who is much better to side with?

Maybe you should understand Ulfric a little more before you choose. He isn't what he appears to be.

i'll side with stormcloaks then says on the wiki the imperial legion is somewhat similar to FNV ceasers legion and for that i guess it's fate i should fight them this was just what i needed thanks

Neither is Much better, it's personal preferance. You want the totalitarian regime allied with genocidal elves, or the racist traitors? Pick the lesser of those two evils, or just leave it alone, and try to come up with a decent compromise for Season Unending. Both quest paths are remarkably similar. I prefer the Seperatists, purely for the forts you get to storm, and which side of the battle of Whiterun you get to fight from. I'd rather storm Solitude than Windhelm too. Other than that, I could care less about the politics.

I tend to side with the Stormcloaks, but that's mostly because I love listening to Ulfric talk. Great casting re: voice acting there! lol, not the best reason, but his speeches are pretty epic at times.

quote battousai

...if you speak to Elisif's Court Mage, she'll tell you that Torygg ADMIRED Ulfric, and if Ulffie had said the word for an independent Skyrim, the High King would have backed him...

Yeah, you should hear all the nasty things she says about Vampires.Not exactly a reliable source.

I'd say stormcloaks, Cus' as someone has already said - I enjoy fighting in solitude rather than Windhelm. Plus I love the officer armour :-)

Ulfric cares about Ulfric. The Stormcloaks think he's helping them when he's only in it for himself, he could have been pulling the strings of Toryg the puppet king, but instead wanted the position for himself and an excuse to kill elves and Imperial soldiers alike. The elves wouldn't necessarily have to be Thalmor btw, just as long as their ears are pointy enough.

Tullius cares about the Empire, he is perfectly willing to side with the Thalmor for now, while they help him with Ulfric, but once the war in Skyrim is over he will be a force the Thalmor will struggle to repel. Siding with Ulfric and killing Tullius would be the greatest victory to the Thalmor.

Now the armies vs the Thalmor, let's see the Legion is proper army stuff and you can see them from miles away. Stormcloaks are masters of guerilla warfare, they show how good they are at hit and run tactics and how easily they disappear in Skyrim, however this is where the problem lies.


The Imperial Legion is just as effective anywhere it goes, even when they had to deal with something in Blackmarsh, they just got an Argonian to knock out some armor, shields and spears to adapt to the swampy terrain. No need to know the lay of the land, just be ready for the basics and the Legion is set to win nearly any battle.

The Stormcloaks have already been noted as fantastic skirmishers and ambushers, but this requires knowledge of the land. They need to know where things are, where they can fall back to, where their enemies are and where they're going. They did fine in Skyrim, but it's their home and they had the home advantage because of this. It's perfectly possible for the player to do this back to the Stormcloaks, but on a much smaller scale, in their homeland where they have the home advantage. The stormcloaks have the edge on the recruiting aspect of the war, most of the native Nords aren't going to realize that Ulfric is out for himself and the cause he hides behind is a good reason to fight what many would call an oppressive regime. The Stormcloaks' major advantage is being able to materialize out of nowhere and be everywhere at once, disappearing if necessary with as few soldiers as possible. However they rarely take advantage of this, instead preferring to take their huge force and fight directly against better armed and generally better trained opponents who are dug into defensive positions.
And I'm not even talking about the AI.


Hadvar is more honorable than Ralof, Hadvar was all too happy to release you during the attack on Helgen without question. He'd already made it clear that your attempted execution was a mistake on part of his overzealous superior who is up Tullius' ass.
Ralof thinks nothing of informing you that the Imperials should pay for mistaking you for a Stormcloak hoping you think the same way, demanded that Lokir stop whining about having to pay for the actions of the Stormcloaks and relishes the chance to kill another Imperial/Elf.

Tullius is a better man than Ulfric and the Legion is a stronger force than the Stormcloaks.


Though the strength of both armies is only comparable before the player decides which to side with.