Josh -

Finding small battles: Cyrodiil is generally 2-8 large zergs roaming in circles around the keep of the night. However, it's so large that there are constant supply lines being run, and the battles tend to have a ton of players on the periphery. So yes, you can do a lot of solo fighting. Your best bet as you learn the lay of the land is to look at the map and figure out where players are moving from/to. If red is taking/losing alleisa, for example, they'll be coming down across the one bridge that leads there. This is the most popular spot on the map for ganking...but there are many others. You can find lots of small battles here to learn how they go. But always be wary - any small battle can be halfway done when a group of ten find you.

Edge of the fight: most keep captures are zergy, but they usually go predictably. 1. Large force takes resources in circle. 2. They siege outer wall. 3. Once down, they siege inner wall and leave hole in outer wall stupidly undefended. 4. They break into inner keep. 5. They win or lose based on sheer numbers in a big crazy laggy battle. 6. If they're blue, they all put up the "good job" quick chat, as if they've actually shown any skill by taking a keep with fifty players. Ha. Anyway, any of these fights will have a dozen or more enemies roaming around, where you can find small battles. If they're seiging the inner keep, the hole in the wall is a good place to camp. Or sneak around the wall hunting. Or if your team is seiging the inner, camp out on the inside of an outer door waiting for reinforcements to come in to defend.

Your level: PVP in Cyrodiil is "battle leveled," meaning players get a health/stam/mag buff that puts them on a level playing field w v16s. A v16 should still be stronger because he'll have better gear and possibly a lot of champion points. (However, the game is old enough now that a lot of vets are playing lower level alts...I have a lvl 35 sorc who has 200 champion points, so you can never tell now who's going to be champion buffed). But you can close this marginal gap by playing well and catching them off guard.

You'll never really be in "solo" battles until ZOS releases an arena, which is supposedly coming soon. In the meantime, you can still find small battles all over, but learning how players move about takes time and trying to engage in these might mean dying a lot. However, doing so will provide fifty times the experience and life lessons of moving with a Zerg. My nightblade died A LOT (and still does) trying new and sometimes stupid strategies/battles. But that is helping me fine tune my bar and skills. I can now escape being assaulted by 4-5 enemies about 60-75% of the time. And while this provides no AP, it's very satisfying to take hits from several different players, get away, then watch them run around all pissed they didn't get a kill.