A recreation in Skyrim civil war cut content city battles.
Permissions and credits
Author's instructions
Think creative commons cc-NC (non-commercial), mutatis mutandis for scripts and assets that are modified vanilla assets.
File credits
Kudos to redditor r/inmundano for the list of bugs in Civil War and precise hints how to fix them. Special thanks to kuczaja for early adoption and playtesting during cut content restoration sprint. This mod would not be possible without the bug reports from numerous people, some of which were surprisingly helpful (reports, not bugs).
Donation Points system
This mod is not opted-in to receive Donation Points
- Removed "allow repeated flag" from OCWSiegeDUP quest (clearly it was flagged so by mistake because CWSiege is not). This caused an extra "Failed: Battle of [...]" , if player fast traveled after losing a major siege
- Added safety conditions in dialogues to prevent attempting to start another siege battle when a major siege quest is already started (including the capital relief preparation mini-quest). A similar thing for minor sieges was already added in a previous version.
- Restored sources and changes to scripts CWFortSiegeJarlScript.pex and TIF__0065C8A.pex, TIF__00065C8B.pex - these three were left in Skyrim/Data when reinstalling Skyrim from scratch, and silently recompiled to vanilla state before 2.5.3 update. (Minor regression - the dialogue fragment scripts are related to awarding civil war rank promotions even if holds were gained without a battle, and the CWFortSiegeJarlScript change is related to Bug #23062 in the Unofficial Patch Tracker).
Version 2.5.5
Improved "enemy withdrew" feature in minor siege attacks:
- no longer required to wait until the ambush or not is revealed, going to the jarl's longhouse front door will force resolve it
- fixed bug in 2.5.4 that made ambushes stuck; if not updating to 2.5.5, a workaround is that you can force enemy soldiers to reveal with "setstage ocwspecial 286"
- the ambush or enemy withdraw decision is now based mostly on wargame strategic situation, rather than random chance (it's still is 50% chances for a normal battle, but previously the remaining split was 35% ambush and 15% withdraw, now it's 12.5% ambush, 37.5% ambush-or-withdraw-let-me-take-a-look)
- in enemy withdraw scenario, the invaded hold will no longer be random, but rather the most vulnerable hold (as it happens already for the regular enemy invasions).
- enemy will no longer withdraw from a predictably won battle for a predictably lost invasion; in win-win and lose-lose situations, enemy will withdraw only if there is a predicted improvement in battle odds (large in win-win, medium in lose-lose).
- when withdraw to a major hold is considered, a bonus to defender strength is added that makes it less worthy as a withdraw target
- after the mission "Rescue from Fort ..." is completed (which makes the hold conquered), a forced enemy withdraw is made. This change is retroactive, if you've done that mission, expect an extra enemy invasion to happen (unless you don't own any more holds possible to invade, in that case it will be skipped).
Version 2.5.4
- Added a spliced voice line for Rikke and Galmar if player fails a mission (the vanilla line was good only for generic field commanders). For Rikke: "First of all, what you're doing. Not impressed. Think about it!", for Galmar: "First off, you're definitely screw-up unlike-Stormcloak material. I misjudged you... friend."
- Added a warning message box if changes to the vanilla civil war map script were reverted by another mod, or not installed at all
- Changed quest aliases in OCWSiegeRelief to avoid Cretion Kit making Kynesgrove and Dragonbridge flagged persitent (no longer a load order obstacle for mods such as ETAC)
- In OCW capital relief battles, the city map marker should be disabled now (like it is during an attack siege battle)
- After capital relief battles, you can now report to your faction leader (as the objective says). The lines they respond with were used for peace/truce time in a very early version of civil war. For Ulfric, "The gods have granted us peace for the moment. But that won't last long. I'm sure trouble will be stirred up soon enough.", for Tullius, "Things are quiet for the moment. That won't last long. As soon as a new campaign starts, I want you there. Stay close. See me tomorrow." - but you don't have to wait until the next day.
- Reduced chance of winning the fort If you flee from a fort battle, down from 100% (always win) to something between 10% and 90%, depending on the % number of defenders left.
- Restored Ulfric lines during battle of Solitude finale scene "The Empire is weak, obsolete. Look at how far we've come and with so little." "When we're done rooting out Imperial influence here at home, then we will take our war to the Aldmeri Dominion.", they were disabled by devs, but I see no red flags there (and a lot of blue flags...)
- The fort battle will be cancelled (completed, failed objectives, no $$$ reward) after taking over the hold, like the other civil war vanilla missions are. Either fort location or the hold location ownership status change will trigger that.
- Fixed an issue in civil war mission cancelling script that made it possible to cancel at most one mission per playthrough.
- Added blocking dialogue lines when minor battles are running (if you travel away from a battle, only the major hold battles resolve and stop) to everyone important: Ulfric/Tullius, Rikke/Galmar, field commanders and regular soldiers with fitting voice types. This should prevent breaking civil war by traveling away from a defense minor battle and e.g. getting into the final hold campaign.
- Decreased the amount of Papyrus log warnings. There are still annoying warning messages coming from the vanilla CWPrepareCity quest.
- More robust code when cancelling or fleeing a minor hold attack battle. We've been running 2.3.x code there all along...
- Fixed a loophole in minor hold attack battles, where you could fast-travel back to camp after joining the soldiers but before losing any casualty, and claim a free "enemy withdrew" scenario, even if the enemy was there. Now you have to wait until getting the objective "Report back to camp".
- Fixed a bug where relief of Windhelm misc quest objective directed you to Dragonsbridge (instead of Kynesgrove - the relief started on imperial side by mistake)
Version 2.5.3
Halfway through, but since we've found potentially an impactful fix for vanilla civil war sieges, have a heads-up:
* Restored CWSiege-owned AI packages in Markarth and Riften sieges as well (sandbox packages for some civilians, and fleeing / entering gate packages for soldiers)
* In minor sieges, fleeing attackers scene lasts full 30 seconds before the CWFortSiegeCapital stops through stage 2000. Fleeing soldiers who will do a "touchdown" within this time will disappear, those who don't are still given no quarter.
* Surrendering jarl in minor sieges will look at an attacker instead at player - doesn't make during defenses.
* When starting minor siege defenses, the quest doesn't fully start until you head out of jarls longhouse. That is to prevent seeing NPCs "teleporting" in and out of the longhouse.
* Added setstage ocwspecial 4210 and 4220 for debugging Battle of Whiterun failing aliases (it starts the battle using OCWSiegeDUP quest which is like CWSiege but with all aliases flagged optional)
* Added setstage ocwspecial 73 to debug and toggle the Markarth portcullis iron gate. And a button hidden in the room above the gate that does the same. (Oddly, I have a savegame where the gate is glitched in such a way that regular levers don't open it, but Papyrus script works. You still need to toggle levers to get the objective "force jarl to surrender", though).
* Fleeing a fort battle no longer counts as successful mission and is not rewarded with money. (The mission failure dialogue line is still unvoiced for Rikke and Galmar, though).
* Restored salary cut content (dialogue option with Tullius/Ulfric). In standard mode only. Recurring 100-300 septims. First time after first Battle of Whiterun; accrued every 4 standard auto-play turns; after final campaign hold starts, it gets less and less frequent. After the civil war is over, there are no auto-play turns on the war map, but the salary counter still works.
* Defense minor sieges pass a per-hold CWCampaignMarker instead of a FieldCO object reference to the starting event (CWCampaignMarker-s are unused and less likely to be reserved by some radiant quest - more robust than changing the campaign marker alias to be flagged as "allow reserved").
* The open civil war is no longer blocked if Whiterun is owned by enemy faction. You still have to retake it before the final hold campaign, though.
* In CWArrowVolleyParent script, moved the WAIT call outside the IF in a WHILE loop. This is to counter a potential white-lock starvation by an unfair threading scheduler. Inspected code of all other loops in the CWSomethingSomething scripts, they look good. Impacts the shutdown glitch of major siege battles, vanilla and cut content alike.
Version 2.5.2
* Fix for the imperial defense in Morthal having "[...]" for Jarl Idgrod name (the CWScript property with alias for Hjaalmarch imperial commander points to Haafingar alias, clearly by a mistake)
* Corrected the display color for the Winterhold hold defense flag on the war map (it used to display the invasion of the Rift hold instead)
* Fixed "I want Rikke/Galmar here in this camp" dialogue to be available from after first battle of Whiterun until the end of civil war (it used to be started by dialogue lines when player chose the next hold to conquer, but not by the vanilla lines where the faction leader chose the next hold to conquer)
* Suppressed the "(Defense) I want to help... " dialogue option in military field camps - never useful there, since camps are supposed to be enabled only in enemy-owned holds...
* In Markarth and Riften defenses, when defenders run out of reinforcements, attackers will get unlimited respawn (no longer having to flee from a single remaining essential Rikke/Galmar enemy)
* After fleeing major siege defense, quest CWSiegeObj should stop correctly now (it used to display as completed, but stay running, and that interfered with the journal objectives in a next major siege battle)
* The civil war friend (Ralof or Hadvar) will be in the battles in Markarth and Riften in the city exterior, and he may now "friendly follow" the attacking player inside the city and jarls palace.
* In Markarth siege battles, the exterior portcullis gate will close when the first barricades are broken through, if not closed already (it can start as open or closed when attacking Markarth after losing it in a live defense battle).
* In minor holds city battles, after losing the attack you don't have to report to Rikke/Galmar in the camp (it used to be glitchy to forego it and start a defense battle, but now you can report that lost attack battle to pretty much anyone in your faction).
Version 2.5.1
* Fixed an issue with Galmar not giving the orders to attack Solitude in the final campaign, if the quest CWAttackCity from a previous siege was not reset. Also fixed retroactively. Console command to workaround the missing dialogue: "setstage cwsiege 1".
* Added a fix for the janky Markarth gate after defenses - the gate will be opened if it's closed (after meeting the soldiers, i.e. defense battle gets to stage 10), for example if you fast travel to Markarth stables and skip the vanilla trigger that opens the gate. (If the fix does not work, then the next time attacking Markarth you may found the gate opened, but still need to pull the gate lever to progress the battle quest)
* Added a fixed version of vanilla script CWMissionGeneratorTriggerScript (see issue 23284 in Unofficial Patch tracker for details).
Version 2.5.0
Compared to 2.4.9, the following bugs were fixed:
- corrected the number of battle reinforcements in capital reliefs
- corrected the outcome of the off-screen defense battle resolutions
- a workaround and fix for the glitch that caused the starting dialog line for the final campaign fort battle to be disabled
Version 2.4.9
* Player fleeing city battles in major holds (a bit farther than the attackers siege camp) will lose the battles (does not apply to capital reliefs, though - fleeing them cause the attackers to retreat, still).
* in major holds siege battles, the attackers camp of the previous battle will be replaced by the current faction of attackers (fixes the issue with two camps enabled at the same place and time).
* fixed some of the issues with lingering battle quests markers (battle quests were stopped, but not completed in the journal)
* the standard mode turn ends after the player's side turn (instead of ending after the enemy turn)
* each vanilla civil war mission when completed successfully adds 1 strength point to the player rank bonus, when determining the battle odds.
* completing the vanilla fort battle mission will add 1 strength point to the player's faction rather than to the enemy (so it's worth more than civil war mission, but it's not a permanent bonus)
* in minor hold city battles, the guard garrison is re-enabled immediately after the attackers lose and retreat. Avoid fighting those guards, killing them will give you a bounty (until you conquer this hold, presumably), and the battle is lost anyway.
Version 2.4.8
- restricted the defense battles to after-battle-of-whiterun only
- fixed the warmap getting stuck in autoplay standard mode and needing switching to wargame mode temporarily
- if you kill the catapult soldier in Markarth attackers camp, the extra catapult fire stops
This is beta version. I've noticed that quest battles might not get completed in the journal when you lose them (they will when you attack the hold again, or with console command to complete quest cwfortsiegecapital (minor holds) / ocwsiegedup (major holds) ). Otherwise it played fine, and the biggest issue is with the overall level of the challenge, which can be demanding even on the "Novice" level...
Version 2.4.7
Added the defenses in major holds (Markarth, Riften).
Note that in Markarth the war room is one of the Understone Keep side chambers, http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Understone_Keep - locked with the "Key to Markarth Keep". In Riften, the war map is just a few rooms behind the throne room.
- tweaked the accuracy of enemy catapults in Markarth defense - the attackers may wait, if you wait and don't scout and provoke them to attack, expect catapult fire to hit defenders, and lose eventually.
Version 2.4.6
Defenses in minor holds should work okay now. (Defenses in Riften and Markarth are still only off-screen, for the live battles are buggy instant win)
- changed the battle quest objectives, to show % of both attackers and defenders, etc
- fixed the "attackers always win" nonsense from vanilla stage 9999
This carries over Unofficial Patch changes to form CWFortSiegeCapital. (I haven't tested it without the Unofficial Patch, yet).
The above changes should also affect the attack battles in minor holds. In particular, losing the battle should flow more smooth (e.g. no longer cancelling a side mission). The "it is hopeless retreat" soldiers fleeing running scene may play shorter or not at all, though.
There is a small risk that the inside-wall phase of major hold city battles (e.g. final hold capital battle) would be affected, haven't tested them.
Version 2.4.5
* moved the hold battle dialogue options in a single topic (which refreshes after waiting 1 hour; that should prevent accidentally starting live and off-screen battle at the same time)
* defense dialogue option starts the defense battle only in holds invaded by the enemy; in holds that are not invaded by the enemy, the option is also available but does nothing, just displays a notification
* It takes 3 turns until an enemy hold invasion is resolved - this number is okay for playing Standard mode as it is now
* If an enemy withdrew from the hold you're attacking, another hold will be invaded by the enemy (instead of taken over immediately), but with only 1 turn left until the invasion is resolved.
* In Standard mode, the invasions are not resolved off-screen if the player is in the invaded hold already (so 1 turn left should be enough to get there and fight a live defense battle)
* Upheavals don't happen as a result of Standard turns (after the battle of Whiterun) - you need to go there (and conquer the hold with a battle, easy-peasy...)
* Vanilla civil war fort battles no longer conquer the entire hold.
This is a feature freeze version, I won't add any extra content before the bugs are fixed and live defense battles restored.
Version 2.4.4
The plan is to release this as 2.3.5, only with global OCWWargameDefensesEnabled set to 0 by default.
* fixed the code that starts hold battles, both live and off-screen - there was a regression in 2.4.x branch
* changed the hold battle launching procedure (to use SendStoryEventAndWait) - maybe it'll be more robust in badly lagging setups...
* implemented off-screen defenses with the same takeover function as upheavals (while using the same battle odds formula as off-screen hold battles)
* toggle-able Standard / Wargamer game mode - in Standard mode, the war map is "read only"
- in Standard mode, a turn is auto-played every time player approaches another war map
- in Wargamer mode, turns and everything are controlled by the player as usual
- new game defaults into the Standard mode
Version 2.4.3
* Talking to commanders for the "... (Defense)" battle option will make them speak about a two random mission hooks (just for fluff)
* Cosmetic war map changes
- place troops marks sideways to flags
- changed the troops marks (helmets) size scale, is now a geometric progression
- in recruitment phase, simply resize the helmet, don't create a new one
- troop marks for neutral Whiterun: miniature shields of Whiterun
- smooth transition of flag color changes
* Wargame AI changes
- use annealing-like process to find the next move with the best score
- the score now factors in the enemy losses, so a raid 4->2 may be preferred over 4->1 strength.
* Vanilla civil war forts that are owned by bandits go fully back to the army if raided by faction - but only the faction that owns the hold.
* Takeovers on the war map (upheavals, and these fort garrison changes) are started in another thread, so they don't block the automatic play (if you are in the affected location, only the hold flag will change, until you leave - the map will render the "Contested" blue-red / red-blue flag).
Version 2.4.2
- unlocked the "... (Defense)" option on the Stormcloak side
- disabled the war map troops movement animations
- even more fater turn processing - removed latent function call Utility.RandomInt from a tight loop
- the "enemy invaded" are situations resolved off-screen in a manner similar to off-screen hold battles; now it's possible to lose the hold that way (seems to be more choppy/stucky then the upheavals, though).
Version 2.4.1
Adds a dialogue option "I want to help defend this hold (Defense)" to the field commanders of your faction. - currently, it is not conditioned to come up only in the hold targeted by enemy invasion
- in holds you own, it starts the cut content battle in a defense mode. don't expect they work fully in this version, though.
- Markarth defense ends right after it starts that way. Perhaps it needs to be started in the right place. If you force it with "setstage ocwspecial 2210" (on the side of imperials) after "coc markathexterior01", the defense battle starts; not so much after "coc markarthunderstonekeep".
Version 2.4.0
Initial upload for the experimental defense unstable 2.4.x branch. But if you updated by accident, do not worry, because the changes are negligible:
- once per turn (after making moves, and before the recruitment phase) the enemy will pick the worst defended hold, and "invade" it (notification and the hold capital flag will turn to blue-red or red-blue)
- this invasion will be resolved during your turn (just before the recruitment phase) - currently the enemy always "retreats", no matter what the battle odds would be for that hold.
Version 2.3.4
* Changes that were in 2.3.3 "September bugfixes":
- fixes bug with the player character removed from the CWImperialFaction / CWSonsFaction despite battling on that side (will add the player back to appropriate faction when refreshing war map)
- no longer moving around attackers when revealing defenders in minor siege ambushes
- "I need Galmar in this camp" dialog option no longer appear with town commanders
- hold battle dialog options no longer appear when talking to Galmar in Windhelm after defecting with Jagged Crown to imperials, and just after delivering message to Ulfric before battle of Whiterun
- added boots to Riften Unblooded and Markarth Auxiliary soldiers.
* Recompiled script OCWWargameScript.pex - that should fix upheavals not working at all
Version 2.3.2
- fixed the raid message box text, should always start with the first line "B A T T L E !"
- changed "Faction has launched a campaign" to "Faction launched a campaign" to avoid has/have grammar issue
- included flag locations added in 2.3 during checking conditions triggering an upheaval (the same way as all other flag locations)
- disabled dialogue options to start a a hold battle if in the final hold military camp
- more robust siege battle start up procedure: if not started within 30 seconds, proceeds regardless, but later check if any reinforcement pool is still infinite and fixes it
- conditioned CWDialogue "Stay alert..." and "Legion soliders gleam..." on both Ulfric and Tullius alive (makes more sense with Second Great War mod situation)
- increased frequency of checking if vanilla cw mission is obsoleted by hold/fort ownership change. switched default behavior from "complete quest" to "fail quest" if a mission is found obsoleted (fixes: fort battles not starting after another mission is cancelled).
Version 2.3
- 8 more rogue forts and villages added to the war map
- forts/villages close to hold borders may affect the defense bonus for crossing hold border; whereas by default it is +1, but it may be +2 or 0 if controlled by enemy or your faction units
- recognizes Helgen as a bandit fort
- fort Fellhammer belongs to Winterhold
- changed war map flags direction, especially in the Riften - Fort Greenwall - Shor's Stone three flags
- buffed up enemy leader decoys in capital siege reliefs
- fixed message typos and revamped notifications for localization purposes
- restricted "I need Rikke/Galmar here" to be available only in military camps
- chance for an ambush in minor sieges; 50% normal battle, 35% ambush battle, 15% enemy withdrew
- added the restored Rikke and Galmar speech scene in Riften and Markarth battles
- miscellaneous fixes and glitch prevention.
Version 2.2
- changed the notification texts of the jarls upheavals to a more fluff
- removed dice numbers in notifications (by default). you still can find them in messageBox battle reports
- the upheavals and city battles are suspended for the duration of the quest Season Unending ("the rumor of Greaybeards peace talks calms hostilities...")
- added option to disable upheavals for the walled cities: Markarth and Riften (globals OCWWargameMarkarthVulnerable, OCWWargameRiftenVulnerable), by default they are allowed
- after raiding a bandit-owned fort, the new flag updates its color immediately
- fixed the bug that Fort Fellhammer and Valtheim troops were recognized as troops from DragonBridge and Dawnstar, respectively)
- added limit to the recruitment phase bringing the capital to the fold - now it happens only if less than 3 castles remains (that have troops belonging to that capital's faction).
Version 2.1
- enlarged war map flag sizes by 30% (global OCWWarmapFlagScale, default 1.3)
- limited the maximum battle reinforcements to 50 (Novice) - 100 (Legendary) soldiers; (can be increased by setting global OCWWargameBattlePoolMultiplier to something greater than 1.0; in case someone makes a mod to increase the number of spawned soldiers at the same time)
- by default faction leader will stay in headquarters castle; the global OCWEnableFieldGeneral can be toggled by speaking to to him in "Let me suggest..." topic.
New rules to the recruitment phase:
- if capital castle was raided by enemy, it goes back to the fold with strength 0 at start of the recruitment phase
- increased the number of recruited units to 2 + (number of flags owned in wargame) - the cap on the total army size is now 20 + (number of flags owned in wargame)
This should prevent one side getting wiped out, and on the Novice level it should be feasible to win back even without Siege Reliefs battles.
Version 2.0
- battle odds during capital siege reliefs are now calculated in a similar way to hold capital battles; the capital hold, two adjacent holds, and the whiterun hold troops count in
- if you win a capital siege relief, enemy garrisons in these holds are reduced to strength 0
- suppresses Mjoll scene and Sapphire scene during the battle in Riften
- bugfixes and workarounds in dealing with minor siege battle outcomes - among others, the vanilla function SetNewOwnerOfFort is bugged on Stormcloak side (code uses operator && but it should do XOR)
- other cosmetic bugfixes and improvements
Version 1.11
- jarls in minor sieges have a chance for equipping random armor pieces and shield / random weapon
- fixed cowardly housecarl in minor siege, running back to jarl's longhouse (probably caused by low priority of vanilla siege quest)
- fixed the bug where Galmar fills the alias for housecarl in minor sieges
- added an enchanted warhammer to the housecarl Maul in siege of Riften
- added retreat scene for major sieges; after the retreat, enemy will tolerate you and let you in if you won't attack them
- fixed the issue with being able to enter the gates the city and fighting on ever after losing the major siege battle
- fixed the issue with field commander remaining inside the city after losing an Riften/Markarth major sieges - it's moved to the cwbattle version of fieldco
- added mission catch event nodes that should filter out CWMissionGeneratorTriggerScript events fired by enemy military camps (regardless of whether it ever could cause a bug - the bad fieldCO bug in CWMissionGeneratorTriggerScript is fixed in a different way)
- fixed the newly added speech conversations about Markarth/Riften to happen only in the correct city
- fixed the bug with swapped voice files for Ulfric telling you to go to Winterhold and Rift - changed the topic text for Ulfric dialogue counterpart to "I am ready for a new field assignment" on imperial side; now it is more like "I am eager to fight the Empire wherever you wish"
Version 1.10
- wargame troops pieces are moved using spline curves. hilarious if they travel outside the map border
- a speech opportunity in before major siege battles (Riften, Markarth)
- after winning hold that you've suggested to conquer, your general may travel to the military camp in that hold
- in minor siege battles, your soldiers will actually start fleeing if
- fixed the glitch that there were no soldiers in minor siege battles at all
- not a bug, a feature: if there is no enemy soldiers found in a minor siege battle, either talk to your soldiers... (or report to Rikke/Galmar to claim the victory as in earlier versions)
- your general may address you by your civil war rank
- capital siege relief are available only if enemy faction owns a hold next to our capital (Hjaalmarch,Reach / Rift,Winterhold) - up to 3 guard soldiers from Kynesgrove / Dragonbridge will join the siege reliefs
- increased the number of enemy soldiers in reliefs to 100+
- improved enemy general equipment in siege reliefs.
- bumped the difficulty dice bias in the wargame; it's still possible to win by autoplay on Adept, but it should be rare on Expert and above difficulty levels.
Version 1.9
- new kind of flag for cities: blue-red, red-blue. The top color shows the hold ownership,
the bottom is for city owner faction. Probably should not happen in vanilla civil war.
- worked around the mission trigger bug, which causes the game to set enemy field commander, especially in Hjaalmarch (new dialogue line "About the hold campaign..." which appears only if the bug occured, will fix it)
- cut content major siege battles have reinforcements pool computed the same way as minor sieges (the notification "Battle advantage=NN") - dice rolls used to compute battle adventage are less varied, based on tosssing 5 coins
- wargame garrisons in locations marked as "Cleared" are reduced (bandit forts by half); not as useful since most of the civil war forts are not clearable in vanilla; Fort Fellhammer is
- fixed the issue with missions available only in the vanilla order; (tread carefuly, it's recommended to complete accepted missions and not pursue missions outside the currently invaded hold - the mod won't prevent you from doing so, currently)
Version 1.8
- added missing promotion dialogue (not present in vanilla for higher ranks and early holds)
- worked around the issue caused by WinterholdLocation used instead of WinterholdHoldLocation in vanilla "what's next" topic
- fixed the issue with winning fort battles by beating the hold jarl to surrender, it should happen only for city battles
- fixed the unsavory actor flags in scene CWAttackCityJarlSurrenderScene
- added lines for jarl Igmund coming back, to prevent silent dialogue in the cut content
- fixed winning outcome of the major siege battles
- added position markers for jarl surender scenes in Markarth and Riften throne rooms
- renamed CWSiegeMarkarthImperialSoldier from "imperial soldier" to "Markarth Auxiliary" and CWSiegeRifternSonsSoldier to "Riften Unblooded"
Version 1.7
- fixed the "Let me suggest...", especially on the Stormcloak side
- Rikke/Galmar will not likely teleport to the military camp
- added "I want Rikke/Galmar here." dialogue option to other camp commanders - after waiting 1 hour Rikke/Galmar should appear in the current camp.
- the minor siege battles are now updating the objective "Kill all enemy soldiers (% remaining)", and the number is with the % of reinforcement pool on your side (that is, attackers).
- fixed the Markarth jarl surrender scene to be able to start even if Ondolemar died in the preceding fight
- switched from loose file to .BSA archive
Version 1.6
- the extra major city battles have finite reinforcement pool now (you=15, enemy=40) - fleeing away from these major city battles completes them automatically - fixed the barricades bug which occurred when repeating a major siege - fixed the missing CWSiegeRespawnAttackerPhase5 markers (issue in Riften battle) - fixed or added required Location-Ref-Type markers for CWPrepareCity in Solitude and Windhelm - renamed "Imperial General" to "Imperial Decimator" and "Stormcloak General" to "Stormcloak Arctoid" (seemingly they respawn, and General it's a bit too high for that)
News 2018-05-02: Recruiting giants for the support in civil war battles! Now inSkyrim Giant Mountain Trail!
News 2018-04-02: Balgruuf joining Stormcloaks! and letting you skip doing the Farengar's chores! In the Never Talk To NPCs!
OPEN CIVIL WAR
"It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute."
This mod re-creates the civil war quest-line with the original battles, which were cut from the released game. With this mod, after the first Battle of Whiterun you'll have to win a city battle in every hold you conquer. Moreover, the enemy will attempt to invade your faction holds as well, and you'll be able to thwart it with a city defense battle. That is so until every hold but the final is yours, then the final hold campaign starts and plays as usual.
Tides of War
By design, city battles start with varied total numbers of soldiers. A notification "Battle advantage=..." is shown when starting a battle quest: the bigger the number, the better; negative numbers mean that the enemy will have more soldiers. Whoever runs out of their reinforcements first, loses the battle. Note: in the walled cities (Riften, Markarth) it is so in the field battle before the city gates only - inside it's still the "you either die or you win" kind of battle, with unlimited soldiers respawn.
The battle odds depend on the current strategic situation, which you can see at any civil war map. You can suggest your faction general (Tullius or Ulfric) to send you to attack a hold you prefer - however, the war map will change a bit when you get there. In fact, it changes slightly every time you arrive at another war map. It's right after the war map flags are placed, the "troops" marks move across the map. A single such a change is called "one (full) turn" : first, the enemy faction moves, then yours - similar to Dice Wars (link to article at RPS)
Hold Conquest
The city battles are started by talking to your field commander (Rikke or Galmar) at the hold military camp. You can tell them that you'll tend the wounded - this will resolve the city battle "off-screen", the winner is simply the side that would have more soldiers if the city battle quest was started. The off-screen battle is also recommended when another mod disrupts the battle in a particular city, or if you want to go back to your general and ask for another hold to conquer. It also display more stats that go into computing the battle odds:
attackers strength (+player rank) : defenders strength (+difficulty level) (strength is the total strength of faction troops in the war map flags belonging to the hold) In this example, attacker rolled 3 dice and got 13 points, defender rolled 9 dice and got 30 points. The "battle advantage" would be 13 - 30 = -17. That corresponds to battle odds roughly 3:1 for defenders (yikes!)
The civil war missions and fort battles are optional, but if you start one, it is recommended to pursue it; if the objective hold/fort will switch allegiance, the mission will be cancelled. And each successfully completed mission adds a permanent 1 point to the player rank bonus. The fort counts towards faction strength, so winning a fort battle will net you 2 points (but only in this hold campaign).
The Enemy Strikes Back
The enemy attempts to conquer holds, too. A hold will be flagged "contested" on the war map for around 3 turns, after that the enemy either retreats or gains it. During this time you can resolve it with a defense battle quest, if you find and talk to the hold city commander (usually are near the local war map during day, and in barracks or somewhere close by night. In Markarth, the war room is in the northern wing of the palace chambers). Battle odds apply the same way, all things considered.
Commander Fantasy
At any time you can exit this "Standard" mode and have access to the war map. In this "Wargamer" mode, you control when the turns are played; you can move your faction troops; there is no need for a battle hold, if you move your "troops" to every flag in a hold, it will switch side in the so-called "upheavals". Even if you are not interested in the war game, you may find it useful to mend the state of the civil war quest-line if something goes awry and you don't have a save-game to go back to.
The "Wargamer" mode menu - activated for a civil war map flag: Cancel - do nothing or stop auto-play Manual - muster troops for a raid or select as raid target (depending on whose turn it is) Auto - let the computer AI complete the current turn PASS - end the current turn, no more moves (Exit) - switch back to Standard mode
How to start
The war game is initialized by activating any flag on a war map. You get to pick a difficulty level then (Novice - 1, ..., Legendary - 6). It affects the battle odds and also the war game. On higher difficulty levels, you need to be either proficient in the city battles, fighting the enemy and protecting your soldiers at the same time, or switch to the "Wargamer" mode and manually control the war map "troops" to the victory.
If you don't touch the war map at all, you'll be asked the difficulty level eventually, before starting your first city battle. But it's okay to activate it any time earlier; some holds can change ownership when you're busy with the introductory civil war quests, but no city battles or defense battles should happen before the Battle of Whiterun. And until then, the Whiterun hold remains neutral. The first Battle of Whiterun is not changed by this mod; your faction should gain Whiterun (it's a vanilla civil war bug if not, just replay the battle). Afterwards, the Whiterun hold remains on your side (but the enemy gains several bandit forts in their holds).
Capital Reliefs
You can start a siege relief battle in your faction capital city, by talking to your faction general. The option appears when the enemy owns a close hold (Reach and Hjaalmarch for imperials; Winterhold and the Rift for stormcloaks). In the relief battles, you attack the enemy who is attacking your capital city - reliefs are much alike the defense battles, only started from the outside. There may be a surprise or two, but you shouldn't lose it.
We Have Won (But The Enemy Is Gone)
It may happen that there will be no soldiers in the city you attack - only the quest target markers... It should clear up soon whether this is just an ambush. If they are really gone, go back to your faction military camp to report the news to your field commander. You can win this hold easily, but the enemy will invade one of your holds instead. This new invasion will be resolved in the next turn, so hurry up if you want to join the defense!
Installation
Put it in the load order somewhere - where you put other quest mods. New flags on the civil war map will appear after (re)entering the cell where the war map is. No need to start a new game.
Compatibility
- incompatible with Skyrim Civil War Commanders (and so, with Civil War Commanders and Extended) - makes little sense to use together with Civil War Overhaul or Skyrim Civil War Extended - mods that change cities, adds walls or something, can confuse soldiers AI; use the off-screen city battles there
Mechanic tweaks in the war map game
- Each flag can have troops with strength 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. This is the number of d6 dice rolled. - There is no distance limit, but the defender gets bonus strength point(s), usually 1 for each hold border crossed - It is possible to attack with strength 1 troop, leaving garrison of size 0 - Rogue forts start with strength equal to the difficulty level. If cleared in-game, the strength will be halved - Rogue forts that are parts of civil war questline (1 per hold) will change their garrison, but only for the faction owning the hold - Number of recruited new troops for a faction, per turn, = 2 + number of controlled flags (that is, flags with troops of that faction) - Cap on total strength of troops = 20 + number of controlled flags - If a faction loses all its troops, it regains the control of the capital city (and recruits 2 + 1 = 3 troops strength there) - If a flag changes its color (that is, in-game garrison) for some reason, that faction gains control (and 1 troop is recruited, if none were there before)
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