Help for Skyrim Novice

Dymo

Hi Guys

I'm a Skyrim noob and have the game for the past week, I haven't had much time to play it but the bits I have I've enjoyed and I'm at a lowly level 7. But to be honest I haven't a clue what I'm doing or what I'm meant to be doing and I seem to be endlessly walking around the place.

The menu's, how is the best way to use them, I know they have quests and the like but should I do the quests first or stick to the main game.Or what's the purpose of quests

Weapons loads of options but I don't know what is best for me, balls of light in my hand or a big durty sword!.

Picking things up, what's the point of a bucket or cup? do I need 10 robes, ingredients, can I bake a cake and for who.

When I go into skills what is the solar system type structure for? and what should I be levelling up for a novice like me.

They are just a few questions but I have many more.

It is a new Quest for you to help me!

Thanks

DirtyBollox

Dymo wrote: »

The menu's, how is the best way to use them, I know they have quests and the like but should I do the quests first or stick to the main game.Or what's the purpose of quests

The main quest will allow you to progress the story line and finish the game, the side line quests will allow you to level up by giving you opportunities to kill people, cast spells, sneak etc.....

Weapons loads of options but I don't know what is best for me, balls of light in my hand or a big durty sword!.

Thats a personal preference for everyone. do you want to run around firing fireballs at people from a distance or would you prefer getting up close and personal?

Picking things up, what's the point of a bucket or cup? do I need 10 robes, ingredients, can I bake a cake and for who.

Buckets and cups are pointless to pick up, they add weight to your already limited carrying limit. various clothes/armour can be found which you can either wear or sell for gold. ingredients allow you to craft potions like poison's or health potions or magicka potions.

When I go into skills what is the solar system type structure for? and what should I be leveling up for a novice like me.

Again its a personal preference, its usually better to level up whatever style you are preferring at the time. for example, if you are a sneaky mage it would be better to put your skill points into the lock pick, sneak, destruction, conjuration skill sets instead of leveling up your heavy armour as you probably aren't using it.

They are just a few questions but I have many more.

It is a new Quest for you to help me!

Thanks

paulmclaughlin

Buy Iron Ingots and Ore and Leather Strips. Forge Iron daggers. Make a big loss at the start but having 100 smithing is unreal!

kfish2oo2

Well the beauty of Skyrim is that you can play the game however you like. You can barrel through quests, picking up nothing and just killing the bad guys, or you can crawl through it with a fine comb and pick up every little thing - and all levels in between. Of course there's drawbacks to not picking anything up (having no money) but then there's drawbacks to hoarding stuff too (lots of stuff thats worth nothing).

As for playstyles, again its down to personal preference. Pretty much every style is well accommodated for - you can dual wield, you can use a shield and one handed weapon, you can play pure magic, you can play pure archery, you can play twohanded heavy weapon tank - and any combination in between (and I really do mean every combination!). Personally I'm finding my tank character the easiest in terms of combat (thats two handed weapons with heavy armor), but I found my assassin build (dual wielding swords/daggers for close combat and a bow for ranged) to be the most satisfying - probably because I loved the flexibility. My first character (battle mage - one handed weapon in one hand and destructive magic in the other) was also pretty rewarding in terms of satisfaction, but a few inherent game bugs kind of ruined the fun (pretty sure thats fixed now).

As for the main quest vs side quests... its really about personal preference. Some people will just do the main quests and "finish" the game (I put quotes around "finish" because there really is well over 100 hours worth of content in the game) or you can do any quest you come across. Being on my third character/playthrough now, I can say that the main quest is a bit weak, and some of the side quests are actually more interesting and rewarding - for example the Dark Brotherhood quest line (assassins guild) is absolutely brilliant, providing some of the most crap-your-pants awesome moments of the game. I would recommend that you do pick up whatever quests you come across that interest you - and also remember that once a quest is activated, you can ignore it and come back to it whenever you like! On my latest character I'm approaching level 25 and I have literally done something like 4 main quest missions (probably less than 10% of the main quest line).

Ekib

i agree paul. nothing like a full set of heavy dragon armor,
enchanting it is good too.

as dirty said for weapons/spells its more a personal choices. mine is axe in right hand and spell in left. works nicely to soften up enemies of all kind.. avoid giants before you are level 30 tho or use a bow and run.

my personal choices for enchanting weapons and armors are steal life in axe, so when i get up close and personal i steal enemy's life and regen fast
could even kill 5 guards with ease with that axe :cool:
for the bow i put a soul stealing enchant, with lowest time after hit so more charges. perfect for filling up small souls with deers.
i still use the basic flames spell most of the time, but i suggest learning the rest, even if you rarely or never use them, they could be useful. if books cost too much you can loot a few as time pass, so dont worry, and cash isnt hard to come by later.

for armors, you could pick light armors for better furtivity, and less weight to carry, or heavy for better defences (both styles exist as dragon armors)
i found using extra weight carry enchants in boots and gloves to be useful to haul back loot too.

as for the loot problem i left out fur armors from the start, and all iron/steel weapons. too much weight too little profit. but at lvl 7 steel is still worth getting. also remember weapons weight a lot, even if they sell higher than an armor you can get 2-3 armors for a single weapon.

as for skills i suggest you read the higher up skills and seewhich ones intrest you more, and what style of play might more be suited for you, but keep in mind it wont allways be the type you will be able to use so keep a few doors open just in case

kfish2oo2

Oh yeah, smithing is definitely the way to go if you favor weapons.

imitation

Well if your lost, you know your playing skyrim. I got about as far as the temple on the throat of the world before I starting roaming randomly around the world doing quests as they come (then doing the odd main quest), its just a brilliant way to play a game, I'm currently level 26.

The main quest is the one that takes you to whiterun, on to the mentioned temple and continues on with the dragons. Its actually only the tip of the iceberg really, I think its like less than 20% of the quests, the rest are just as good quality with regards to voice acting story etc (they aren't mmo filler like kill 10 rats). A casual player can expect to be at it for months.

The only other thing to say is to try and focus in on a few skills and perks as possible, if you try to level a few weapon skills and mage skills at the same time you will find yourself falling behind the curve and will have a tough time killing monsters with a low weapon/spell skill. I went with a dual wielding type build, heavy armor, one handed, smithing and lockpicking.

passenger555

Hi All, new to the game too. I've read through all the thread and it seems it is about getting on with it and loosing yourself in the game (which I have already done). I see most of you have started new games with new characters and going down different routes, does the very first choice you make actually have a heavy bearing on the rest of your game experience and by this I mean the race of people you choose? Or even if you've choosen one type of character you can develope it succesfuly to be quite the oposite?
It looks like a blinding game, I have many little niggly questions, I guess I better find some friends into this too, but another question would be if I decide to mean and kill people to rob them, will that have a bearing? Instead of trying to trade with them? Where can I see how much weight I have left before I can only walk around? Is there anyway of putting markings on the map with comments for places you want to come back to? I have only just started playing but it seems I will forget about things I want to revisit.
Thanks a lot for all your help in advance.

Taltos

Like the idea of a map with comments.
If you go into your menu - and items - you can then see your current weight versus your max weight. As you add skill points to Health (I hope) your max weight increases.

You can definitely go around killing / robbing - just don't get caught or you will end up in jail / on the lamb / short of cash. Talking to folk, buying/selling - increases your skill in Speach.

Personally I am focussing on lockpick, destruction, alteration (for water breathing later) and a few others. Am also wandering around randomly finding new places and basically just trying to skill up by firing random fire bolts or by casting candlelight.

Either way - just find a way that suits you , you can always restart or just alter how you play.

Ekib

actualy its towards vigor your max weight ups, for each level you gain 10 vigor and adds 5 to carry weight.

for water breathing i took the easy way myself and just enchanted a ring ^^

also i found a bit of an bug to level up destruction super easy...and could use healing magic with it... but would be taking out the point of leveling on your own, which is much more fun ^^

passenger555

Cheers guys, all helpful stuff, I can't wait to have 5 hours on any given day to get properly stuck into it.
Regarding the raice of your character, do any of you know if this is a determining factor to which way you will evolve further down the line. I know certain raices are better with Magicka and others are better wariors. I chose a Breton. Should I evolve him to what I was told his strenghts are as that way I might get the most out of him, or maybe I can evolve him talk with animals, which isn't one of his strengths...

kfish2oo2

passenger555 wrote: »

Cheers guys, all helpful stuff, I can't wait to have 5 hours on any given day to get properly stuck into it.
Regarding the raice of your character, do any of you know if this is a determining factor to which way you will evolve further down the line. I know certain raices are better with Magicka and others are better wariors. I chose a Breton. Should I evolve him to what I was told his strenghts are as that way I might get the most out of him, or maybe I can evolve him talk with animals, which isn't one of his strengths...

Your race has little barring on the story progression, or indeed the type of character you want. Each character has the ability to level up all skill trees, so you can overcome any race weaknesses by simply using the applicable equipment/skills.

Your race will effect how some NPC's treat you though - Nords are quite racist so you'll find them making snide comments if you're non human. It certainly doesn't restrict the story in any way, but it can have a bearing on how you play and who you can marry. Personally I'm not enjoying the Stormcloaks quests because of that racism - and I'm pretty sure that once you win the Stormcloak rebellion all Khajit traders in the game disappear. You'll also find non-local traders (like Addrianne in Whiterun) have poorer stock.

The only real difference between the races is their special abilities - most of which you can more or less recreate with enchantments anyway (although this is a slow process).

Zomg Okay

Taltos wrote: »

As you add skill points to Health (I hope) your max weight increases.

Stamina* :pac:

dead one

if you want easy level up then play game at master level..... you can play game at master level by changing level setting in game setting... But remember, every body doesn't survive at master level... Playing Skyrim at master level, I realized I've been living in the skyrim.. my destruction is 100, conjuration is 100 and smiting is 100, speech is 75, lock picking 70, enchanting is 80, It's a very easy way to make your skill 100. No body will tell you... kill the elder dragons at master level... Yesterday an elder dragon had eaten my horse ... i haven't found any clue of my horse... It is really fun... Don't waste you days by playing a game like skyrim at adept level....

EKRIUQ

dead one wrote: »

Don't waste you days by playing a game like skyrim at adept level....

Whats the major difference between Novice and Master, do you get killed easier are the quests more difficult?

Taltos

Zomg Okay wrote: »

Stamina* :pac:

Smacking my head right now.

dead one

EKRIUQ wrote: »

Whats the major difference between Novice and Master, do you get killed easier are the quests more difficult?

first, let me tell you, English isn't my native language, you might find some errors in my grammar and spelling mistakes.
at master level, enemies are tougher, more intelligent, they give you a tough time to play... i give you simple example, common enemies, at master level, are like blood dragons of novice level... It means, at master level, they get more time to kill and it makes easy way to skill up/level up.... I personally think, the only way to play game at master level, is magic. one handed or two handed can't survive at master level... This is my personal view

EKRIUQ wrote: »

do you get killed easier, are the quests more difficult?

killing masters isn't easy. Like i said, all enemies are wiser at master level in quests, they will make you how to live like masters in skyrium. At Beginning, i find it difficult to play skyrium at master level but now i am thinking that there should be higher level than of master . The easy tip to play skyrium at master level is choose a race which compatible with magic... I am playing with high elf who has some special ability relating magic.... like they are good in magicka. Use your destruction spells in quests and give special points to destruction skills to unlock double compact ability... Once you unlock double compact, learn firebolt spell from winterhold college. Put fire bolt into your two hands and hold two mouse button while attacking on enemies... It is proper way to get your destruction skill up... For playing skyrium at master level, you should have best companion with high armor. For this purpose you must have high smithing.. The easy and proper way to get your Smithing high is given below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMsJqAbToZk

once you've 100 smithing, prepare a high armor for your partner with a weapon which has higher attack...It is very easy to get gold at master level, because enemies, while dying, give you tougher weapons and armor which can be sold at high prices to merchant... by this way you can easily purchase learn technique by mages. Thanks and peace

kfish2oo2

I disagree - I'm playing at Master difficulty with my two handed swordsman and its not all that difficult. I do have to take on groups with extreme caution, and the majority of my gold goes on healing and stamina potions, buts its certainly playable. In fact, I have my two handed damage so high that I can one hit kill lower level enemies.

The trick is to concentrate early on on Smithing - before I was level 15 I had a full set of self crafted Orcish armor and Epic weaponry. I lucked on an Ebony greatsword around level 19 and have just crafted a Daedric greatsword - which I'm reluctant to use because I feel it might be too easy. Any style is usable at master difficulty, it just requires more strategizing and a better understanding of each styles strengths and weaknesses.

passenger555

Het guys, thanks a mill for all the info, I think my first step will be to switch to master level and then truely get stuck in as I am only a casual player (I am a family man and Peppa pig is priority in my house). Anyhow thanks for all the info and any further suggestions are very welcome.
BTW Dymo thanks for starting the thread and sorry for "hijacking" it to some extent, do let us know how you get on... Happy new year to all!!!

mewso

passenger555 wrote: »

Is there anyway of putting markings on the map with comments for places you want to come back to? I have only just started playing but it seems I will forget about things I want to revisit.

Bar the odd bug all locations you find will have the word cleared under them if you have been through them at least once. That is an easy way to know if you have been to a place on the map. Obviously if it's black then you haven't found it and haven't been through it.

Dymo

Thanks guys some great info hear, and it's great to find out than aimlessly wander around and getting frustrated, just a few more questions about the work benches and tools and hows best to use them

I've come across the

Tanning leather
Blade Sharpening
Smelter
Smithing
Work Bench
Spit and fire for cooking
Potion maker

I seem to be able to get on grand without using them but I'm sure there a vital part of the game but I don't know exactly how to use them or go about using them.

CodeMonkey

The master difficulty doesn't really change enemies behaviour. They fight the same way using the same skills/spells. They just detect you sooner but you fight back with the exact same strategy but requires better equipment.

But my problem is master diffuculty doesn't really bring much apart from an excuse to do all that pointless smithing/enchanting/potion making. It's rewarding for people who like this kind of OCD gameplay and like doing repetitive leveling of skills. I guess also if you like big numbers on your weapon and armor you will enjoy it too.

If you don't do an excessive amount of the mostly pointless smithing/enchanting then the experience on adept difficulty is about the same as playing on master difficulty while doing all of that. I'd just stay on adept/normal difficulty.

mewso

Well one by one I suppose:-

Tanning leather
Killing various creatures like wolves, sabre wolfs etc. will net you a pelt if you fancy it. Bringing it to the tanner will allow you to convert these pelts into leather. You can also convert leather into smaller leather strips. This is linked to smithing in terms of creating armour etc. You can check to see how much leather and leather is strips you need for whatever item you want to create before choosing how much leather to convert to strips. Tanning does not level up any skill and you can also choose to buy the leather and strips instead of creating it. Up to you.

Blade Sharpening
This allows you to improve a weapon or in simple terms increase the damage the weapon will do. This will level up your smithing. This depends on 2 things.

1. Having specific items like iron, ebony and other materials that usually relate to the weapon type that are needed to perform the improvement. In all cases I know of you need one item per improvement. i.e. one ebony ingot to improve an ebony weapon.

2. Having the skill and/or the perk to improve the weapon beyond it's current standard. You can also artificially bump your skill with potions/enchanted items to improve beyond your current skill/perks.

Smelter
When out in the wilds if you carry a pickaxe you can mine certain rocks for ores. You'll see a prompt appear over these rocks if they can be mined and they do look very different to the normal rocks. Pressing the action button will auto-mine the ores or you can simply equip the pickaxe and lash away at the rocks yourself. You can then use the smelter to convert ores to ingots. In some cases 1 ore will give you 1 ingot whereas in other cases you'll need 2 and so on. This does not level up any skill so again you can choose to buy the ingots directly. The aim here is to have the necessary ingots to create armous and weapons.

Smithing
Smithing really describes creating and improving but I'm guessing you mean creating stuff with the anvil here and this is simply a case of using the anvil to create weapons, armours and jewelry. Selecting the anvil and highlighting what you want to make you will see a picture of the item and below that details of what you need to make it. This will level up your smithing skill. The tanning and smelting are the areas where you can create the base elements needed here or you can simply buy what you need if it's available.

Work Bench
The work bench is for improving armours and works exactly the same way as the weapon sharpening except it's for your armour and improving their armour rating. So it's a case of having the skill, perks and material to do so. This will level up you smithing skill.

Spit and fire for cooking
For combining food ingredients to create better food that restores more health, stamina etc. Really didn't bother with this because it serves no real purpose other than messing around. Although I think there might be the odd funky recipe.

Potion maker
Or Alchemy to use the technical term. When out wandering you can gather all sorts of weird and wonderful ingredients. For each one you can taste them to discover what kind of effect they might have. Only taste them once though as thats as much as you can discover from eating. So if for example you taste 2 different items and discover they both contain health restoration properties you can then use the alchemy table (potion maker) to combine 1 of each of these ingredients to create a Potion of Health. As you discover properties of ingreditents more possible potions and poisons will be available to you when using the alchemy table. When you combine ingredients to create a potion if there are any other matching effects between the 2 these effects will be revealed and available from then on. Creating potions will level up your alchemy skill and improve the potions you make and of course you can add perks to further improve this.

Just finally on the smithing. Most of the blacksmiths have a min-quest line where they will put you through the process of making and improving a weapon or armour so thats an easy way to quickly see how it all works.

mewso

Oh by the way it's worth looking at the Skyrim wiki for this kind of info. It's a great resource just avoid the spoilery stuff like the quest details and so on.

FS only just learned this now starting my second character, but to zoom out in 3rd person on the consoles you have to hold in the right stick and move the left stick up or down.

Guill

Right I am a lowly lenel 13 noob. I am strolling through the game exploring and knocking off the odd quest, just wondering about combat, I prefer to have destruction in One hand and a sword in the other, when i am fighting with a NPC the Bo**ox keeps getting in the way, is there anyway to stop this?

Taltos

Guill wrote: »

Right I am a lowly lenel 13 noob. I am strolling through the game exploring and knocking off the odd quest, just wondering about combat, I prefer to have destruction in One hand and a sword in the other, when i am fighting with a NPC the Bo**ox keeps getting in the way, is there anyway to stop this?

Only way I know is to stop them coming with you at all....
Like you I switch between destruction in one hand and enchanted weapon on second or destruction in both - and occassionally the bow for range kills while my mana replenishes.

Guill

Taltos wrote: »

Only way I know is to stop them coming with you at all....
Like you I switch between destruction in one hand and enchanted weapon on second or destruction in both - and occassionally the bow for range kills while my mana replenishes.

Yea, i'm on a quest for the companions and when attacking a Silver Hand the dude they sent with me stands in the way, causing him to lose health and save the hand!! FFS!!

cat_rant

Have been playing Skyrim since Christmas Eve on and off. Killed three Dragons, wailed on many bandits have trained some skills and sold some loot. Strange thing is I am still only level 9. Everyone arround me who is playing this game is leveling up at light speed in comparrison.

Any advise? - I really don't want to spend a million years trying to get to a decent level.

kfish2oo2

cat_rant wrote: »

Have been playing Skyrim since Christmas Eve on and off. Killed three Dragons, wailed on many bandits have trained some skills and sold some loot. Strange thing is I am still only level 9. Everyone arround me who is playing this game is leveling up at light speed in comparrison.

Any advise? - I really don't want to spend a million years trying to get to a decent level.

Spam smithing. That racks up the levels like nothing else.

Get as much leather and iron as you can and make millions of iron daggers. It gives the most experience points for the lest amount of raw materials. All the smith vendors tend to carry at least 5 iron ignots.

Taltos

cat_rant wrote: »

Have been playing Skyrim since Christmas Eve on and off. Killed three Dragons, wailed on many bandits have trained some skills and sold some loot. Strange thing is I am still only level 9. Everyone arround me who is playing this game is leveling up at light speed in comparrison.

Any advise? - I really don't want to spend a million years trying to get to a decent level.

Only started Smithing

But been playing now around a week am at level 20.

Key things I did
1. Loads of kills with destruction magic.
2. Loads of kills with bow and arrow.
3. Few kills with one handed weapon.
4. Picked a ton load of locks - and I mean a ton load.
5. Any chance I get - mixing new potion; enchanting new weapons/armour.
6. Talk to everyone - and sell all your old stuff and buy as much as you can.
7. Creep like hell in the dungeons - don't feel like you always have to charge in...

In terms of the perks - I have focussed on destruction and fire - also chose perks to allow me to double cast; use half magic etc.

Pretty much that is the only difference - playing on default level Adept I think. Also think I found standing stones early on to allow my magic skills to rise quicker - need to refind that as I chose the magic replenishment one last night in error...

Edit:
I also when I am wandering regularly cast some of the following
1. Candlelight even in daylight
2. Conjure Familiar
3. Clairvoyance
Also - remember to regularly recharge any enchanted items you have - you need a soul gem; soul trap or an enchanted weapon and something to kill.
In oblivion I used to just cast firebolt all the time but in this one you need to hit an enemy for the ranking to increase I think.
Remember - don't just walk/fast travel somewhere - cast as you walk - use the time to build your skills.

OrgasmicBaz

Im a late comer to this game, and also a noob. Haven't played Oblivion and only started Skyrim last night. Had a read through the forum and there's some great tips

Just a quick question, when you collect books do you need to keep a certain type like the history of so & so, or just sell them on.

I have a good few and have learned a few spells from them

But dont want to be carrying around a load of books when i dont need them....

Cookie_Monster

no need to keep them, read, get spell or skill upgrade and just dump. most are not even worth holding on to and selling as they are worth so little.

OrgasmicBaz

Another question, is there a certain area of the map i should avoid until i level up more? Im only on lvl 10, but went into Broken Fang Cave i think its called and had my ass handed to me by a vampire.

Im thinking maybe i should stay central before venturing off to new areas

Cookie_Monster

any of the cities are fine, out southeast is good for some early levels. You can get lots of gold from one of the mines, and an easy enough mission to clear it out.
avoid any vampires and magic wielders early on as they tend to be a bit tougher.

Noxin

Giants are a very friendly lot. Go over and say hi!

OrgasmicBaz

No Thanks!!

Shot an arrow at one of them thinking they would be easy to take, one smack and i was dead, sent me flying into the air

paulbok

Baz, as a starter, get yourself a follower asap. They provide backup during fights and can carry additional items for use or selling as you clear an area.
Build up your gold and get your first property as soon as you can, the game becomes a lot easier if you have somewhere to stash goods for future use/ sale rather than dumping them because you can't sell them or need carry capacity.
Read every book you come across in case they contain level ups. You'll come to recognise titles already read and can ignore or pickup only for sale then. Spell books are marked as such so you definately take/read them. duplicates are worth more in resale.
Keep harvesting ingredients/foods and start stashing them in your houses if you can't make use of them straight away with alchemy. you an always come back to use them later in the game.
Same with soul gems, metals & ores.
You'll find certain enemies are just impossible to begin with, I had a big problem with one bridge fort for ages. Boy did I enjoy going back there later in the game seriously levelled up with weapons, armour & magic and kicked the living snot out of them. Unless they are important to a mission, avoid them until stronger. If you can't avoid, stealth is your friend.

OrgasmicBaz

Thanks for that Paulbok. Unfortunately two of my followers died - Lydia & Uthgerd

Ive been reading around and people recommended Mjoll (i think thats her name, based in Riften) apparently she cannot die and is the dogs balls. I just recruited her last night after i retrieved her sword. See how i get on, im on a fairly decent lvl 21

I can get through most enemies fine, im actually suprised at how easy it is to kill dragons

Really enjoying this game, it will get me through until the 29th

Pablo Sanchez

Recently picked up Skyrim on the back of how long i have had to wait for a new Fallout game, and im really loving it i must say.

Im not feeling the whole magic thing though, is it possible to progress without really focusing on that area of the game?

The Drunken Destrier

Pablo Sanchez wrote: »

Im not feeling the whole magic thing though, is it possible to progress without really focusing on that area of the game?

Yes. Like Fallout you can play Skyrim as any kind of character you want; in fact you'll soon realise that it's pretty much impossible to 'specialize' in all things at once. My first playthrough I was a typical axe-wielding brute, this time around I've made an effort to grow the magic abilities. That said, a basic skill level in all fields (magic, sneaking, speech etc.) is very useful and very achievable in the game.

Cookie_Monster

A lot of magic is very weak and useless at the start so relying on it can make for a much harder (and potentially more fun) game. The healing side of it is well worth building up though!

archer mage is a favourite class of mine - sneaking around doing obscene damage with the upped sneak skills and finish anyone off with a bit of lightning or fire

wendell borton

Always play elder scrolls as a Breton as they're a good all rounder skills wise.

Pablo Sanchez

Can I ask, what makes for a more interesting game, joining the legion or the Stormcloaks?

Would joining the Companions prevent you from joining either?

degrassinoel

you can join the companions and it wont have an impact on either faction, both are pretty much the same - stormcloaks and the other one, just different headquarters and leaders - you can actually choose not to choose and kill everyone, which is what i did anytime i seen them out in the wilds on oneof my playthroughs. But i generally went with the stormcloaks as i was being executed with them at the start anyway

dreamers75

Have chose both sides and like fallout annoyed that the factions i like dont continure (brotherhood, nightinggales, companions)

Stormcloaks and Imperials have asshole leaders and i would like to murder both of them and be king myself.