I see that there are several wildlife mods to choose from. For those of you who've played with a couple of them, could you give me a run down of each one's pros and cons? Stability is a big concern for me. Another concern is I really don't want to be attacked every step I take in the world, or have the wildlife so attack-prone that they are attacking NPCs everywhere I go and causing having by having NPCs chasing the wildlife across half of the continent.

So could anyone give me their thoughts on:
Skyrim Creatures Alive
SkyTest - Realistic Animals and Predators
Real Wildlife Skyrim

I use Skyrim Creatures Alive, and it does add a larger variety of hostile creatures to the wilderness. I do not encounter more creatures than I did running an unmodded Skyrim, but the Spawns are not as level dependant, and the amount of opponentsis more varied. I have run into Frost Trolls at level one
The types of creatures that do spawn are more appropriate than in Vanilla, I run into Frost Variants where there is snow, and the latest version cut down on the Troll spawns.
There is an increased spawn option available in the release thread.
EDIT This mod also adds Wild horses.

I use real wildlife, and it adds a few more creatures to spawns. Also adds small/large versions so you have small mudcrabs and large ones. You get sabrecat cubs, you have small and large trolls... You get the idea.

Also adds wild horses, herds of deer/cow, and snow variants of wolf and bear. Adds new ingrediants like deer eye and things like that.

Been using it since it was released, and never had a problem with it. It's like vanilla, just more variety, and sometimes more creatures spawn together I love it.

My mod is mostly about Realistic Animal Behavior, i am not too much into variety.

I use SkyTEST for the AI behavior and Real Wildlife (I think it's called) cos I like to collect up piles of hearts, livers and intestines, and all that good stuff.

SkyTEST before RealWildlife in the LO though. Works for me.

Also WiS works on top of that, also below.

Real Wildlife adds a lot to the game as the posters above have said. I have had no problems with it

I'm using SkyTest along with Automatic Variants and I am not disapointed. Of course AV doesnt tweak AI, but it adds a lot to the immersion.

Thank you all for those answers. Would you mind telling the things you like about the mods, and what you'd like to see the mod do better?

I use Skyrim Creatures Alive.


I honestly like the variety the most -- rather than the lone deer, you may run into a small herd complete with cows and calves. Wolves aren't just small masses of black canines. Combined the Bellyache's Creature Pack and Realistic Wildlife Loot (which are fully compatible), the game ends up feeling like the wilderness is quite a bit more complete.

It doesn't add an excessive number of aggressive spawns. When I'm exploring, I feel more like I'm hunting, rather than running around trying to perform damage control by saving random thankless NPCs from angry animals.

Honestly, I would like to see the mod become cross-compatible with other mods like SkyTest, which focus on natural animal-to-animal behavior. The two would be a powerful combination.

I use Real Wildlife and SkyTEST, then increase the spawns even further with ASIS, and add color variety to the animals with Automatic Variants.

Big lovely herds of anything from deer, cows, horses and mammoths. Also huge packs of hungry wolves numbering at one point, in the dozens+.

That might bother some people, but never had more fun than luring those same packs up to a keep and watching the fights (ASIS also increased the bandit spawns). I'm not sure what it really does to the ecosystem though - because of SkyTEST's AI, I've seen a large pack of wolves run over the plains of Whiterun slaughtering herds of deer and more. Though since the herds were big already from ASIS as well, I guess it evens out.

I also use Occupy Skyrim, which mostly spawns faction NPCs, but occasionally also creature mobs including werewolves and vampires. ASIS increases them too I think (I had a HELLISH, HUGE colony of spiders appear on the road because of the two mods!)

PS: Guess should be more precise about the pros and cons like on-topic.

Real Wildlife = I like the variety, and I'm using the IMNC mod for basic needs and Real Wildlife has compatibility with it.

SkyTEST: = I like the AI modifications, and would like to see it go further. Both authors of these mods work on compatibility with each other so I feel safe using them both.

I've never tried Skyrim Creatures Alive myself. I was reluctant to use it since it's not as updated as the other two, and has compatibility issues with Real Wildlife. I just found the other 2 to fulfill my needs more than SCA.

I then use ASIS to just up the ante.

How do these work together? is it possible to use all of them together?

I use Skyrim Monster Mod. It does what I want and no more: it adds more monsters, and more varieties of monsters, to fight. For NPCs I use Occupy Skyrim. Occupy Skyrim adds encounters to the game in a tasteful way. Both mods feel like extensions of the game to me, not revisions of the game.

I'm not a fan of unleveled enemies. So I'm not interested in mods that unlevel the game world in any way. I also felt that there were already too many non-hostile animals in vanilla Skyrim - it seemed as though I was tripping over goats and elk and rabbits everywhere I went. So I'm not interested in mods that increase the number of non-hostile animals either. Skyrim Monster Mod and Occupy Skyrim are as close to perfectly suiting my tastes as mods are able to come at the present time.

Thank you for the feedback everyone. It is much appreciated.

AFAIK, Real Wildlife adds more things and more things to do with the current wildlife.

SkyTEST is basically a really advanced AI for said wildlife, where they have hunting patterns, don't attack unless you provoke them (for some preditors..), certain spots where they will be more active in Skyrim, has actual herds of deer, etc. I don't think it actually adds any new creatures or spawns (other than stuff like herds of deer, etc).

Automatic Varients, it seems, just dynamically changes textures of animals so there is more variety of what you see (i.e. not all wolves will be black). I think it's compatable with anything, due to the nature of how it gets those varients in there.