Outposts and towns

ThreeXB

There should be an outpost added between Dragonclaw and Warden. Cyrodiil's map heavily favors DC and keeping their back keeps safe. With W.P. and H.O. as easy staging grounds against EP and Valastrus and Cropsford staging grounds against AD.

Dominion_Nightblade

I dont know. After getting carmala its like a 50sec ride up to rayles. But I do see bruma being a bit far from warden. I can get jiggy with this though, let's make DC tri keeps more vulnerable!

On another note though, the bridges are not fair compared to the mile gates. You break bridges only way across is the walkway, not good for AD. Ash mile gate blues still cross when broken and same with ep and chal mile gate. But momma always told me life was not fair.. oh well.

DrSlaughtr

Any objective person can see that neither AD or DC have access to their home keeps like red has with winters, harluns and sej. The distance is much shorter to the keeps than towns and outposts to the forts/castles.

But that's the game. Not gonna change.

ealdwin

So, IIRC, Winter's Peak, Carmala, and Harluns Outposts were added to help balance with the placement of the towns in Cyrodiil, putting a second "wing" off of the outer triangle keeps, since the original layout meant that AD was more at a disadvantage with Vlastarus and Cropsford serving as good forward outposts. The only hitch in the new placement, really, is the fact that Bruma is the current flag town between DC and EP. If Apple Watch were the flag town instead, the map would be a bit better balanced. But that possibility would seem unlikely considering that Bruma is pretty well established, and such a change would require not moving the flags and guards from Bruma, but also shifting the quest givers and the crafting station. It certainly could be done, but it would be more work that ZOS may not feel as necessary.

The issue with adding another outpost in the north between Dragonclaw and Warden is that it would upset the map balance too much. For one, it would add another capture point that would mainly be a point of contest between DC and EP, with AD being less involved there. (On average, that is, considering usual attack patterns of the alliances). I think you'd see such an outpost more often in DC hands, thus giving them an easier source of campaign points. If such an outpost were added, there would have to be also added two more points of contest near Brindle and Drakelowe in order to maintain balance; Cyrodiil operates off of multiples of 3.

The map isn't perfect, but it's not entirely unbalanced either. In addition to objective placement there is also the topography and landmarks to contend with that can drastically effect the effectiveness of the placement of keeps, outposts, and towns in terms of the defensive and offensive advantages they provide. I usually see Carmala flip more often than Cropsford despite the relatively similar placement of each. And where geography is concerned, the hilly regions around Winter's Peak are far more likely to cause fall damage than the smoother plains around Carmala.

It also has to be considered, would a new outpost really shift the DC-EP battles away from the Ales-Bleakers-Chal range?

DrSlaughtr

Winter's might as well be red but it's stuck behind the gate. I agree there's no real way to add three more locations. Putting one between dclaw and warden is easy, as is been roe and allesia but I couldn't tell you where to stick the other unless the KC milegate was moved on the others of winters and the third location was added in the southeast. But that would require adjustments of all those existing locations. It's just not gonna happen.

I think AP has the best defensible position if you account terrain and castle design along with distances to outposts and towns.