Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-3539474-20130910213054/@comment-10207438-20131101040702

74.135.126.174 wrote: 80.216.214.210 wrote: Nazul Rostello wrote: People often underestimate the AD. Many of them are master mages, one "Elf Grinder" wouldn't scare them away. During the war both sides suffer heavy casualties, the Imperial City was decimated by the Dominion, then the Nord barbarians had to head south to reinforce the Imperial armies and they're able to retake the Capital. Hammerfell sees heavy fighting throughout the war and in order to retake the Capital the Emperor pretty much abandons them by pulling all his forces back into central Cyrodiil. But way, way more people go the opposite direction and vastly overestimate them. No, way more people who fight for the Stormcloaks falsely believe the AD is weaker than them. Imperial ending: Empire keeps Skyrim inside the Empire, begin rebuilding the military with combined resources of Cyrodiil, Skyrim, and High Rock. Titus Mede II is assassinated, new Emperor takes his place. AD starts war with rebuilt Empire. Imperial forces win and bring Summerset Isle, Valenwood, and Elsweyr back into the Empire. Stormcloak Ending: Stormcloaks drive Empire out of Skyrim. AD, no longer needing permission from the Empire, arrive in Skyrim for invasion. Stormcloaks, weakened from civil war, are at a massive disadvantage. Other provinces do not help because they would prefer to strengthen their own defense to prepare for war. Skyrim's inhabitants become slaves of the Thalmor.

your Stormcloak victory situation is completely uneducated.

First of all, the only way they can get an army large enough to fight skyrim is if they move it through Cyrodiil, the seas would take too long, and that would leave them exposed to enemies, plus the fact that they don't really have anywhere they can safely land to resupply without someone sending word to skyrim about the size of the enemy fleet is extremely dangerous for the aldmeri forces; now back to marching through Cyrodiil, besides the fact that the Skyrim/Cyrodiil border would be heavily fortified because of the bad blood between the new ruling body of skyrim(the stormcloaks) and the empire, they also have enemies in Cyrodiil, do you really think that the empire will just let the aldmeri dominion send armies through cyrodiil? and do you think that the Aldmeri Dominion wouldn't attack Cyrodiil? they're marching their armies through the lands of their enemy, they might as well take it.

What a Stormcloak victory does is put the Aldmeri Dominion in a position where they either have to tuck their tail between their leg and go with the old strategy of hoping to eventually have a strong and skilled army that can take out the larger and relatively less skilled(compared to the altmer who would have much more time to accumulate skill) enemies; or start the next great war when they're not ready.

The main enemy for the AD with a stormcloak victory would be the stormcloaks themselves, but they can't get to the stormcloaks without marching through enemy territory.

the only other way would be to take thousand of ships packed almost entirely with enough supplies to get them straight from the Summerset Isles to Skyrim, docking at any port to resupply could lead to their utter downfall in many ways, whether it's sabatoged food supplies, enemy spies informing the stormcloaks of the size of the enemy fleet, or hell what if their enemies in the country they docked in decide to rid tamriel of the enemy by destroying the AD ships and soldiers while they're docked. and the seas themselves wont be nice to the altmer either, the sea of ghosts is not kind, the seas to the west of tamriel are thick with pirates, and the seas at the south east belong to the argonians, one false move and a dozen argonians destroy ship after ship while another dozen pick off everyone who lands in the water, then in the north east you have the dunmer who have never seen eye to eye with their altmer cousins, and sailing around vardenfell can be rough with the red mountain spewing ash and stones all over the place.

In other words, the AD only have two options with a stormcloak victory, risk everything by trying to force their way through Cyrodiil, or wait till they think they're strong enough to take all of tamriel.

but with the Legion victory they aren't limitid to anything, they can keep doing everything they're doing, and coming up with ways to make their enemies weaker while they make their armies stronger as quickly as possible.