My Rants: Elder Scrolls: The Civil War

The Civil War Questline is utter shit, enough said.

Okay I can't leave you off with that, but can you blame me? I know I'm not alone on this. The quests, the two factions, the things you get and go through in this questline, it's all straight out bull shit and a waste of my time. I'd rather be out spooning a mammoth with a giant ready to send me to space than to ever repeat the Civil War quest all over again. But lets get into details on what exactly the Civil War is all about in Skyrim. After the Great War where the High Elves attacked the Imperial City of Cyrodiil, the treaty they made known as the White-Gold Concordant, one of the agreements of that treaty was the worship of Talos, one of the Nine Divines, being banned. The Nords didn't like that and after a few incidents the Jarl of Windhelm, Ulfric Stormcloak, rebelled against the Imperial Empire with his army known as the Stormcloaks.

Now gameplay as a whole, the Civil War questline is absolute garbage and completely pointless. Here are my reasons to this, one; the main quests of the Civil War are all the same. First mission; take control of a fort by killing every bandit or whatever in the fort to join the team. Second mission; retrieve the Jagged Crown. Third mission; fight for Whiterun. Missions four through nine; do a thing, take over enemy fort, claim the hold. Final mission; take over enemy capital, kill rival leader, claim all of Skyrim. The only major difference is that you have a choice of being red or blue. There's little to no differentiation between the two factions.

Secondly, the quote on quote "rewards" you get for playing and completing the questline. In other words, playing through the Civil War questline is like pulling an arm of a generic enchanted item slot machine. I am dead serious, the best example would have to be the end of the Legion side of the questline where General Tullius hands you his sword, his sword being an enchanted Daedric Sword, at least that's what I got. Where exactly was he holding this!? You mean to tell me that you've been holding onto a Daedric Sword this whole time and you've just been using an Imperial Sword? And remind you he calls it "his" sword. I wouldn't mind if it was just a randomly enchanted Imperial Sword, yet alone a Daedric Sword. Have it be like the Axe of Whiterun or something?

Here's the thing, even with all that said and done, even if you never touch the Civil War questline or completely finished it, hardly anything has changed yet alone look different. There's no Imperial Soldiers and Stormcloaks fighting each other in the plains of Whiterun or in the snow fields of Dawnstar. The only time you see a group of them is when they are escorting a prisoner. And even after the Civil War is done and all, you feel like it was all a waste of time. Sure you're a Legate or a Stormblade but what does that matter? According to the ranks you should be able to command fellow soldiers, any Stormcloak or Imperial Soldier you see you could make them a follower or even build a whole group of them to tag along in your adventures. But no, even as a Legate/Stormblade they treat you no different than a commoner. And speaking of ranks, there's the head leader of those camps scattered all over Skyrim. For PC players it's not much of a problem now if you mod it but for console players it pisses them off because they can't kill the leader of the camp because they're essential!

Why can't it be where if you join the Legion or the Stormcloaks you can go to the camp and destroy the enemy camp, kill everyone in it? Can you imagine how annoying it can be where you can't kill your enemy when clearly you're an Imperial Soldier and he's a Stormcloak General or vice versa? It can get really annoying, especially when you've already killed everyone and can't fast travel because of that one essential guy and you are forced to run away all while he's chasing after you. And speaking of Stormcloaks, does anyone find it strange that all of Ulfric Stormcloak's soldiers are just his city guard? Every one of them are just wearing common guard uniform you can get from any killed guard in any hold. There's no stat difference, only having the Stormcloak armor be the only one that is a shade of blue.

Wouldn't it have been smart, like take it a bit seriously here, and add in something like leather straps, metal plating, something to add more protection? I mean in all seriousness here, the Stormcloaks insists of mostly farmers who has little to no training in combat and Windhelm guards. All while they're facing the Imperial Legion which insists of well trained military soldiers with plenty of experience in warfare and they come with an assortment of armor variety. The only thing that isn't city guard stuff is what their Stormcloak Generals have, and that's it. Even with mods like Immersive Armor, the Stormcloaks are still forced to wear their city guard uniforms all while the Imperial Legion gain another set of armor; the Imperial Knight armor. Why not add in pelts to the city guard uniform, have a wolf head on the shoulder, fox tails on the belt, something that would make you know they are Stormcloak soldiers and not just a group of city guards roaming the mountains.

Oh, and one more thing; Whiterun. Is everyone in that city too fucking lazy to pick up a hammer? We got two houses here that are in ruin, and if you say that they don't have the funds or resources to rebuild, then explain the fucking fence just lying on the ground where the Evergleam Tree is! No one can't just lift that thing up and put it back up? Its been months since the civil war was over in my game, and still nothing has been fixed! Not even Heimskrs house! Sure he's in prison, but I'm sure someone else would like to live in that house? I mean how long is his sentence for anyway? And what about that one other house, I believe it was owned by one of the Grey-Manes I believe? I'm not quite sure of the full layout of Whiterun.

But overall, I would forgive everything that I said if it wasn't for one thing that pisses me off about the Civil War questline; that it forces you to do it. For those of you who don't know, near the end of the main quest you need to trap a dragon in Dragonsreach, only problem is that the Jarl wont help you due to the war, so you have to do the entire civil war just to get the Jarl to help. But I hear you shouting at me, "But Neon, you could just do the treaty option." Yes, but here's the problem with that; it's the biggest waste of time in the whole game! It doesn't completely stop the Civil War but it just pushes it aside for later and if you're not careful you will fail in making the peace treaty and still be forced to do the Civil War questline. The only thing it does is just switch the Jarls of two or so holds in Skyrim and nothing else, so basically you could just do the Civil War questline and get it over with than to just hold it off only to regrettably do it anyways in the future.

Yes, I like the interaction with this, I like how you can change how Skyrim is with this interaction. But if the interaction is boring, uninteresting, tedious, with quests that pretty much mirrors the other faction's quests, with little to no change or worth while reward, then I don't want to bother with it. Overall, the Civil War questline is a bore and when you can just get it all over with so you can get on with your in game lives. Trust me, the sooner you kill either Tullius or Ulfric, the better.