"Each and every High King before me ruled in Windhelm, but I'll choose not to for no other reason then for the lols."- Jorunn the Troll-King


I got Tullius to do that with Mods U JELLY?

Jarl Ballin for High King.

Yes we all know Solitude served as the seat of the puppe.. er High King of Skyrim in the third Era. You should be telling this to Cider instead of me.

Ok since the Alliance wars, but that still doesn't change that the capital could've changed during the second era for multiple reasons also you have no proof that any high king during the third or fourth era was a imperial puppet so you should really stop saying that baseless propaganda BS.

So far the accounts of Second era Skyrim rulers are quite vague so that could be arguable.

I was joking about the the whole puppet thing in the third era and weren't you the one that keep saying the Septim Empire was incompetent in leadership and always corrupted and how the beloved Mede dynasty wasn't.

Sure I was but that doesn't change that we don't have evidence that any High kings were Imperial puppets.

If there's actually a mod for that, good on the man who made it.
As for Tulius...Not even. Guys a schmuck, but he's hardly worth wanting to turn into a zombie butler.
Ulfric has just provided me with so much entertainment since I iced him like the little girl he was.

He was a vet of the great war, retaking markath was a significant event and from the start of the game he clearly has his own army and is waging a major military campaign against the empire and has made significant gains, he then proceeds to make more significant gains eventually driving the empire out of skyrim.

Incompetent people by virtue of being incompetent, cannot do this, especially not in the way Ulfric does.


Free winter is hardly a trustworthy source of information. The man is a bigot and layabout, and even if it is true, the Windhelm economy is still running, windhelm is still standing, it is doing well enough to have a bunch of foreigners willing to work and live in and around it, it has guards, and armies etc. Besides, what exactly is the terrible fault there? using resources to fight for a cause? not valuing money over values and success? throughout history societies have reached deep into their pockets to fight wars, and if ulfric is scraping the battle and still waging a successful war, that just means he is an extremely popular and competent leader.

Besides, if he wins the whole country any bankruptcy problems form the war will be mostly irrelevant because, again, he will be rolling in money and it will be his government that gives legitimacy to currency.



Riften won't need to worry about repair funds if Ulfric wins.

And on the contrary, his challenge to the throne and defeating of Torygg in a duel was totally political. He clearly understood the rules of Skyrim and he clearly had supporters. In fact, the fact that he didn't have to play conventional politics to get his rebellion off the ground would be more evidence to suggest that he is some kind of military and political genius. Regular joes may not think it wise to pull off a stunt like the ones Ulfric has, but that's because they are regular joes. Ulfric isn't a regular joe.

Your criticism is actually very absurd if you think about it. It's like saying that a champion martial artist isn't a competent martial artist because he doesn't stick to orthodox techniques. It's like, totally missing the point, focussing on imaginary rules and valuing form over the very thing the forms were developed in attempt to achieve, success. Ulfric succeeds.


You're now lying and creating a straw man argument. I didn't say that economics wasn't important, I simply placed money in its correct place in the hierarchy of importance and power, and that is, below government and material resources.

Simply put, if Ulfric takes the whole of skyrim and its resources, he will not have much to worry about financially.


lol....you don't really understand................the whole "independent skyrim" thing do you? It's as if your mind literally cannot perform the necessary abstractions required to conceive of a non-imperial ideology. Yeah, you're right, if skyrim goes independent.....then that would effectively take them out of the imperial economy and if that happens wow... they might as well not even be under imperial rule.

Sarcasm aside, seriously, do you actually know what the word "independent" means? Look it up, then think about it a second. I'll assume that the mostly self sufficient nature of these medieval-style economies and thus less room for trade dependency to be a problem is too obvious to mention.

An overwhelmingly self sufficient society being faced with the prospect of autarky is as intimidating a situation as threatening a windmill owner with wind.


Skyrim the computer game is a pretty good source.

Military experience, check, liberates city from native uprising, check, forces the imperial government to lift ban on talos? check, defeats high king in legal duel to prove a political point, check, starts a major rebellion with a shoe string budget? check, wins a successful campaign against the empire? check. Knows when to strike and when not to? check.

It's all in the game, check it out.

Also, the idea that he is hated by half the province is something I haven't actually seen, and even then, that makes him what? loved by the other half? which still puts him head and shoulders above most jarls in Skyrim.

Ulfric is likely the most popular Jarl in Skyrim.

As I said I was joking about them being puppets of the Septim and as you know my views are more favorable to that dynasty. Whether the High King of Skyrim is a puppet to the Medes is something that should be discussed in another thread.


Entertainment and with a corpse....

Correctimundo And you know what? It's perfectly legal to do so by Skyrim law! I couldn't believe it! This is what is best in life-- defacing the body of Snow Monkey Jesus.

That's because Ysgramor himself founded it

Ulfric the unworthy doesn't deserve to dwell there

I wouldn't call it a major military campaign for the empire since he is only fighting against a minor force of the legion and again, he ended up being a prisoner of war in the great war and being a veteran doesn't prove he was a military genius for all we know his rank was recruit and not commander and his generals do all the work for him




Nothing free-winter says has been proven false and there is nothing to suggest he is either a layabout or a liar or a bigot and a nation can't really just make up it's own money and then use it outside of their country, they have to take in consideration of exchange rates and the such, you're ignorance of how economics work is showing.





The duel was far from anything a political mastermind would do, if he was a political genius like you claim then he wouldn't have needed to resort to killing the High King nor would he be hated by half of the nords of skyrim, again nothing in game or lore-wise suggests he is a political genius.


It's actually not missing any point Ulfric has shown no qualities of a mastermind political or a brilliant strategist.




I love how most Stormcloaks go "You're making nothing but a strawman argument" I am not, I am making a valid point that he doesn't know how to manage money and he can't just take any resource he wants without paying it, even the Empire needed to pay mines for their minerals, they needed to pay farms for the food and they needed to pay smiths to make weapons. If Ulfric doesn't pay anyone then he becomes a tyrant that takes any resource he wants without paying the people who worked hard to gather, mine or make the resources, this is basic economics a leader can't just take whatever they want.




again, lieges still needed to pay their troops, they needed to pay farms for food and they needed to pay for resources, they didn't take whatever they want without paying for it, I understand medieval-style economics more then you do and trade was extremely important back then even for independent nations.




By lore Ulfric doesn't actually succeed as far as we know and he needed the Dragonborn to do it, sure the empire needed the same thing but the difference is the empire has more man-power then the stormcloaks also most of the legionaries in skyrim are nords and they are fighting against Ulfric by choice instead of running to his side, Ulfric is popular sure but he is also hated too.

I'll stick with Elisif the Available.

The only beef I have with the completing the war for the Imperial Legion is that Laila Law-Giver gets ousted from Riften. Laila Law-Giver is the ONLY Stormcloak sympathizer I actually really regret toppling. First, she obviously cares deeply about her people. Secondly, deposing her as jarl brings Maven Black-Briar, who is both evil and corrupt, to the jarl's throne. Deciding who is worse between Maven and Ulfric is difficult. He's the power hungry nord-surpremecist, after all. It's just ugly that I have to go through Law-Giver to get to Ulfric.

I've never played through with the Stormcloaks, so I wouldn't know. Maybe I should just for a perspective, but it's really hard... I've been a citizen of the Empire since Elder Scrolls One after all.

either Jarl Ulfric, or Jarl Ballin...ballin..jarl ballin swag

Yea your avatar doesn't exactly help either

You are again lying and warping the conversation to make room for your new and modified arguments that you want to put forward, i'm guessing because of some strange personal bias against the stormcloaks and nationalism in general.

Anyway, It doesn't matter how significant it is for the empire(but evidence suggests it is), it is clearly very significant for Skyrim, and this is what we are talking about, jarls of skyrim. It has already been confirmed that he is popular(you didn't even bother challenging this previously in the exchange), and now you are trying to make this an issue about whether or not ulfric is a genius based on terms that are now outside of the conditions that were in place when I casually used the word (basically winning on an extreme shoe string budget). Oh, and rank has absolutely nothing to do with genius btw.

His generals do not do all the work for him. Have you played the game? He is involved in both battles and strategy. The idea that the uses capable generals to fight his campaign does not challenge his competency, if anything it can suggest that he understands high command structure. Alexander the Great and Napoleon used generals, were they also incompetent?

I'll entertain the rest of your post but the real matter of this issue can be found right here:

In terms of Skyrim and the Jarls of Skyrim, who has more popularity and military competency than Ulfric? what other Jarl has their own(non empire assisted) forces on the level of Ulfric? how many other Jarls, have as much influence over other holds as Ulfric? how many other Jarls have as much combat experience as Ulfric?

In terms of popularity and military competency, no other Jarl comes close to Ulfric.


He is a clear layabout. Crying about wars, and whining about the stormcloaks, while living safely behind the walls of a fortified city, defended by armed stormcloak soldiers. Why doesn't that punk go down south to cyrodiil and do his moaning there? why doesn't that punk address the issue of the empire allowing armed murderers of the dominion to freely torment the citizens of the empire, the same empire that banned one of its own gods?

A petty little man with a fox on his shoulder trying to make fun of a war leader for digging deep to fight for a cause that he and his supporters believes if true is hilarious and if false is still hilarious. Either way, it's hilarious. You deny that he is a bigot? you didn't even know the meaning of the word up until a short while ago, so that is quite amusing. You already have forgotten it seems. Look it up, Freewinter is a bigot. He is completely intolerant of other peoples opinions and gets cranky if you don't agree with him. Ulfric by contrast tolerates non-priorities in his society.


You accuse me of ignorance when you don't know the difference between a nation and a state? hilarious.

I actually address a lot of these points later on in the post you are responding to but I suppose I can go over them again briefly here: Skyrim is not trade dependent, and under a pro-independence government it would likely become even less dependent on trade, which wouldn't be such a big deal considering the fact that the economy of Skyrim is clearly self sufficient as most societies in tamriel are due to pre-industiral nature of these societies.

Whether other societies decide to trade with Skyrim post independence will ultimately depend on what Skyrim has materially that interests them and what they have that materially interests Skyrim. The money, by its nature of being just a medium of exchange and always inferior in significance to materials and law, will adapt to accommodate the interests of the trading countries.

So ultimately you making a fuss about currency and trade just highlights both your ignorance of basic economics, politics and human self interest.


Here's a crazy thought: Maybe he wanted to kill the high king. Maybe he wanted to prove a point, ya know...like he said in....the game. He uses an ancient nord tradition to kill the high king, and then struts his way into command of a rebellion. He is at least political competent and few men could pull that kind of thing off.


No, it is "missing the point", you are complaining that he didn't take power in the "proper way" but ignoring the fact that......he......took...power. He is the single most powerful Jarl in Skyrim in terms of home grown skyrim resources. This didn't happen accidentally.



You just lied again... this time about my criticism of your previous lie. Are you even reading my posts or do you just see one or two words then fly off into a rant? this is what you said: ""Also economy and money are a very important thing especially when running a rebellion because soldiers need to be fed" in response to a post of mine where I at no point claimed that money and economics are unimportant. Now you are pretending that conversation didn't take place and that I was talking about something completely different.

Try reading: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1456193-the-high-king-or-queen-of-skyrim/page__st__30__p__22556238#entry22556238

Anyway, to address your new revision of your failing argument, the economies of Stormcloak territories are functioning all through the game and the stormcloaks have clear access to all kinds of financial and material resources so this particular criticism is invalid. On top of financial incentive the stormcloaks have something that the empire mostly doesn't have in skyrim, cause incentive which can effectively allow militaries and economies populated by supporters to operate above and beyond the level that their financial resources alone would allow. This factor may be part of why the stormcloaks have been in the game so long on their shoe string budget, and it is clearly enough to win.

Your comment on tyrant can be casually ignored because you seem to assume that it is some kind of automatic pejorative, it isn't, and in a society full of jarls and high kings, it seems to be a bizarre criticism. What you describe in the idea of a state taking resources for nothing financially is actually not much of a step up from basic taxation for revenue and governments in times of war can and will take the resources they need for the war effort, often with popular consent from the population, a evidenced by things like scrap drives and rationing in real history.

This is one of the reasons why war economies can be very efficient in catering towards the military effort when compared to alternative economic approaches. Which is why so many countries, even in times of peace, have completely privatised security and military forces.

It's almost like you have confused skyrim with some bizarre parody of capitalism like bioshock and erroneously view everyone in skyrim as a free agent operating purely within their own capitalistic self interest, which is as incorrect in skyrim as it is in reality.



1) Name one time in the game where stormcloak soldiers stop showing up and windhelm comes to a standstill because the stormcloaks lack money and resources. If you can't do this then your point is moot.

2) name three medieval European states that depended primarily on trade for food, construction, weapons and tools.

Trade has traditionally been for luxury items. It is only in post industrial times that with the rise of globalisation and the rise of attempts to create a more globally integrated economy that societies have actually become dependent on trade. Medieval and ancient societies didn't have this problem, and skyrim clearly follows this particular model.

But do feel free to tell me what vital resources and skills Skyrim needs from other parts of tamriel that it cannot provide for itself.


The game shows that it is totally possible for the Stormcloaks to liberate the whole of Skyrim and Ulfric getting a dragonborn onto his side(which is understandable considering he actually helps the dragonborn at the start of the game) doesn't do much to help your argument. Ulfric being hated doesn't change the fact that he is massively popular and massively powerful in Skyrim politics and likely the most powerful and popular of all the Jarls.

Ulfric, in my opinion, is a good politician and a excellent fighter, while he lacks in military tactics.

His tactics are pretty good but, as I was getting at earlier, I think that Galmar could actually be better in this area. The more I think about it, the more I like Galmar, but his talents may mostly be in terms of generalship, he may simply find politics and court life too...superficial for his liking. Ulfric definitely has him beaten in the charisma department.

But I do think that one of the marks of good leadership is one who can recognise the leadership capabilities and talents of others. Ulfric does seem to heed the council of his trusted allies.

Galmar is the kinda guy you'd want on your side.

Balgruuf. I like the way he thinks, and most importantly he thinks about his people first and foremost.

Ulfric of course, and on the imperial side Elisif, because in that case it's best to just dispense with the idea that the king/ queen is anything but a figurehead anyway. I don't like Balgruuf but even looked at objectively, his temper will just get in the way of the legion having its say and that will be worse for Skyrim in the long run.

True.

I could see Balgruuf denying if he's offered the position of the High King. Apart from that, he's the one I'd like most. I don't believe that strictly rushing head-first into the next adventure (Thalmor) is the best idea, Skyrim now needs quiet times. Balgruuf is definitely not a bad choice.

Balgruuf would be a excellent choice since he has his people on his mind.

Ulfric or maven.