At level 9 or 10 I purposely followed a small group of imperials escorting a prisoner somewhere. Before the sun could set, they'd all been wiped out by random creatures along the road. Not to mention some poor dark elf, who I think ran a shop in Windhelm. How did he make it so far on his own anyway...?

I guess I can understand the overwhelming number of dangerous creatures out in the woods at night, but should the heavily traveled roads be so hazardous? To the point where an entire group of armed and armored soldiers can't make their way through a single hold? It really seems to defeat the entire point of ancient roads, besides a way to reliably navigate.

Maybe I'm nitpicking too much, but I don't want to run away from a pack of angry dogs every other minute.

Civil War? Bandits and monsters come out to play. Gameplay trumps realism and Lore everytime. You are nitpicking. But that is okay. I do it too. I don't like the brow ridges on dark elves. I am a rabiid Dark elf fan. Check the name...nitpicking right there.

Seriously though. The roads are a bit too ridiculous even for a game like this. I can understand bandits but monsters and wildlife to the extent they are shown would usually avoid the roads. Animals should avoid the major roads. However, i always feel safer going cross country myself. Serioulsy, try it. Much less enemies lol.

Yeah, I have in fact tried cross-country and found it to be safer. Oh the irony...

why would the roads be any safer than the countryside?
not like there's anything protecting them
in fact anything prowling on unsuspecting passerby's would be better of camping at the side of the road than somewhere in the middle of nowhere

Animals tend to avoid people for the most part. We act strange, smell strange, and in Skyrim we carry sharp pointy things with which to hit them. It's not that I don't think there should be any animals on the roads. Just not this (in my opinion) ridiculous amount.

Go outside and stand in the middle of the road.

Still think roads are safe?

No no, lets think for a second. Lets say you're a saber cat. Why go hunt when you can sit and wait at the road, prey just comes strolling by. Easy stuffs at that. Can't run fast either, just pick the right svcker and mmm mmm dinnah.

Heh.

either the road gets a lot safer or all oblivion should break lose in the wilderness, make it look like hellgate london (demons beign set lose on london, few survivers waging total war, anarchy, chaos, the works) with revamped graphics and much better game design
bliviongate: :flamethrower: :toughninja: :gun: :chaos:

Because wolves and trolls are horrible at navigation and therefore must rely on the roads.

Legion and stormcloak soldiers just don't have much health. Otherwise theyd be fine. I could basically one hit them since I was lvl 15.

With the Legion and Storm cloaks fighting in the countryside, they have disrupted everything and forced all the natural beasts on to the roads . Some NPCs do comment in the game that the roads are too dangerous since the civil war began.

Just scale the cliffs with your spidey-gecko-steel-boots... No lions or tigers up there... but dragons are a [censored]...

Use aura whisper, has a quick cooldown and reveals any nasties up ahead.

I don't usually take roads, but on the few occasions that I do, I have noticed a good many wolf attacks. Doesn't really bother me too much. In Morrowind there were a lot of enemies on the roads, especially in the Ashlands. I guess Skyrim is just a bit more dangerous than Cyrodiil.

sabercats, frost spiders etc, how do you know how they would interact with primitive humans?
wolves you have a point, they got a really bad rep while basically being very shy creatures who would avoid human contact

than again this nirn we're talking about here, no reason these wolves can't be super vicious

Definitely stay to the country side, considerably fewer random encounters out in the great wilds of Skyrim.

I see. The only way for us to make our roads safe again is to distribute maps and compasses to the native wildlife.