Hey,

I play on the PC and found the game far too easy/unchallenging in vanilla. It made fights trivial and I would become a god in less than 12 hours and that's even without using smithing, enchanting, sneak or alchemy. So I downloaded a lot of new mods and rerolled a new character, a male redguard that uses two-handed weapons. No magic at all, no bows or anything else. Just two-handed. These are what I am using that affect difficultly and challenge;

• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3829
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=1269 with Intense Level Scaling pluginPluto's Improved Skyrim Experience
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6176 4.2 (Normal Mode for realism)
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4719, http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6047 and http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8003
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9778
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2275
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5485
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9494

After installing these mods, especially Deadly Combat, I must have died roughly 60 times on Adept. Without these mods it would be rare for me to die at all but I can no longer run head first into a group of enemies or even one high level enemy. You have to use your potions carefully, use the environment and time attacks. You might have to return to some areas later rather than just easily doing everything everywhere whenever you want. Money is more scarce, good loot rarer in shops and dungeons, enemies heal and block more, defence by armor has been reduced to 'realistic levels', enemies dodge attacks, random enemies in the wilderness appear and you can't make 100's of iron daggers to rank up smithing. This and more!!

These mods just make gameplay more interesting/intuitive.

• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=60
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9330 (load after EBT or you will get funny red shapes on corpses)
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2730
  
• Sounds of Skyrim - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8601 and the http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10886
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=7654
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9894
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9960
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8739
  
• http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11 - guide in finding the best texture mods out there and putting them in the right order - looks AMAZING!!

What mods do you use to make the game more difficult/challenging? I would prefer that things like no fast travel, eating/drink mods etc are left out because they don't make it more difficult or challenging, unless you can convince me otherwise

How are you finding Warzones and Real Wildlife? Do they work well together? I'm contemplating using those two mods in my upcoming game, but was worried that both mods together might throw so many actors onto the screen at once that it will slow down my framerates to a crawl. I had serious problems during some of the larger civil war battles (like Whiterun, for instance). I'm also very interested in Plutoman's new Increased Spawns. Are you using that as well?

Oh Oh! ... Does Warzones add random werewolves?! this is the only thing stopping me installing it right now, as i want it to, but i feel if i install it, it won't.. make sense?

Warzones and Real Wildfire work perfectly together. Real Wildfire only add variations to existing creatures in skyrim in appearance, size and type and put a few more placements here and there. It's a great mod you should get it and it won't affect fps because the animals rarely get entangled in a warzone and when a horse or two is they are killed pretty quickly so not a problem.

I only use the increased spawns as integrated into his mod already. I have been half following his thread but there is a lot of talk of scripting language and such so I don't understand what the files do there and there are so many so I haven't tried them I think they are also trying to incorporate perks and spells into NPC's but cannot figure out what files does what and what I should expect. A new thread should have been opened for beta testers with better explanations and just a couple of files.

I've played for about 15 hours with it and have not seen any werewolves. Just warzones in particular areas between bandits/stormcloaks and imperials. Wars in Skyrim I think adds werewolves but I haven't seen any yet and I only use the normal version as Dark Age settings is a bit too extreme. I wanted 'immersion' like you so I opted for Normal.

Ah maybe its on the dark age? i think i remeber reading that, it makes it too hardcoe?

I don't know perhaps someone else can say but I wanted to feel as though I was still playing Skyrim and not Diablo.

I use this mod http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8377.
It makes combat more realistic in that you and bad guys die in a couple of hits.
Specifically it increases damage dealt and taken by 3x and also increases healing spells and
potions to heal 3x as many hitpoints.
It is probably similar to that deadly combat mod you are using.
I find it makes things more fun. No more tanking 5 hits without blocking.
Probably not for everyone but I recommend it.

I also run a mod that makes you lose stamina instead of health when you block a hit.
It never made sense to me how you can block an attack and still get hurt.

I want a better pc.

Watching the video seems like it makes skyrim very "active"... Too active for me IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFesEaOeUgQ

HaaardCORE!

Yes, this is pretty similar to Deadly Combat except the latter does a lot more.

Anyone else have mods that make the game more challenging?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=8010&searchtext= - Fun.