I know I'm not as leveled as some here, but since December, I've clocked in just over 250 hours of PC game time. I've hit a few bugs along the way but worked around them using the setstage codes when I needed to. (Up till now, the only major quest that I haven't been able to complete is "Diplomatic Immunity.") I've decided maybe it's time to wrap up the game and restart with a new char. So I decided to finally do the "Reunification of Skyrim" campaign. But now I'm stuck in the middle of the Reunification quest, and it won't go forward. I am on the Imperial side, and followed orders to go to The Rift and talk to Rikke. I have gone to the camp, and spoken with her, but the dialogue won't advance to where she gives me the next quest. I have tried for hours to get through this step, and have followed every trick and work around posted on the wiki. All of the things I've read about the bugs in this quest say that once you've tried the obvious, the only thing left to do is force the entire quest to completion. So... I pretty much just kill Ulfric and reunite Skyrim with the use of a code. That sucks.
I don't know why this game is so buggy for me. I'm not running a ton of mods (I think I have only four) and the computer is rarely used and less than a year old. But given that the Ulfric storyline is so key to the whole game, if I have to use a setstage code to advance it, I'll be pretty disappointed.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle this, I'm all ears... and stuck between The Rift and Compelling Tribute.