Battle for Windhelm Badly Bugged.

[♥SusannaBanana♥]

I've been trying to figure this one out for 2 days now. Everything goes smoothly up until I enter the city. Rikke tells me after taking Fort Amol that we're attacking windhelm, I run to the gates, get my orders from Tullius after his speech, but when I enter the city the battle doesnt load. It's just normal windhelm with no enemies except guards that only attack Rikke and Tullius on sight, and attacking one myself gives me a bounty. I've looked all over and cant seem to find an actual fix for this.

Has anybody ever managed to fix this problem?

[SpeedFreak1972]

Question: if you go to the palace does that scene load?

[♥SusannaBanana♥]

Originally posted by SpeedFreak1972:

Question: if you go to the palace does that scene load?

It does but i have to console command kill the guards or else they beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of rikke and tullius. After that the encounter with ulfric plays out normally. But this brings other problems. Last time i tried this we killed ulfric and the questline was over, but windhelm seemed to be stuck. I couldnt re-enter through the front gates without being told I needed to help defend or something. I tried waiting 30 in game days but it didnt fix anything. Currently trying again right now ill update you on how it goes.

[♥SusannaBanana♥]

Same deal. I waited 30 in game days and even walked all the way to windhelm from whiterun. "You must help the soldiers defend the city before you can enter."

[♥SusannaBanana♥]

I tried teleporting into the palace of kings to see if the new jarl was there. He was not. I went outside and its still just full of normal windhelm guards, no signs of the battle. Its like it just never loaded period in the city itself.

[smr1957]

As to that bug, I only found this from https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Battle_for_Windhelm Bugs section
( https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skyrim is the best place to look for things concerning Skyrim and for bugs and their fixes):

"Sometimes after you hear General Tullius give his initial speech and charge into the Windhelm, the battle will not load. Instead you will enter the normal city with no Legion Soldiers or Stormcloaks. General Tullius and Legate Rikke will both be there and will attack the Windhelm guards on sight. If you have this bug, going back to a save before the start of the liberate Eastmarch quest will not help. What triggers this bug is currently unknown, but some unknown previous interaction with the city seems the probable culprit.
- You can use console commands to complete the quest, but Ulfric will continue to rule Windhelm and the house there will be inaccessible. A workaround to complete the quest with full imperial occupation of Eastmarch is to continue with General Tullius and Legate Rikke into the Palace, confront and defeat Ulfric, and then leave the city for thirty days until it resets.
- This is possibly because General Tullius will follow his showdown scripting once you get him into the palace. When you enter the palace you need to move quickly away from the door or you will become stuck in cinematic mode. A solution to this issue is to quit without saving, and let the game pick up the auto save from inside the Palace of the Kings. This may take two or three attempts. The other thing you need to be careful about is the presence of two Windhelm guards at the door and Yrsarald Thrice-Pierced. The guards will attack General Tullius and Legate Rikke (who will not respond) and Yrsarald Thrice-Pierced will join the final battle, but since he is an essential character, you won't be able to kill him. Afterward, General Tullius will not give his speech and Yrsarald Thrice-Pierced will follow you around attacking until you leave the city. After the thirty days there should be no difference in result from a normal victory."