I am a soldier for the Imperial legion. I've only fought battles up to the Whiterun assult, which is not much at all. TBH, I was expecting more of an assault. The pathetic attack was cruched by the iron fist of the empire. In Oblivion, there is a bit of warfare, yet, it's still just petty skirmishes. I realize that this is a RPG, some classify it as an action RPG, but I don't feel the intensity of warfare I should. How do you feel about this, forum?

In a game like skyrim, I'd say a large battle could never really take place.....I mean, look at the number of people living in most of the strongholds and cities. Not many. It'd be cool if Skyrim was actually more populated. I mean, sure it's a northern, snowy province, but that doesnt mean there should be a lack of people.

I understand the feeling. You can't help but wish to play a part in a major war, with hundreds of troops on either side of a field in a Total War style battle. It would be awsome, but unfortunately impractical in a game that renders an entire open world everytime you play.

Also, as you say, it's not really in keeping with the RPG genre.

Skyrim isn't about huge battles. Go play LOTR or something if that's your thing.

The engine can't handle enough people to make it work.

Mount and Blade, can, but that's because it uses VERY low-resolution/definition models for the characters, and moving LOD models outside a small radius of the player character.

Personally, I like the better graphics because apart from a few low-population issues, it brings me into the actual gameworld... especially when I spend most of my time just wandering through the wilderness enjoying the scenery.

You should try Mount & Blade instead. Those battles are pretty impressive, and the rest of the game holds an RPG element.

I'd think its most likely due to the technical difficulty (e.g. outdated console machines) rather than being a RPG.

Don't blame the OP for wishing. The thing is, the lack of large battles isn't caused by the fact that they would have no place in the TES universe. It is caused by problems rendering such battles within the engine. The TES story always tries to build up to climactic battles, but perpetually underwhelms the player when the battles take place. It isn't that the battles have no place, because they really do (in both Oblivion's and Skyrim's storyline). It is just a failure that we have to accept along with the many successes. Having satisfying, large scale combat would be a great improvement without altering the essence of the TES game. Hopefully this problem will be ameliorated somewhat in the next console generation, but I'm not exactly holding out hope...

I've done both sides of Whiterun and attacking as the Stormcloaks was waaaaaaaaaaay much more fun. Defending was rubbish, I barely killed anything as the Imperials had better positions all around the gate and the Stormcloaks were getting mowed down by arrows. Attacking took a lot longer as it was a step by step push and Imperials were popping out over every wall, it really felt epic right up when we beat the jarl in Dragonsreach.