The Civil War questline is somehow both too long and too short

[EbonyWarrior]

I've been replaying this and I keep hitting the same wall. The Civil War takes forever to finish - you're running back and forth between holds doing the same battle quest over and over, watching the same siege play out in slightly different locations. But then you actually reach the end and it's like... that's it? No real political fallout, the winning side barely changes anything, and half the NPCs you fought alongside don't even acknowledge you beat them.

Compare that to the House politics in Morrowind where joining House Hlaalu or House Telvanni actually meant something. Your choices rippled through the whole questline. In Skyrim you pick Stormcloak or Legion and then you just do radiant battles until a quest marker tells you it's over.

I think the problem is they stretched the middle part way too thin - all those filler battles - but then rushed the ending. Should've been way shorter with actual consequences, or actually long with real political intrigue. Right now it's just... padding that pretends to be a questline.

 

[DragonbornVet]

Yeah, you nailed it. The radiant battle loop is brutal - I've done enough "go take this hold" quests that I can predict the exact layout before I even load in. And then it just ends with a couple of cutscenes and Ulfric or Tullius standing around looking smug while the world... doesn't really change. Whiterun still has the same guards, the Jarl you installed doesn't suddenly have new dialogue or policies, nothing.

The Morrowind comparison stings because it's true. Those house questlines actually had you doing different stuff - politics, betrayals, actual progression that felt like you were climbing a ladder. Here you're just the Dragonborn doing chores. Even the ending cinematic where you watch someone else deliver the final speech is kinda insulting in hindsight.

I think the real issue is they wanted radiant quests to pad playtime but didn't want to write enough unique content to justify the length. So you get stuck in this weird middle ground where it's too repetitive to feel like a real war but too scripted at the end to feel like your choices mattered. A shorter, tighter questline with actual hold-specific consequences would've been way better than what we got. Or go full Morrowind and make every decision branch the story differently - but that's a lot more work.

Most of my replays I just do one or two battles and then console command to the end now, not gonna lie.