Since both sides are made up of mostly Nords it would seem that Sovngarde wins.

Of course. There aren't enough of the CW threads.
The search engine has yet again been forsaken,

the search engine has been broken for a long time

The only victor in war is death and the after-life.

That can also be said of peace. The end result of life is death.

I'm not going to debate that

I do not think either would win, per se. It could be that the end will be that political upheaval in Cyrodiil will make the empire lose focus in their remaining provinces and end up having every remaining provinces be "independent" for the most part.

I highly doubt Cyrodiil will fall to "political upheaval" as much as people try to make it seem, it's highly unlikely.

Alduin, and the thread can now be closed.

I think, that without the intervention of the Dragonborn, the war between the Empire and the Stormcloaks would be a war of attrition that the Empire would eventually win due to just having more men. I would hazard that it might be possible to get, at least, token support from Morrowind and Black Marsh by, essentially showing the Argonians and Dunmer how their "brethen" are being treated by the leader of the other side. Though, if I recall those two countries are at war as well.

But yes, the Empire, in the short term. In the long term though, the Thalmor. Skyrim would bleed itself of men and wealth fighting a war no one would win and the Empire would be just Cyrodil and High Rock with, essentially, a scab in the middle. With no unity, I give it months before the Thalmor strike again, and it'd hardly be more than a mop up.

I'm amazed that (yet another) of these threads has been allowed to drag on so far!

Stormcloaks all the way for me though.

Cyrodiil falls into political upheaval every time someone sneezes.
It's only in Windhelm that mistreatment is an issue, not all of Stormcloak-controlled Skyrim. Riften's one of the most racially diverse cities in the game, and it's Stormcloak. Also, the Dunmer of Morrowind know full well what's going on in Windhelm. They don't give a crap because 1) they hate the Empire as much as the Nords do and 2) they view the Dunmer in Windhelm as pathetic. Black Marsh is even less likely to help the Empire. Hell, during Oblivion, Argonians were treated even worse in Leyawiin than they are in Windhelm, and that was right on their doorstep. They didn't care.

Outside of Skyrim, the High Rock is the only "friend" Cyrodiil's got, and they've made it clear they're sitting this one out.

Imperials because they have cool looking uniforms and awesome names.

Considering the Size of the Imperial Army and the resources at their disposal, it's almost a sure shot that they'd win the Civil War. I'm willing to bet that'll be the case in TES: VI. We're either gonna read a book or some dialogue saying they won, or the Civil War might even be canon.

Has to be the Imperial Legion, they can always pull in allies from around the empire.

1. The Dunmer in Morrowind most likely DON'T know what is going on in Windhelm. One MERCENARY in Raven Rock talks about Windhelm, notice how I caps mercenary, because that right there is enough to prove you wrong.
2. No, High Rock DIDN'T make that clear. The MISCONCEPTION that Tullius contacted High Rock is completely wrong. Tullius contacted the Emperor for reinforcements, not any of the kingdoms in High Rock and due to the Fort Neugrad missive we learn that Tullius is in fact getting the reinforcements he asked for.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Stormcloak_Missive_(Fort_Neugrad)

http://cs.uesp.net/index.php?game=sr&formid=0x000d767b

That's the only line that mentions Tullius asking for reinforcements, High Rock isn't even in his dialogue tree.

http://cs.uesp.net/index.php?game=sr&formid=0x0001327e

No where in any of the Legion higher ups or anyone on the side of the Empire say that they contacted High Rock for help. The only person who contacted High Rock for help was Ulfric.

I think I was joking about that political mess. The point was that we likely will not know who won the civil war or "would win" in this case.

true, i don't know where the whole "High Rock is refusing to help the Legion" argument i see alot of people make comes from, I don't ever remember hearing such a line in the game

It was a tactic a bunch of stormcloak members came up with. They tried to take a line that was so easily forgettable and twist it to suit their purpose, eventually the misinformation became common place and few people bothered to actually look it up, Uesp's CSlist archive was still rarely used back then.

ahh, so something ColonelKillaBee came up with then?

If the legion, as they were depicted in Skyrim, was an accurate reflection of their military presence in Skyrim? then the Stormcloaks. Easily.

Many of these "soldiers" aren't even carrying shields. They would lose most encounters because of this. The stormcloaks by contrast are armed to the teeth and well protected.

The legion are literally so badly equipped in the game that I can only assume that it was a development problem. The line "the legion gleam like fresh fallen snow and clank like a kitchen" implies, to me, that originally the standard infantry were going to be heavy infantry in imperial steel plate, likely with a shield.

The majority of units depicted are light support infantry and archers. That is the most logical explanation for their load out.

Why was this not depicted in game? Probably for balancing issues.

If you were to take this into consideration and "pretend" that the way they were depicted in Skyrim was not accurate, and instead, assume that those light infantry and archers were mostly heavy infantry in steel plate, then it would be much less of a one sided fight, but the outcome would still most likely go to the stormcloaks either under Ulfric or another leader simply because the stormcloaks had far more easily attained victory conditions. Liberate Skyrim.

Lots of soldiers, extremely high civilian approval, decent equipment, effective guerrilla tactics, enemy in a near two-front war conditions, EXTREMELY high troop morale, legion vets in ranks, experienced commanders. All they need to do is keep wearing down the enemy and in reality, after every successful battle, raid and fortress taken, they would be equipment gulf between themselves and the legion would increasingly shrink.

An administrative advantage the stormcloaks have is that the cause practically organizes itself. Even if ulfric was to die, which he almost did at the beginning of the game, (making him a Martyr and probably a rallying symbol in his own right) there would be numerous other have-a-go heroes and nobles waiting to step into his shoes and follow his otherwise successful military model. While there is a freak chance that stormcloak nobles would fight among themselves to assume power over the movement, chances are: their strong ideological cohesion would prevent this from happening. There is also likely a contingency plan in place, as there is clearly a command structure in operation (generals, officers, guards and soldiers etc) and even if there was a bit of a struggle, this would last until some strong man assumes command of the operation and the whole campaign begins again.

To put it another way: The stormcloaks need only address the elephant in the room, which is an easy task. The imperials by contrast have to pretend that the big murderous, oppressive bully elephant that represents absolutely nothing other than the desire of a few sick politicians with no convictions nor morals in the room, isn't actually there, or is too important to be addressed directly, which is in comparison, not an easy task.

The imperials are in a much harder position:

Their victory conditions are much, much, much harder to achieve with no easily definable end in sight. Hold on to province home to a warrior culture full of people who dislike the imperial government and absolutely hate the conditions being imposed upon them for x number of years/decades/centuries(?). Pro Stormcloak supporters in pretty much every town, city and village. Popular support and sympathies common throughout population. Low to extremely low morale among civilian and military loyalists. Dwindling resources. Thalmor antagonists and provocateurs operating freely throughout the province sewing hatred against the empire.

With every "success" and act of suppression, hostility towards the empire would grow, even within imperial ranks. Simply put, the Empire is in a horrible situation in Skyrim and probably couldn't realistically expect to win. Any military advantage it has, which would be dwindling by the day, would be heavily outweighed by the public relations factor. While the stormcloaks and an even fence sitters could quite factually point out that the empire fails to protect its own citizens, has betrayed its own religious beliefs and represents nothing more than the desire of a political administration to cling on to power for just a little bit longer, the pro-Empire camp cannot really accuse the stormcloaks of being anything other than "traitors" to that unpopular administration.

Ironically, one of the only ways the Empire could get out of this bad situation would be through changing the religious and political conditions of their administration and in doing so ultimately handing the stormcloaks most of their victory conditions.

So even in the event of such an imperial victory, the rebellion would go down in the history books as a successful armed protest that achieved most of its objectives.

Only under such circumstances could it be harder for the stormcloaks to win because with their freedoms restored and their citizens being better protected by the imperial administration, their only rallying cry could be "we don't forgive you" or "you're still weak" or "well, we want ulfric to be in charge anyway!". Doesn't have the same charge to it as the "HAIL TALOS" thing, but, it could still work if nord nationalism was high enough and a sense of betrayal was still bitter enough.

All in all, the most likely victors of such a conflict would probably be the stormcloaks and this is much in keeping with many real life conflicts, historical and present.

Because Empire is recruiting locally and heavy armor (I'm thinking plate her really) is expensive. They can't give away plate to anyone who signs up now can they ?

One can say quite comfortably that Cyrodiil is something of a mess.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Cicero%27s_Journal_-_Volume_2

"Wayrest is lost. The city fell to corsairs, and it's just a matter of time before the Sanctuary is breached. "

If I was drinking something I'd do a spit take.

Ok first off both the Legion and stormcloaks are using new recruits with a small portion of veterans, numerous times explained in the game. Even so Imperial gear ranks higher then the stormcloak.

Second "High citizen approval" straight up wrong. Skyrim is split evenly.

Third "Effective guerrilla tactics" source please. No where at ALL in skyrim do we see stormcloaks launching "effective guerrilla tactics"

Fourth "enemy in a near two-front war conditions" don't even know what this means. The Empire isn't fighting anyone else and if you're talking about how the Empire keeps it's forces in the south then that really doesn't matter, if anything it proves the Empire can fend off a rebellion while it's troops are tied.

Fifth "experienced commanders" you mean something the Legion ALSO has and given how one general managed to turn things around I'm going with the Legion having more experience.

Sixth this war is literally "Make Ulfric king" with Talos worship being brought back and independence, sure someone could rise up but that won't be anything when the Empire defeats their troops.

Your entire post is filled to the brim with purposely misleading information that this thread already covers, information that others can back up with this thing called SOURCES.

Ulfric has no allies, Ulfric has a smaller portion of manpower then the empire, as I've posted numerous times Ulfric will have to deal with a new force from the south, both sides are using local recruits and people who sign up it's not just the empire.

If anything the Empire has a better chance at winning and holding out against Ulfric.

Potema.

Everyone forgets Potema, even I did...