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I've been doing other things and for a long time, avoiding progressing those ^ because of the intertwined nature of the three things. But I really want to move them along now.
What are some safe (least glitchy) and least ....complicating things people can recommend for progressing through these questlines without creating a ClusterF#@! of glitches or progression issues?
Any help is appreciated.

Just do civil war all the way to the end and in main quest season unending will simply be skipped when you get to it because if any one side wins war then there will be nothing to negotiate. BUT it will be skipped only if season unending was not yet started by the time you win (help to win) civil war by your chosen side.

TES V:

I believe completing this quest or the civil war questline is pretty much guaranteed to break side quests in the affected holds.

One thing to consider is the War Hero achievement can become unobtainable if you don't settle the negotiations the right way. The best way to avoid this is to fully meet the demands of both parties, ensuring the Imperials get Riften and the Stormcloaks get Markarth.

The Civil War is very glitchy, and there's no real way around that. Either leave it till last if you want to prevent it messing with other quests, or do it right away and pray that Rikke/Galmar don't bug out during the conquests. I've only had a single character where it wasn't necessary to resort to reloading/console commands to finish the questline (the Pale seems to be particularly bad). It also adds to the already horrendous problems with Hjerim.


If you end up with a different agreement, it's still possible to get the achievement by joining a certain faction. For instance, if the Stormcloaks take Markarth and the Imperials take Winterhold, then you must join the Legion to get the achievement.

Yeah I always do this. ^

Always seems relatively stable doing it that way - I can't remember the Civil War causing any problems with non-CW quests, and the CW itself has been pretty good with only 2 glitches (requiring a reload of a pre-quest save) in about 20-or-so play-throughs.

Thanks for all the great advice and tips on this everyone.
I probably should've been more detailed about where I'm currently situated with the quests and with what I want to do.

In the main quest I'm at the point where I'm supposed to read the Elder Scroll at the Throat of The World which will trigger the quest to negotiate with the Jarl of Whiterun Etc.

In the Civil War I've already completed past The Jagged Crown and am at Message to Whiterun. So that'll determine who is Jarl right? Either Balgruf still or Vignar right?

So I've already got those two questlines at or near pivotal points right?

Oh and I would like to participate in the Truce Talks. I want to experience as much story content as possible while avoiding as many complications as possible.

And I'm stuck on the Xbox 360(My PC went ballistic 3 years ago) so no way to combat glitches if they arise other than previous saves etc.

Are you sure? I thought the only way to skip the Truce talks is if one side of the Civil War controlled at least 8/9 Holds? Or is this some sort of glitch in the quests or something?

If I were in the same position as Mordred I'd probably do Message to Whiterun and the first battle - and only trigger the Truce talks when the 'Liberation/Reunification of Skyrim' Quest was running. (Mainly because I'm not sure how the game will react to both 'Message to Whiterun' and 'The Fallen / Season Unending' being active at the same time.)

My bad then, wiki says you're correct. It seems there's actually a bug with Message to Whiterun, so you may have to finish it before you can even start Season Unending.

I was really concerned about this creating problems & now
thanks to all your help, I think I'm getting a handle on how to go forward.

Let make sure I'm on the right track?
What I should do is: Complete "Message & Battle for Whiterun" then another Civil War quest to get "Reunification/Liberation of Skyrim" rolling first right?
Then Proceed with "Alduin's Bane" and that'll activate "Season Unending" right?

At that point should I leave the Civil War alone until completion of the MQ? And If that's the case what happens in regards to the truce? Does it somehow get violated causing the war to re-ignite or does it just progress as if the Truce never happened?

One more question & I'll stop being a pain in the....anyways
I know from my own experience/research that Pelagia dies during the fighting at Whiterun. Are there any similar things (npc questgivers that wind up dead or event's get bypassed etc) that I should take into account and finish before triggering the beginning of the battles?

Again,Thanks so much for all the help.

If you side with the Legion, securing Riften through the truce would definitely speed things through. The Legion's Civil War mission for Riften is the most frustrating of such quests. You start at the camp at one end of the Rift, travel across it to Riften, then head back to camp. Then you have to travel all the way across again to Shor's Stone. Then all the way back to camp. Then all the way again to Fort Greenwall. Then back to camp.

In case you weren't counting, you have to cross the full breadth of the Rift no less than six times to win the hold.

That is pretty much my take on it. Safest way to see the Truce Talks imo would probably have been to not start the Civil War at all until after the MQ.
But for where you are in the game now I'd go with:

Complete Message to Whiterun.
Complete Battle for Whiterun.

According to what I've read you should be able to stop the CW there - change over to and complete the MQ - then come back to the CW afterwards.

I'm tempted to say that talking to Tullius/Ulfric after the battle to get 'Reunification/Liberation' going might be a good idea, and maybe even picking up the first CW Quest... But tbh I don't know for sure as I always avoid this bit in the game!

Probably worth reminding you, as mentioned up-thread, that the CW as a whole can be quite glitchy with Holds swapping hands breaking quests and all sorts. Only thing you can really do is save your game and jump in, cross your fingers and hope nothing too buggy happens.

The game should disable all CW dialogue and remove any CW quests from your list (by listing it as 'complete' I think) while the final bit of the MQ is underway. So you are forced to complete the MQ. Once the MQ is done all CW dialogue should be re-enabled so I'd imagine you just head back to Tullius/Ulfric and they will restart the 'Reunification/Liberation of Skyrim' quest - and the Civil War will be back on.

They might even have some unique dialogue about the whole 'Truce' thing, who knows?

General advice:
1. Save your game often. Keep some old saves around just in case.
2. Pray to Elrond for a bug-free quest-line.

Hope that all works out for you. Good luck!

Nothing game-breaking afaik. Some of the random Thieves Guild jobs refer to houses that are inaccessible after the battle, so you need to 'refuse' that job or reload. Just a minor annoyance really.
And don't leave your horse in the stables just outside...

There are a couple. Only thing that springs to mind is Ondolemar, a questgiver who gets killed if the Stormcloaks ever gain control of the Reach. Some of the jarls also have thane prerequisite quests which you won't be able to do if you dethrone them.

You've all been a great help! Thanks tons.
I'm pretty sure that now I can't get anymore prepared than I am. If it's going to go haywire at this point....well..it is what is. Not like glitches are completely unexpected in an ES game right? Heh.

Legoless: Thanks for the heads up about the Thane quests. After checking the Wiki it looks like the only two holds I'm not already Thane of are Windhelm & Winterhold.

Dark Spark: Thanks for the warning about the CW Riften quest. Is it okay for this character? (Stormcloaks) My other character that I'm going back to is an Imperial Supporter so it's going to help alot being forewarned on that one.

Lord Timster: Thanks tons. Ever since my first trip through Morrowind I learned the value of saving as much as possible. That first time was when it came out on the first xbox for me. Was..interesting.
Im good on the TG quests. Done everthing.

Oh...The pray to Elrond article? That was great but they forgot to ask her the most important question:"Did he answer them?" heh heh.

Thanks again everyone. Ill let you know how it goes.

A Stormcloak retaking Riften has to report to the camp near the Sarethi Farm, then attack Fort Greenwall. That means you only need to do one task, and even the journey is a little shorter at that.

A Stormcloak would get Markarth during a truce no matter what else happens in the talks. But, if you decided to take Markarth without ever doing Season Unending, you get a mission of similar nature to an Imperial fighting to get Riften. The difference is that your various targets (the Steward, the gold wagon, and Fort Sungard) are spread over the Reach rather than clustered all together like in the Rift. This way the mission feels fresh because you're not travelling over the same roads over and over, muttering to yourself "I was just here an hour ago..."

Fast travel tho. I don't really think many quests in Skyrim were designed with roleplay-walking in mind.

Given how absolutely hellish having to follow an NPC to a destination is, I'd say you're correct.

"Yes, I'm still right behind you."

Time penalty. Fast Travel runs out the clock at your best walking speed, which may throw you off in a way. Especially if your buddies suggest you wait until dark-- and the sun is just beginning to rise because Fast Travel ate up the night.

Is it just me, or does the walk with Camilla Valerius take longer than most questlines in Skyrim?


Never knew that quest was timed. You could just grab a horse from the camp?

On my most recent playthrough, Rikke is bugged out, again. I was able to take Winterhold, but I wasn't able to retake Falkreath and the Reach. I mean, I might be running tons of mods, some of them hacky. And my laptop might be low end and Skyrim might crash every hour or so. Still, this is absurd. Not many mods I have should conflict with the Civil War. I'm almost thinking that the current build of CWO has a chance of being more stable than USKP patched CW (though I don't know, I haven't used CWO in a while. Plus my game would hate even more script lag).

So far,so good! I followed all the tips you guys provided, and it looks as if it's working. I got through both "Message & Battle for Whiterun" with no glitches.

And "Season Unending" triggered like it should've (with the peace negotiations participants proceeding to drive me [&@%!] crazy) with no glitches.

And (as far as I can tell at this point) there haven't been any related bugs to any other questlines or NPCs etc that I've run across.
Next thing, is to do "The Fallen" and complete the main quest chain and see if any related glitches pop up during that, but I'm pretty sure it'll go good.
I'm going to complete the DB quest chain first & then move back to that.

Again...thanks for all the help. I'm pretty sure you guys saved me alot of grief. I'll let you know how it goes from here.

Tell me about it.
I did the Truce Talks once just to see what happens...

Well thanks to all your guys help I got thru all of it without as far as i can tell at this point, any glitches.
Main quest completed for the first time without losing sanity to season unending:check
Dark brotherhood questline completed for the first time: check.
Civil war progressing as far as i can tell glitch free: check

And dont get me started on Delphine the ignorant deluded and entitled.
Im only still playing through on the 360 cause I dont have a choice but theres a nice gaming rig in my near future.

Once ive Dr Frankensteined in as many mods as I can without it blowing up...well...lets just say I can see many new characters logging hundreds of hours alone just for the....discussions she and i will be having. Heh heh

Now if I could only convince Meridia to stop dropping me to my death in thanks and just let me take take my favorite sword and go my merry way i would be okay 8(

Edit: I did it! I got through Meridia and her "Lets see what kind of pretty stain the mortal makes if I just...ya'know...forget to catch him and he splats!" shenanigans!
I got my Dawnbreaker! Now I can run around pretending not to notice my trusty sword is trying to kill me as much as my enemies.
I beat her!!