Opinion thread: Civil War before or after Main Quest?

[76561198164064547]

I want opinions. I want all negatives and positives mentioned for both sides, including bugs, and I want it to be bitter and ♥♥♥♥♥♥. GO!

[Sir GentleManly ButterCorn]

After, doing it before can break some quests.

[76561198164064547]

Originally posted by Sir GentleManly BatCake:

After, doing it before can break some quests.

Elaborate please.

[Sir GentleManly ButterCorn]

Too lazy.

[76561198164064547]

Originally posted by Sir GentleManly BatCake:

Too lazy.

Then I will discount our posts and deem your input redundant and irrelevant.

[Nazenn]

Actually, its the other way around, doing it AFTER can be buggy to the best of my knowledge.

I WILL BE POSTING MAIN QUEST SPOILERS HERE.
Fair warning given. Its needed to give a detailed description.

Season Unending is one of the singularly most buggy quests in the game, and concidering we have quests like poletmas which can crash your game, thats actually saying something. This quest is known to occasionally break things such as questlines, jarls, guards and even just the war itself.
If you have started both the Civil War and the Main Quest, you should finish the Civil War before the peace council quest. If you end up having to do Season Unending, you should finish the full main quest line before continuing any further with the Civil War as this will stablise the changes happening in the world at this time.
Of course this isnt helped by the fact that you need to start the main quest to start Battle in Whiterun, but if you dont go up and visit the greybeards afterwards, then its about as stable as you can get the Civil War

[76561198164064547]

Originally posted by Nazenn:

Actually, its the other way around, doing it AFTER can be buggy to the best of my knowledge.

I WILL BE POSTING MAIN QUEST SPOILERS HERE.
Fair warning given. Its needed to give a detailed description.

Season Unending is one of the singularly most buggy quests in the game, and concidering we have quests like poletmas which can crash your game, thats actually saying something. This quest is known to occasionally break things such as questlines, jarls, guards and even just the war itself.
If you have started both the Civil War and the Main Quest, you should finish the Civil War before the peace council quest. If you end up having to do Season Unending, you should finish the full main quest line before continuing any further with the Civil War as this will stablise the changes happening in the world at this time.
Of course this isnt helped by the fact that you need to start the main quest to start Battle in Whiterun, but if you dont go up and visit the greybeards afterwards, then its about as stable as you can get the Civil War

What parts of the MQ must be completed before the Battle of Whiterun? Does chosen faction play a part on whether the MQ must be started prior?

[Trigger]

Main questline up until the Peace Treaty is done, then start a civil war

[Trigger]

you need the leader of the Imperials and the leader of the Stormcloaks to have a peace treaty, but if you start a civil war - one of them die's at your hands, now there is no way to have the peace treaty and no way for the Dragonborn to kill ALDUIN

[Nazenn]

You need to do the first dragon fight before the Jarl of whiterun will let you start the civil war battle for whiterun. And no, faction choice makes no difference.

Originally posted by Trigger:

you need the leader of the Imperials and the leader of the Stormcloaks to have a peace treaty, but if you start a civil war - one of them die's at your hands, now there is no way to have the peace treaty and no way for the Dragonborn to kill ALDUIN

No true at all. You can still kill alduin if you do the whole civil war quest before the peace treaty, the game just skips that quest.

[Roscaria]

I did the Civil War after the main quest. Only problem with the main quest was the peace talks.

They would not sit down and talk. Restarted from entering High Hrothgar and just waited, eventually everyone sat and the talks commenced. No other problems with either of these quests.

[gnewna]

Originally posted by Trigger:

you need the leader of the Imperials and the leader of the Stormcloaks to have a peace treaty, but if you start a civil war - one of them die's at your hands, now there is no way to have the peace treaty and no way for the Dragonborn to kill ALDUIN

If you have completed the civil war you don't NEED a peace treaty! You just skip that whole quest.

I've only ever completed the civil war once and done Season Unending once (I don't much like either the CW or the MQ) I'd probably go with CW first from a storyline standpoint, personally I think it makes most sense to slay the Big Bad after you've done the other main stuff you're planning to do (e.g. if you're going to complete the College or Thieves' questlines, I'd generally try to do that first), although IIRC both wikis offer a timeline that has Alduin dead before the Civil War, various factions and DLC questlines are completed, for what that's worth.

Damn, I suppose that means I have to make a decision about whether my current character is going to actually do the CW soon...

[Ilja]

Gnewna is right there. The Season Unending only comes to play, if the Civil War has not been completed. My very short take on this is:

- If you start Civil War before completing the MQ, then you should also finish the Civil War, before proceeding forward in MQ. Otherwise you may hit bugs in the game.

- Or the whole Civil War after MQ.

- Or ignore CW entirely.

I am playing the game with Skyrim Unbound and Civil War Overhaul. My character will complete most of the Civil War without any Dragonborn shouts, or even dragons in the sky.

For immersion reasons, I will allow dragons to appear just before the CW quest ends and speak with the Graybeards. Otherwise certain peoples will recognize my character being a Dragonborn, without her actually devouring any dragon souls. She will then proceed to MQ/Graybead matters, only after the Civil War has been properly finished.

[ShaDDy Milk Dealer]

Sometimes when I do this civil war quest it will bug out towards the end. But I thought it would be easier as why have a peace council when there is no war?