Don’t travel directly from one Civil War objective to the next. If you go too fast, you’ll overtake the Civil War script, and things may start breaking - garrisons not changing ownership, quests and missions not starting, etc.
If a quest or mission does not start within 60 seconds, and there’s no notification saying it failed, it’s likely the script is hanging. If you’re inside a palace or longhouse, leave the interior; if you’re at a military camp, fast travel to the camp’s map marker. (Forcing the game through a loading screen usually frees up the scripts.) This can also resolve the vanilla "Reporting for Duty" bug.
Always keep a backup save from before the Battle for Whiterun (and don’t delete it until after the Battle for Windhelm or Battle for Solitude).
Always make a fresh save before starting a Civil War Mission or Siege (and don't delete it until after the current hold has been won or lost).
If a Hold Capital gets stuck on Contested, even after a Defense mission (successful or failed) the OCW Wargame should fix it eventually. Wait for the Hold to become invaded again, and let the Wargame resolve it automatically (which should occur after five turns, even in Fortuna mode where you don’t see the turns being taken). Stay away from any of the Hold’s Civil War missions in the meantime.
If a Failed to Start notification appears for a siege, or something doesn’t work as expected or otherwise intended, stop. As they say in Morrowind, “Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.”
Troubleshooting
When the Cows Come Home - Stuck in Vilemyr Inn / Old Hroldan Inn: You're looking for a folded note on the floor. If you have a mod which edits the inn's interior, it may have ended up out-of-bounds. Here's what you'll want to do (in the console, where FExxx is the load order index of this mod): For Vilemyr Inn:prid FExxx871 moveto playerFor Old Hroldan Inn:prid FExxx870 moveto player The note should then appear at your feet.
Rikke / Galmar is at the wrong camp (or stuck at Faction HQ): Talk to them and say "Think you're in the wrong place. (Commander)" This will cause the game to re-evaluate their AI package stack (i.e. their current location and action), and may force them to move to the correct camp. You should also ensure no other mods are overriding this mod's edits to the quest aliases for CW and OCWHoldsAI in xEdit.
FAQs
How do I start a City Battle? You must be in a hold that Tullius or Ulfric has designated as an active campaign (check your active objective in the Reunification / Liberation of Skyrim quest). Go to your faction's Military Camp and tell Rikke or Galmar "It's time to commit our military reserves in this hold. (Commander)" and then choose "I shall storm the Jarl's city and win this hold! (City Battle)".
How do I start a City Defense? You must be in a hold that the enemy has invaded which is actively contested (check your active objective in the Defense of Skyrim quest). Go to the hold's capital, and tell the Field Commander "I want to help defend this hold. (Defense)".
I can't start the Battle for Whiterun! The likely cause of this is an alias on the CWSiege quest failing to fill. To help with debugging, please try the steps at Debugging Civil War Quests. The required file is CWSiege Alias Debug and can be found in the Optional Files of this mod. You must load a save from before you give Balgruuf the message in Message to Whiterun. Depending on which version of the quest you are doing, CWSiege can start in the background at any point after that.
Thank you for mod. Works fine. I also find some strange things: - in fort/city battles, if you kill enemy after complete objective (kill invaders, 0% or something like that), you get bounty for murder. - Ulfric call me Stormblade after first Whiterun battle and give reword for 4 rank. He also give me reward for The Reach in Season Unending, lol. Is it all intentional?
What hold do you get a bounty in? I don't think that's supposed to happen, but I haven't edited any bounty or crime faction options, so theoretically I don't see why that wouldn't also happen in vanilla.
The second thing is certainly not intentional - I've fixed the Stormblade issue, but will have to look at the Season Unending issue later.
Whiterun. Yeah, i remember now, that things like bounty for dead imperials/thalmor in stormcloak provinces and vice versa was in vanilla. Thanks for answer
So I been testing my modlist in several new games and I noticed that as soon as I get to a town an Imperial courier shows up to give me a letter with orders, even though I never even talked to any Imperials or joined them. Is this normal? I dont mind if it doesnt really do anything but I gotta know cuz starting the civil war quests takes longer so it would take long to test that out.
That certainly isn't right, but that's not happened to me before so I couldn't say what might be causing it... Have you changed anything else to do with the Civil War, such as editing the settings at the wartable in Open Civil War?
Nah, I basically just start a new character using Alternate Start and no matter what race or beginning I pick the courier always shows up as soon as I am in a town. I still get the quest to join Imperials when I talk to one of them, so I guess I will test later if I am able to start the questline normally.
Hey ! Currently it looks pretty fine for the moment (as for me), just some small weird things but not really bothering. I asked to launch a campaign on Whiterun but Rikke went to Hjaalmarch camp lol (but i said to her she was in wrong place)
And sometimes the stormcloak officer during a fort defense, stay on his position and don't move, so i have to go and kill him.
But in any case, no disturbing matter.
I wanted even to do a suggestion for you, It seems difficult I think but I share it. Could you copy the season unending script to do a Hold defense mission without causing a bloodbath?
Like the legate and the stormcloak commander meet with the 2 rival jarls with all the soldiers in the attackers' camp. And that they suggest that we leave the city and in exchange we are offered gold and a chatellery to recover? This will require high-level persuasion to keep the negotiation going.
I wanted to share this defense idea with you In any case, the open civil war mod is much better with yours
Yeah, asking to invade Whiterun is temperamental, not really sure why. The Officers who come in at the end of the attack during Fort Defense are supposed to follow the other soldiers, but again, their AI seems to be a bit temperamental. (We begin to see here why Bethesda cut a lot of the Civil War features out...)
Diplomatic negotiations for holds outside of Season Unending sounds interesting - I'll add it to the list of suggestions.
Not possible for script-related patches at the moment because True Thane doesn't include script source files, so I can't actually see what would need to be patched.
I don't actually know why True Thane would need to edit CWAttackCitySurrenderScene anyway, so for this one I think just making sure my mod files overwrite True Thane would be fine.
Hello. Thanks for the great mod. Everything works fine for me, except for one thing: the attack with the Stormcloaks on imperial Riften. WhenI break all three barricades and enter the city, the city battle script does not work. The task “enter Riften” is still hanging. Also writes an error: "QuestCWAttackCity may have failed to start". I noticed that if you very quickly break down all the fortifications and enter the city, then a city battle begins. If it is slow, then the battle does not start and the marker hangs on the gates of Riften. I read the article, but didn’t quite understand what to do. Can you help me please?
Best thing to do would just be to leave it for a few days and try again later - the most likely cause is the aliases for the quest not filling fast enough. If you want to try and identify the the cause of the issue, turning on Story Manager logging in SkyrimPrefs.ini (by setting bEnableStoryManagerLogging=1 in the [General] section, as noted in the article) will produce a log file which will show when a quest has failed to fill Aliases, so that will at least confirm that this is the issue. I don't have a debug file for CWAttackCity at the moment but I can put one together in the next few weeks if needed.
I couldn't find the info anywhere on the mod page, so I wanted to ask what would be this mod's relationship with Season Unending quest from the vanilla game (specifically, after already joining a side). Since it technically temporarily stops the civil war, does that mean that the additions of this mod, such as the couriers informing you of battles, are also paused until finishing the main quest? Or would it cause any issues?
I'm asking mostly because I personally like doing the Season Unending, so to know if I should avoid it.
Hey, I wanted to report this small bug. To explain :
I got the mission to go conquest Whiterun Hold, Rikke go over there and i get the mission to clear the Greymoor Fort. I secure the fort and now it's at the hands of imperials.
Then i took a break before doing the last mission to attack Whiterun, by going to Falskaar.
And i return to Skyrim with the objective to complet the Whiterun campaign but well... Firstly, Rikke she's no longer in the Whiterun camp now, she's in Solitude And also it's buggy to call her, she doesn't want anymore to come to the camp or to start the attack on Whiterun since from Solitude.
However, it's completely work when i start a new official campaign like in the Pale, Hjaalmarch etc for exemple, she go to the camp.
I hope it could help you, i will try to find a solution by for exemple taking Hjaalmarch and if it's can reset. (Maybe it's my fault and i should never let the civil war hold campaign unfinished by going elsewhere)
Okay more details : I forget to precise but when i was back from Falskaar, i get to Solitude and that's here i saw Rikke and she gave me the money for having secure the Greymoor fort a long time ago (We never know)
To continue : Then I succed to take Hjaalmarch, i go report Tullius and give me the next campaign to the Pale. But i suggest to conquest Whiterun, and that's here the problem now. When Tullius ask you to go to a hold, Rikke is already on the road to go to the camp. If I ask to conquest Whiterun, she return to Castle Dour it seems :/
I didn't test it but maybe if Tullius ask me when i report to him to go to the Whiterun camp, Rikke could go over there i hope
Whiterun is very delicate in the Civil War, and as such, quite easy to break. Because of that, I didn't add as many features as there are for the other holds; specifically, I did not add a dialogue option where you could suggest that to Tullius - it is literally not possible to ask to conquer Whiterun.
Tullius will send you to Whiterun when he decides it is best - this is usually once you control at least the Pale, the Rift, and Hjaalmarch. If Rikke still doesn't go to the camp at that point, try these console commands to reset her: set OCWFieldCOHold to 0 set SCWLastFailedHold to 0 set CWContestedHold to 0
After that, wait 10 days in an inn somewhere, then go back to Tullius and ask for a new assignment.
Thanks, so it worked in the foreground, I captured the Pale, Rift and Hjaalmarch. Afterwards Tullius orders me to take Whiterun, so I went to the point but Rikke did not went to the camp.
I did what you told me. I launched the 3 consoles commands, went to an inn and waited 10 days. I returned to Tullius and click on the dialogue choice you told me, Tullius orders me to take Whiterun again.
But... Rikke doesn't care at all, she doesn't move and stays even when Tullius orders me to take Whiterun and after waiting 10 days in an inn.
I tried to reset by putting Whiterun on the empire side (I made a save before doing all the tests obviously, I used setstage mq302test) and after switching it back to the Stormcloak side, Tullius orders me to take back Whiterun but nothing, Rikke absolutely does not want to move
Do you have More Informative Console? If you click on Rikke it should show what her Current Package is, and (I think) what Aliases she's in. Hopefully with that I'll either know what needs fixing or have an idea what else you can try.
But if you want really and only the current package that is modified, it's USSEP, and i got nothing else that change her script. And her current package it's "CWMaptableSandboxeSolitude"
Sounds like the package stack on Rikke's Alias in the CW quest either isn't being evaluated correctly or isn't in the right order - you could check in xEdit to see if anything is overriding this mod's changes to the CW aliases.
In the meantime though, something else you could try (did you try this already?) would be to go to the Whiterun Imperial Camp and tell Legate Cipius that you need Rikke there. (Even if you did try that already, it would be good to know whether her Current Package changes after you do that.)
Okay, i can't help you for the xEdit i don't know how to use it.
But i can answer to for the test of asking Rikke in the camp. I went to Imperial Whiterun camp and asked to the legate Cipius that I need Rikke. I try this command for target her : Prid 000198BB . Then i see her current package and it's still "CWMaptableSandboxeSolitude".
Then i tried to test a other thing, i went to see Tullius and launch a campaign in Winterhold. Then it's change the objective and i see Rikke moving. I watch her current package and it's "OCWRikkeAtCampWinterhold", modified by OwnCivilWar.esp (Open civil war mod).
To remind, her current package when she is staying at Solitude it's modified by USSEP, so maybe it could interfer in the priorities of script package ? If not i couldn't help for xEdit questions, but i hope i could help you.
I regret but, that doesn't change anything (As for me of course and for the moment).
But i wanted to report this notice i saw that could interest you.
In fact, for exemple when Tullius order me to go to Winterhold, Rikke she doesn't move, even if i get to the camp and ask her (it's not because of your mod updated don't worry it was already like that). But when i go back and suggest Winterhold to Tullius, suddenly she move and go to Winterhold camp even if i already get the order.
It's strange but it was like the Owncivilwar.esp mod forces Rikke to get the current package modified, with the Suggestion choice dialogue.
Ps : I tried for others Holds by talking to Tullius and he order me to take Falkreath but here it's work and Rikke she move, so no need to suggest again Tullius to take Falkreath.
It's pretty strange but as I see, maybe you should adding the feature to suggest the Whiterun military campaign to Tullius ? A system that forces Rikke especialy.
It's strange but it was like the Owncivilwar.esp mod forces Rikke to get the current package modified, with the Suggestion choice dialogue.
That is in fact exactly what it does. But the dialogue with the Field Commander at the camp is supposed to do the same thing.
It's pretty strange but as I see, maybe you should adding the feature to suggest the Whiterun military campaign to Tullius ? A system that forces Rikke especialy.
Yeah I think this is the only remaining option now. Hopefully if I do that, it doesn't break anything else!
Where are you / what's the objective? If you're "Investigating the scouts' last known location" and you've got to the inn, you're looking around for clues.
Spoiler:
Show
Specifically, you're looking for a folded note on the floor. If you're using any tavern overhauls, this can cause the note to be displaced - see the sticky for solutions.
I just finished talking with the legate in Markarth. The quest ask me to "investigate the enemy scouts' last known location" but there's no quest marker or anything that can pinpoint me to the location. So I just need to go to Old Hroldan Inn?
I just finished talking with the legate in Markarth. The quest ask me to "investigate the enemy scouts' last known location" but there's no quest marker or anything that can pinpoint me to the location. So I just need to go to Old Hroldan Inn?
Yeah the quest marker should be on Old Hroldan Inn, not sure why it's not showing up.
bro when i go back to riften to talk with the quest giver the quest doesnt end
The quest should end when you enter the city. Roll back to before you went into Redbelly Mine, the siege might have failed to start (sieges not starting is a vanilla bug, can't do anything about it other than reloading unfortunately).
I suppose it doesn’t really matter to me now, because I loaded back a few saves, but I got the quest for When the Cows Come Home, and it actually sent me to an inn for a custom settlement, VernIn Wood to be exact. I tried the console in the sticky but that didn’t work at all. I assumed I needed the one for Vilemyr Inn but still nothing. Didn’t see anyone else mention this could happen so I thought I’d let you know.
Hmm okay, thanks! I'll see if I can think of a way to force it to pick only the right inn. In vanilla there is of course only one valid inn for each hold
137 comments
- Don’t travel directly from one Civil War objective to the next. If you go too fast, you’ll overtake the Civil War script, and things may start breaking - garrisons not changing ownership, quests and missions not starting, etc.
- If a quest or mission does not start within 60 seconds, and there’s no notification saying it failed, it’s likely the script is hanging. If you’re inside a palace or longhouse, leave the interior; if you’re at a military camp, fast travel to the camp’s map marker. (Forcing the game through a loading screen usually frees up the scripts.) This can also resolve the vanilla "Reporting for Duty" bug.
- Always keep a backup save from before the Battle for Whiterun (and don’t delete it until after the Battle for Windhelm or Battle for Solitude).
- Always make a fresh save before starting a Civil War Mission or Siege (and don't delete it until after the current hold has been won or lost).
- If a Hold Capital gets stuck on Contested, even after a Defense mission (successful or failed) the OCW Wargame should fix it eventually. Wait for the Hold to become invaded again, and let the Wargame resolve it automatically (which should occur after five turns, even in Fortuna mode where you don’t see the turns being taken). Stay away from any of the Hold’s Civil War missions in the meantime.
- If a Failed to Start notification appears for a siege, or something doesn’t work as expected or otherwise intended, stop. As they say in Morrowind, “Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.”
Troubleshooting
- When the Cows Come Home - Stuck in Vilemyr Inn / Old Hroldan Inn: You're looking for a folded note on the floor. If you have a mod which edits the inn's interior, it may have ended up out-of-bounds. Here's what you'll want to do (in the console, where FExxx is the load order index of this mod):
- Rikke / Galmar is at the wrong camp (or stuck at Faction HQ): Talk to them and say "Think you're in the wrong place. (Commander)" This will cause the game to re-evaluate their AI package stack (i.e. their current location and action), and may force them to move to the correct camp. You should also ensure no other mods are overriding this mod's edits to the quest aliases for CW and OCWHoldsAI in xEdit.
FAQsFor Vilemyr Inn:
prid FExxx871For Old Hroldan Inn:moveto player
prid FExxx870
The note should then appear at your feet.moveto player
- in fort/city battles, if you kill enemy after complete objective (kill invaders, 0% or something like that), you get bounty for murder.
- Ulfric call me Stormblade after first Whiterun battle and give reword for 4 rank. He also give me reward for The Reach in Season Unending, lol. Is it all intentional?
The second thing is certainly not intentional - I've fixed the Stormblade issue, but will have to look at the Season Unending issue later.
I dont mind if it doesnt really do anything but I gotta know cuz starting the civil war quests takes longer so it would take long to test that out.
I asked to launch a campaign on Whiterun but Rikke went to Hjaalmarch camp lol (but i said to her she was in wrong place)
And sometimes the stormcloak officer during a fort defense, stay on his position and don't move, so i have to go and kill him.
But in any case, no disturbing matter.
I wanted even to do a suggestion for you, It seems difficult I think but I share it. Could you copy the season unending script to do a Hold defense mission without causing a bloodbath?
Like the legate and the stormcloak commander meet with the 2 rival jarls with all the soldiers in the attackers' camp. And that they suggest that we leave the city and in exchange we are offered gold and a chatellery to recover?
This will require high-level persuasion to keep the negotiation going.
I wanted to share this defense idea with you
In any case, the open civil war mod is much better with yours
Diplomatic negotiations for holds outside of Season Unending sounds interesting - I'll add it to the list of suggestions.
It replaces one script, I dunno how much it affects the mod
Thanks anyway, do you think they still could work together somehow?
I couldn't find the info anywhere on the mod page, so I wanted to ask what would be this mod's relationship with Season Unending quest from the vanilla game (specifically, after already joining a side). Since it technically temporarily stops the civil war, does that mean that the additions of this mod, such as the couriers informing you of battles, are also paused until finishing the main quest? Or would it cause any issues?
I'm asking mostly because I personally like doing the Season Unending, so to know if I should avoid it.
I got the mission to go conquest Whiterun Hold, Rikke go over there and i get the mission to clear the Greymoor Fort.
I secure the fort and now it's at the hands of imperials.
Then i took a break before doing the last mission to attack Whiterun, by going to Falskaar.
And i return to Skyrim with the objective to complet the Whiterun campaign but well...
Firstly, Rikke she's no longer in the Whiterun camp now, she's in Solitude
And also it's buggy to call her, she doesn't want anymore to come to the camp or to start the attack on Whiterun since from Solitude.
However, it's completely work when i start a new official campaign like in the Pale, Hjaalmarch etc for exemple, she go to the camp.
I hope it could help you, i will try to find a solution by for exemple taking Hjaalmarch and if it's can reset.
(Maybe it's my fault and i should never let the civil war hold campaign unfinished by going elsewhere)
I forget to precise but when i was back from Falskaar, i get to Solitude and that's here i saw Rikke and she gave me the money for having secure the Greymoor fort a long time ago (We never know)
To continue : Then I succed to take Hjaalmarch, i go report Tullius and give me the next campaign to the Pale. But i suggest to conquest Whiterun, and that's here the problem now.
When Tullius ask you to go to a hold, Rikke is already on the road to go to the camp. If I ask to conquest Whiterun, she return to Castle Dour it seems :/
I didn't test it but maybe if Tullius ask me when i report to him to go to the Whiterun camp, Rikke could go over there i hope
Tullius will send you to Whiterun when he decides it is best - this is usually once you control at least the Pale, the Rift, and Hjaalmarch. If Rikke still doesn't go to the camp at that point, try these console commands to reset her:
set OCWFieldCOHold to 0
set SCWLastFailedHold to 0
set CWContestedHold to 0
After that, wait 10 days in an inn somewhere, then go back to Tullius and ask for a new assignment.
I did what you told me. I launched the 3 consoles commands, went to an inn and waited 10 days.
I returned to Tullius and click on the dialogue choice you told me, Tullius orders me to take Whiterun again.
But... Rikke doesn't care at all, she doesn't move and stays even when Tullius orders me to take Whiterun and after waiting 10 days in an inn.
I tried to reset by putting Whiterun on the empire side (I made a save before doing all the tests obviously, I used setstage mq302test) and after switching it back to the Stormcloak side, Tullius orders me to take back Whiterun but nothing, Rikke absolutely does not want to move
-Imperial rewards
-Simple Immersive Civil War Soldiers
-USSEP
-Immersive Citizen-AI Overhaul
And her current package it's "CWMaptableSandboxeSolitude"
In the meantime though, something else you could try (did you try this already?) would be to go to the Whiterun Imperial Camp and tell Legate Cipius that you need Rikke there. (Even if you did try that already, it would be good to know whether her Current Package changes after you do that.)
But i can answer to for the test of asking Rikke in the camp.
I went to Imperial Whiterun camp and asked to the legate Cipius that I need Rikke. I try this command for target her : Prid 000198BB .
Then i see her current package and it's still "CWMaptableSandboxeSolitude".
Then i tried to test a other thing, i went to see Tullius and launch a campaign in Winterhold. Then it's change the objective and i see Rikke moving.
I watch her current package and it's "OCWRikkeAtCampWinterhold", modified by OwnCivilWar.esp (Open civil war mod).
To remind, her current package when she is staying at Solitude it's modified by USSEP, so maybe it could interfer in the priorities of script package ?
If not i couldn't help for xEdit questions, but i hope i could help you.
But i wanted to report this notice i saw that could interest you.
In fact, for exemple when Tullius order me to go to Winterhold, Rikke she doesn't move, even if i get to the camp and ask her (it's not because of your mod updated don't worry it was already like that). But when i go back and suggest Winterhold to Tullius, suddenly she move and go to Winterhold camp even if i already get the order.
It's strange but it was like the Owncivilwar.esp mod forces Rikke to get the current package modified, with the Suggestion choice dialogue.
Ps : I tried for others Holds by talking to Tullius and he order me to take Falkreath but here it's work and Rikke she move, so no need to suggest again Tullius to take Falkreath.
It's pretty strange but as I see, maybe you should adding the feature to suggest the Whiterun military campaign to Tullius ? A system that forces Rikke especialy.