So far I have only tried a couple of mods and I'm very interested in suggestions from those of you who have tried many.

I'm looking for a great mod that makes it necessary to eat, drink and sleep in the game.

I really liked the experience of hardcoe mode in New Vegas (especially tweaked by the Harder hardcoe Rates mod) and as I'm wandering through Cyrodiil, it seems it would be great if there were some real importance to all the food and drink items. I would really have a reason to be happy to find an inn in the middle of the forest, etc.

Any recommendations?

You may take a look at Arwen's Oblivion mod list, especially her http://amito.freehostia.com/Oblivion/OB-mods.htm#extreme. She has been lost to FO3, so the list is quite old, and Real Sleep Extended has got many more features than what she wrote about though.

Real Sleep Extended
FF Real Thirst
Real Hunger - Cobl

These three are hardcoe

Simpler one is

Simple Essentials Beta2

Sorry I do not have links.

Do a search on Nexus for "thirst", "sleep", "eat", "hunger"; you should find all kinds of mods to choose from.

While it takes a bit of effort to set up to your liking, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30790 is my favourite hunger/thirst mod. I am surprised this mod is so low-profile, as it is so feature packed and quite well made. It is completely customisable through the .ini file so you can take out what you don't want/like from the mod. EGM also works well with Cobl.


What's more is that it is fully compatible with Real Sleep Extended