Why are dragons not attacking walled cities.

[Zex]

I've noticed that I'm getting absolutly no dragon attacks inside the walled cities (Whiterun, Solitude, Markarth, Windhelm and Riften). My character is level 36 and I havent experienced one, although There have been plenty in the wilderness and the smaller towns (Falkreath, Riverwood, etc). Is this normal? Are they just that rare?

[Jjp7123]

No, they appear in those cities, you just haven't seen them yet. They will spawn more often if you're at a very high level.

[Valden21]

This may just be me, but I've noticed that certain cities I'm in seem to get dragon attacks at a higher rate than others. Weird thing is, which cities those are seem to change from playthrough to playthrough. The very first time I played, the city that kept getting attacked was Whiterun. In my next playthrough, Solitude, Windhelm, and WInterhold kept getting "visits" from dragons. In fact, Markarth is the only city that I haven't seen attacked by dragons.

[Bomb Bloke]

It's quite rare - I've seen it happen about three times over my several hundred hours of play.

I reckon it only ever happens during the mid-to-late stages of the main quest, and then the odds drop back down to near zero (or just plain zero) once Alduin is defeated. I've gone through that questline a grand total of twice, so I've only had it active for a minute fraction of my overall playtime.

Given that I've spent most of my playtime in the >lvl50 range (I usually don't run out of quests until my level is in the triple digits somewhere), I doubt level has much to do with it.

[Alucard †]

I once had a drago attack me inside Solitude it was pretty epic too bad this happens rarely

[White Rabbit Alice]

For some reason, and this has duplicated a few times. dragons seem to fly around above the mage guild, not the town in itself,but on top of the mage guild

[Valden21]

Originally posted by TsuguardTenchi:

For some reason, and this has duplicated a few times. dragons seem to fly around above the mage guild, not the town in itself,but on top of the mage guild

I've seen that too. Once I start the College of WInterhold questline, dragons begin showing up there like crazy.

[red255]

because a walled city is a smaller cell meaning much less chance for a dragon to spawn inside.

can happen per se but its far more likely to have them spawn outside.

[Docsprock]

Windhelm has a scripted dragon attack, Ive never seen a random, unnamed one there. Whiterun, Ive only seen two dragon attacks inside the walls in over 5000 hours. And Solitude, Ive only ever seen two. Ive seen only one in Riften.

I dont recall ever seeing any in Markarth.

[Alucard †]

Originally posted by Docsprock:

Windhelm has a scripted dragon attack

Wut? I think you meant Whiterun and its not in the city per se its near the guard tower.
I never seen named dragon attack Windhelm at all

[alexander_dougherty]

I've only ever been attacked inside Solitude and Falkreath, not that I'm complaining, I would rather not be in cities, because I'm usually shopping, and I don't want dead vendors thank you.

[Luxia]

I've gotten so many dragon attacks in Solitude lately, that it has actually become annoying.
Especially when the game decides to also spawn a random vampire attack at the gates at the same bloody time. Yay.

[Shirome Artiste]

Dragons can spawn inside walled cities, it's just uncommon.

If you go into the creation kit and open a mapfile of say a bit of whiterun, you'll see that there's a bunch of places included where a dragon can "sit" on a building as well.

At any rate, in-city dragon battles are kind of rare because there's only a select few "dragon spawn points" to roll for "Will a dragon spawn? Y/N" unlike say the wilderness where one could figuratively pop up from behind any rock or tree.

Additionally, it's generally better for dragons to not spawn in the middle of a city because at higher levels one breath attack can and will oneshot most non-guard npcs because unlike guards most citizens do not level alongside the player, and their fixed low-level combined with a tendency to both be killable and with VERY low amounts of health means that they tend to die in droves when a lategame dragon does show up, potentially breaking a plethora of (minor) quests.