This always kill my game I hate it. Civil war quests are the best thing in the Skyrim and I love to play it on both sides depending on which character I'm playing on. Anyway the best quest of all is The battle of Whiterun - on Stormcloak side. On Imperial side it's annoying, buggy and frustrating piece of crab. Why I think so about it? There are a few things:
- At first protecting barricades with a bow it's not possible. Even if you shoot over them or between their spikes your arrows hit on air above them and
start to break them.
- Second if you have your horse anywhere near the city or on the stables or fields nearby it runs in the middle of the battle (warrior horses of Skyrim are
annoying ones in any battle you have)
- Third is the bug that randomly appears and moves your character high in the air above the first gate of the city and drops you down to your death and
so forces you to restart
- Fourth if you use quick save during the battle the whole Skyrim quits
- Fifth if you kill Stormcloak officer after the barricades she respawns on the Dawnbridge and your quest to protect it fails.
- Sixth thing is the only annoying thing you always have in every civil war battles on both sides: You never encounter finishers during them.

I have played civil war on Stormcloak side twice and Imperial side once. I have now my second round with Imperials.

Well I've played both many times but have never run into any of the problems you have. Well other than not having finishers, but you can't with other enemies around anyway and there are always enemies in the area even after you've won.

First I want to agree that the battle for Whiterun was great. The first time I played this (Stormcloaks) and I was standing there watching the catapults fires and charged in I was thrilled. I was expecting every battle for the civil war to be just like this and was sorely disappointed when the following quests were nothing like the it (except for the final battle).

One thing I don't like about playing the Stormcloaks though is that Whiterun is notorious for never fixing anything (just look at their walls). Some of the damage within the city remains forever, particularly around the tree. That's just stupid.

Stand in front of the barricade then.

Then don't bother with a horse.
Sounds like a mod induced bug
Thats a problem with your system not the game.
You fight muliple officers and some go around the gate house.
Finishers only happen when its the last hostile.

I thought the Battle of Whiterun was the only real difference between sides, and every other difference was just scenic.

I never encountered any of those bugs.

And as an archer, you should rather get on the walls instead of being down on the street.


Long live the Empire.

When this subject comes up a lot of people go into all this lore and history stuff. For me it's a lot simpler than that. Who was going to chop my head off at the beginning of the game? Sure wasn't Stormcloaks.

My decision was pretty easy.

Huh. I've never had any of those issues myself but I only played the Imperial side once and defending Whiterun was pretty easy. There's not a whole lot of strategy involved. Kill them all and you win. But Tullius is such a tool I don't think I'll ever do the Imperial side again. He always talks down to you and in the end is sore winner. And during Season Unending he gets mad at you no matter what you try to do in the negotiations, even if you try to favor the Empire. Poor script or not, it doesn't endear one to the guy.

I didn't have any issues with the defense of whiterun. I didn't even do any fighting.

You literally can't fail it. Just stand there while endless spawning imperial forces take out the stormcloaks for you.

yeah I find that odd, I have never encountered any of the issues you mentioned and I have always done the Imperials quest line barring a single run through of Stormcloaks for the sake or seeing their side. Not sure what to say other than try some of the suggestions that have already been mentioned.

for me it's that i could never play for the stormcloaks, because of balgruuf. the way he is disappointed always made me quit the char.

going to try again... but with an char that doesn't do the mainquest, so that he does not get to know jarl balgruuf.

Not sure how you're gonna do that... ? Most of the "getting to know Balgruuf" parts of the MQ will have to be done anyway once you reach the Whiterun portion of the CW. Unless you mean you're going to limit your interaction with him to the minimum that is required. He's still gonna know you're the Dragonborn and make you his Thane, though.

I've never got any of these and I've played the Imperials 5 times. :3

This.

I've recently been debating this. I've been putting this off to the last (just this and two other main quests and I've done everything the game has).

On the one hand I've always been an Imperial Soldier in all the games.
On the other hand the Stormcloaks want to remove the Thalmor (a group I love to hate), restore the god of the dragonborn, and to make Skyrim an independent nation.

The imperials just want to keep Skyrim under its thumb. What fun is that? The only downside I see in the stormcloaks (besides not liking the leader) is having to seige whiterun, a city I have the strongest connection to and got a lot of support from its Jarl.