"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
  -Sun Tzu, the Art of War

You're walking through a seedy part of a town in Western Cyrodiil. People mill about, some engaged in conversation, others minding their own business out on their own errands. Suddenly, an ugly man decides he doesn't like you. Maybe he's drunk, maybe he's just a bully, maybe he's just showing off in front of his friends -- but for whatever reason, he has taken your measure and decided he can best you.

He comes charging at you, with a nasty looking mace in his hand and a look of hatred on his face. Onlookers move back to make room for what should be an entertaining fight.

Quickly drawing your sword and shield, you wheel around to face him. He's upon you pretty quickly though, and you barely have time to raise your shield (hold right mouse button) before his first blow thunders down upon you.

But you block well, and as he recoils from the collision, you quickly perform left & right slashes with your sword (two clicks of the left mouse button, about a second apart). The bully realizes this isn't going to be easy.

He backs off a bit, and starts dodging around you. First to the left, then to the right. You maneuver to keep him in view, looking for an opening. Suddenly he steps back, raises his mace in both hands, and steps forward, bringing the mace towards your head in a crushing blow!

But you're quick -- you step to the side as he attacks. As he passes by, you execute a spinning maneuver and slash him in the side (hold left mouse button and left maneuver key). The hit is solid, and your foe staggers from the blow.

But it's not over yet. The bully swings his mace wildly -- his first swing misses, but the next one connects for a blow that sends you staggering. Pressing his advantage, the bully bears down on you with a power attack of his own. OUCH. This isn't going well. You take a glance at your health meter; it's getting a bit low. You quickly back up out of the bully's reach and raise your shield (hold right mouse button).

He's hurting, too. You circle each other for a time, looking for an opening, trying to recover some fatigue. Finally the bully charges forward with a devastating overhead blow, perhaps hoping to break your shield. But the shield holds and the recoil send him staggering back. This is your chance! You perform a mighty forward power attack (hold the left mouse button, press forward) and connect solidly. The blow staggers your foe once again, and you perform 3 slashing attacks in rapid succession (three taps on the left mouse button, about a second apart), and finally the bully collapses to the ground, defeated.

The crowd disperses, going back to their own business.

Hello folks, it's MrSmileyFaceDude again, and this time 'round I'm going to talk about combat in Oblivion. Since Morrowind, we've made a lot of changes, both in how you, the player, control combat and in how NPCs and creatures handle things. Gone are the days of "Always Use Best Attack." Button mashing will NOT result in successful combat. Skills and stats are still as crucial as ever. The goal is to make combat exciting, violent and fun, while still maintaining the balance between character skills and player skills.

So what's new? First of all, weapons only have one damage rating. Gone are the three attack types from Morrowind - Chop, Slash, and Thrust. Instead, the damage rating simply indicates the base damage the weapon can do. That damage value will be modified based on the attacker's skill, luck, fatigue, type of attack selected (more on that in a second), and on the target's defensive stats, armor, fatigue, and whether or not they're blocking…and even the weapon's condition comes into play.

In Morrowind, you selected the type of attack you wanted to do (Thrust, Chop, Slash) by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a movement key. Or you just turned on the "Always Use Best Attack" option, since for some weapons there wasn't much point in choosing anything BUT the best attack. For Oblivion, selecting attacks is different.

To perform "normal" attacks, you just click the attack button to swing your melee weapon. If you click again at a certain point in the swing, you can perform another attack on the back swing - so you can do multiple slashes with your weapon by properly timed clicks of the attack button. Each time you attack, some fatigue is burned.