Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31246660-20180322124320/@comment-36130067-20180829204822

It's interesting to read various people's experiences with attacks at homesteads. Now that I've played for awhile, my experience is similar to Ottoman Hold's: Windstad Manor is the most hazardous, having been attacked directly by wolves, horkers, draugrs, and giants. I try to avoid arriving at any of the homesteads on horseback, but preferably on foot and with weapons drawn, lest attackers kill your horse before you can even dismount and respond. And I've been attacked many times by bandits, necromancers, etc. on the way from Windstad to Morthal while practically in sight of the house. (In general, the more I play, the less I use a horse except to fast-travel home from a dungeon raid when overburdened).

I'd be curious to know whether the game determines randomly early on how often each homestead will be attacked and by what, establishing the player's experience for the rest of the game, or whether it's all randomness day-to-day. If the former, this would explain the variety of our various experiences.

Speaking of Windstad, if you like to play against the game clock, "fast" travel is a misnomer. It's not really fast, just safe. You can usually reach a given destination faster by sprinting or even running, but between Windstad and Solitude is probably an exception if you use the very roundabout roads. To go from Windstad to Solitude efficiently, make a beeline west  on foot (with some attempt to make the most use of land and hop from island to island) heading for the Blue Palace, up to the shore nearly under it. Then fast traveling the rest of the way to Solitude (not the Blue Palace itself, which strangely enough is slower) requires only another twenty minutes or so. Amazing.