There’s books, people talking to you about things, people talking to each other about things, and just keeping your eyes open and seeing how things work. There’s actually tremendous implicit detail in the game about certain things.
I haven’t played far in the main plot or taken a side in the civil war (so I don’t have all the info), but I’m thinking of joining the Legion.
Is it just me, or is it obvious that the Thalmor insisted on banning the worship of Talos specifically so it would cause a civil war to weaken the Empire? The Stormcloaks are basically pawns of the Thalmor, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that Ulfric is explicitly in league with them.
He is officially pro-Empire. The Jarl of Riften is also officially pro-Stormcloak, but she understands the nuances and isn’t necessarily pro-Ulfric. Her oldest son is an Ulfric zealot and her younger son is a pro-Empire black sheep.
One good source for info on the war is the Thalamor ambassador in Markarth. He will tell you a biased history, all while acting incredibly arrogant the whole time.
A couple of questions for you folks:
-Absorbing dragon souls: Does doing this give you anything other than the cool animation and the loot on the body?
-How do you decide on what type of armor to make for you character? I’m in a mix of heavy/light. I mainly play as a sneak/archer, getting in close for a couple arrows to the head and then then Lydia tank and I’ll take a few swings with my mace/fireball hand. What changes (character movement, sneaking, attack speed, etc?) between the heavy/light versions and how does a mix of the two affect it?
-When leveling up a profession does the actually level of it make a difference or does the higher level just allow you to get the “better” perks. I mean is there a difference in having a lvl 10 one-hand or a lvl 100 on identical characters with no perks selected?
Thanks!
They let you unlock Shouts, and the extra words in Shouts.
You need to learn a couple of the Shouts and then go into the spell selection screen and unlock it, which uses up a dragon soul. I’ve found that I had way more souls than known shouts, so I’ve never had to hold back to decide whether it was worth unlocking or not.
If I was a swashbuckling hero in Skyrim’s setting, I would go to great lengths to ensure I was wanted by the Aldmeri Dominion. 
He’s not. If you ask him about it (prior to a spoiler event) he says basically “thank god I don’t have to take a side on this yet.”
In earlier Elder Scrolls games (morrowind, oblivion), Heavy class armor had more armor (protection), but weighs more, and puts a bigger penalty to your sneak attempts. I don’t know where to find the hard (under the hood) numbers. I see no reason to assume that they haven’t carried the same concept forward to this edition of the game.
Yes, it does. Write down the numbers you see for your weapon damage when you equip it. Note what it is for that weapon 10 skill points later. It has increased somewhat. Smithing is used when you “improve” an item at a workbench/grinding wheel. Again, higher level of smithing gives a bigger improved result.
Same same for enchanting, I assume, but personally, I haven’t got my enchant above 30 yet.
Sneaking is the most noticable skill that has obvious results for higher skill level.
Those are just examples. Others that play mage types can speak for the spell type skills.
Spoiler incoming:
Nailed it in one.
They have.
Another consideration for armor is that a number of the armor perks require you to be wearing all one or the other to get their benefits.
I carried a full set of each kind of armor and switched between them as needed. Generally speaking, though, you can still be pretty damn stealthy in heavy armor if you have the stats for it.
Missed the edit window regarding my spoiler (you find this pretty early on in the main quest line when you steal some intel from the Thalmor):
Not that Ulfric is explicitly in league with the Thalmor, but that he’s being easily manipulated by them. They allowed him to escape and have been secretly providing material support to the Stormcloaks to keep the civil war going, but careful not to provide enough for them to win outright.
Eventually, of course, you can get your heavy armor perk to ignore all weight, and it’s really good. It comes a long time after the Light Armor perk, though.
Officially. Every war map puts Whiterun in the Empire colors (red or blue?). He is Imperial by inertia.
Plus there’s an Imperial officer stationed there.
Whiterun is officially neutral only to delay becoming a battlefield in the civil war. The Jarl has no love for Ulfric or the cause and the only thing preventing him from openly declaring for the Imperials is the rebels’ local force superiority. If you join the Stormcloaks, you get some pretty good politicking scenes in Whiterun.
There was a dialogue option I got where the Jarl says his only real loyalty is to Whiterun.
Dragon priests…I’ve only seen one so far, and he was readily and repeatedly kicking my ass until I managed to shout him over a rocky cliff. He didn’t take any damage from that, but just slowly slid backwards and down, blasting fireballs into the mountain instead of me or my party. I was at about level 25 or so. I can’t imagine having run into him and possibly surviving at a lower level, or would he have just been a lot easier to beat then? I know that many things have their difficulties attuned to my level, but then things like the first few giants I ran into had to be left alone until I leveled up. Am I nuts or are there a few exceptions to the rule of everything you run into adjusting to your current level?
Gods help anybody who isn’t a Nord. The Imperials are bastards, but one thing they’re not talking about that the Stormcloaks are is ethnic cleansing.
Yeah, I basically lived in the house next to the blacksmith and bought all his iron ingots, and brought in any I found. I smithed, then adventured, and smithed the booty. I started enchanting later, but I wish I’d have been throwing crappy enchantments on everything I found from the beginning.
I have not tried any trick of using one skill to get me bonuses to other skills. Odd perhaps, but that was the level of monkey business I was not willing to engage in. But I still got my smithing to 100 pretty damned quickly.
The Speech perk that allows me to sell anything (not stolen) to any merchant is where the most money comes from. Whatever you’ve got, you can liquidate it for all the free dosh in town. Man, does alchemy seriously start paying off then.
I, too, am insane am thinking about starting a new game. I have two reasons. First, I’ve got so many quests in my log it’s become ridiculous. Second, I want to try out a mage. Maybe not a pure mage, but a mage. I also find I wish levelling were a hair slower, just so I could slow down and enjoy things.
Somebody stop me. Please!