Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20180324161601

The AD really only has ONE province. Elder Scrolls lore dictates that the Third Aldmeri Dominion only has Altmer soldiers in its armies. There are no Khajiits or Bosmer in their armies. Instead, the Bosmer are relegated to service roles like Brelas, or are getting massacred like Malborn's family. As for the Khajiit, the only Khajiit we see in the game are trading caravans who would rather leave home to make a buck, despite getting spat at and jeered at by foreigners. Unlike the East Empire Company, these traders from the Dominion don't display much wealth, and are more like squalid merchants desperate to make a buck, which goes to show how much the Thalmor are doing to cultivate the Khajiit as a military or economically powerful force: which is to say, none.

So, that leaves us with the Thalmor. Who lost most of their army in the last war. And if their magic or their long age could have given them an advantage over the Imperials, they would have kept the Empire from retaking Cyrodiil and would have probably placed their own man on the Imperial throne by now, but they didn't, because they aren't strong enough to counter Imperial armies when the Empire isn't caught off-guard. Against the Stormcloaks, who ignore magic, the Thalmor's aptitude for magic, that's effective. Against the Empire, which has spellswords and battlemages, that's not that much of a threat. Especially when the average Thalmor soldier only knows basic spells, and even their mages can be countered by Imperial mages.

And of course, the Thalmor, like any elven race, can't reproduce as fast as the humans. That's what scared the Falmer about the humans, causing them to try and wipe out the humans before the humans became a threat. That's why the elven queen Ayrenn Arana Aldmeri created the First Aldmeri Dominion in the first place: because the Altmer have shit for numbers and she needed reinforcements. A lesson, sadly, that the Thalmor in the Fourth Era had forgotten, considering their entire armies are nothing but Altmer. And of course, as I have to remind people a dozen times, THE DOMINION NEEDS ITS MEN MORE THAN THE EMPIRE NEEDS THEIRS. Numbers and birth rate favor the Empire, and with the Empire being rich enough to train new armies, losses don't affect the Empire as bad as the Thalmor's losses affect the Dominion.

The undisputed fact is that while the Thalmor are stretched thin, the Empire isn't, and is able to raise more armies with money and the humans' fast birth rates. 20 years have passed since the Great War, which means an entire generation has been bred after the war, old enough to train and fight. The Empire still has a lot of money to do things like bribe Jarls to shut up about the White Gold Concordat or hire local Nords to fight the Stormcloaks so that they don't have to redirect forces from Cyrodiil.

Even the Imperial half of Skyrim is wealthier, with holds like Markarth and Solitude overflowing with coin. Which means that they can fight a war of attrition, one that Ulfric Stormcloak can't, because all he has is one healthy city, two villages, and another city overflowing with corruption and thievery. And with Ulfric attacking rich, prosperous Whiterun, that will give the Empire more of an economic and numerical advantage in the Skyrim Civil War, which means that the Empire will eventually win and then use their money to help speed up reconstruction efforts. Plus, if the Thalmor are foolish enough to declare war before the civil war in Skyrim is over, then the Empire will obviously throw the White-Gold Concordat into the fire, and the Stormcloaks will call a truce with the Empire because it's finally doing what Ulfric wanted.

So while the Skyrim Civil War will obviously end with an Imperial victory had it not been for game mechanics keeping the war static until the player joins a side, the Thalmor, on the other hand, are busy losing men they can't replace as fast. The Thalmor lost most of their army at Cyrodiil, and lost more men at Hammerfell, losses that, according to Elder Scrolls lore, can't be easily replaced because elves don't breed as fast as men do. And with the Imperial army teeming with battlemages and spellswords (just ask proper Imperial units like the Penitus Oculatus) the Thalmor's advantage with magic isn't as effective as it would be when fighting, say, the Stormcloaks. So while the Empire gets stronger, the Thalmor get weaker, down to the point where they try to gain in treaty what they cannot gain in battle, and they lose it anyways.

Soon enough, the Empire will repudiate the White-Gold Concordat and go back to war with the Dominion, and with how incompetent the Dominion has been with management of its resources, from manpower to client states, the Empire will win.

You say that the Empire only has 2.5 provinces? The Dominion only has ONE, because the other two provinces are ignored or abused by Alinor, whose armies were never as numerous as the Empire to begin with, especially since they lost a large chunk of it in the last war. And with the richer half of Skyrim belonging to Imperial hands, they can wage a war of attrition that Ulfric can't. He has one healthy hold, two villages, and a city filled with corruption. This war can't last forever.