a little freedom in the early game in my opinion is more than worth it if it makes the narrative more compelling and believable.

The Civil War doesn't seem very serious at all, which I don't think it's supposed to be. Ulfric is a jarl of one of the several holds in Skyrim who decided to rally native Nords to oppose the Imperial presence in Skyrim. A good number, if not most, people aren't behind him. The fact that there is little fighting going on shows the triviality of the war, which is probably Bethesda's intention. And besides, war isn't always about battle, it's also about negotiation and discretion.

This is also one of the reasons why I don't support Ulfric because his reasons for resisting the Imperials with force don't seem warranted. Plus, he just comes off as a big baby most of the time.

They "wait" as a necessity of the storyline. The game can not anticipate whether you wish to participate or not, or whether you're "saving it for later". Yes, it would be a cool thing IF you could turn down Ulfric AND Tulius and THEN have it progress.