Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-26213507-20150715194939/@comment-24075086-20150811181005

Shigeru Thalmor Slayer wrote: Phantasys wrote: Even with the lack of gear a group of common town guards would destroy a wandering group of thalmor any day.

I don't think so. Every time I watch a NPC battle between Stormcloaks and Thalmor, the elves always win without losing a man. I even tried to help the Stormcloaks once (because I hate Thalmor) by casting healing hand on them but it was in vain. What is a guard armor against the blow of an Elven or Glass weapon? Nothing. What is a blow of an iron/steel weapon against Elven and Glass armor? Nothing either.

And even if Bethesda developers had coded Stormcloaks battlemages, archers, thieves and tamed giants, I could bet that they also had coded something similar for the Empire and the Thalmor to counter the Stormcloaks units in order to make the game balanced. There is no war game where a faction is more powerful than its foes. That's because the NPC soldiers are meant to be cannon fodder. The thalmor are radient enemies that level up with the player, the soldiers...well technically they are but they don't get new gear and their levels are also scaled to be lower than the players. Try spawning actual guards against the thalmor, like the ones with guard in their names (aka stormcloak guard instead of stormcloak soldier) Also I'm pretty sure the nords can make nordic armor and weapons (by Lorkhan Nord is even in the name).

They did code them into the game, the imperials had mages and archers but no tamed giants or anything badass. The thalmor were fully released into the game. Meaning there are no hidden npcs for them. Bethesda held back on imperial and stormcloak npc's but fully released the thalmor, that's why they seem more powerful.