Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-29729442-20161212012142/@comment-25035274-20161215185733

Blademaster Jauffre wrote:

There's a difference between us not seeing them and them not occuring.

Besides, there are ID's for Imperial heavy soldiers and mages, they even appear at Helgen and are coded as hostile to the Stormcloaks.

I'm aware of both the mages and soldiers in heavy armor at Helgen. The heavy armor soldiers even still appear in-game in limited form in the form of Imperial officers (Legates, etc).

My personal belief is that ultimately, you don't see them elsewhere as a result of decisions made for technical reasons. Considering how resource-intensive Skyrim was (and still can be), it makes technical sense to not have too many spell effects flying around at one time. That, or just laziness on the part of the developers on that specific questline.

Throughout the entire time you're in Skyrim, it never actually feels like you're in a war.