User blog comment:Zippertrain85/"Why the Empire Should Prevail Over the Stormcloaks! Part 3 (Economics)" Refuted/@comment-72.12.193.150-20140103035941/@comment-1822253-20140105054811

Draevin13, that is the definition of pyrric victory, and what happened in the Empire was a pyrric victory. We know that every city in Cyrodiil had been sacked, pillaged and heavily damaged to almost completely destroyed. The Imperial City was sacked and took heavy damage during the taking of the city and the occupation by the Dominion forces, an entire Legion unit was lost just to cover Emperor Mede's escape (not saying it was the wrong move);not to mention that it suffered even more damage when the Imperial forces came to take it back.

That basically destroyed the Imperial economy.

And lets not forget the loss of who knows how many people who died during the Dominion attacks and occupation of Cyrodiil.

And the Imperial counter attack? The Empire had to recall every remaining Legion unit to Cyrodiil in order to launch their counter attack. They managed to win, but at the cost of who knows how many lives, and completely exhausted that they couldn't invade Dominion territory.

You might disagree, but I'd call that a pyrric victory, because even though they won, the damage was so great that it was no different then losing.