Ihrayeep writes:
(A)lliance has a 37% win ratio here, which is drastically less than all the others. I’m used to losing slightly more (anywhere from 45-49 win, usually) but this is abnormal enough to raise an eyebrow. My initial response is the default one, to claim that alliance sucks, because that’s usually as good a fallback reason as any…except I can’t see why they would suck so much MORE in this bg than the other ones. It’s the same people playing. And it’s not like IoC has any “new” concepts — it’s recycled different things from AV, AB, and SotA, all of which alliance does significantly better in. So what gives here?
This matches my own experience in the Alliance side of the Ruin battlegroup. My record in IoC is dismal: 2 wins out of 8 played. 25%. Yikes.
Ihra’s theory about the elevation asymmetry of the map is a good one. While the layout is symmetric, the addition of arial combat makes elevation matter in a way it doesn’t in, say, Arathi Basin. The Lumber Mill affords you better visibility and one less way in to defend than the Gold Mine, but both sides can reach it equally without a “weak” or “strong” side. That’s not the case in the IoC because there are cannons and vehicles involved. If there were cannons on the Lumber Mill you better believe it would be the single most important node in Arathi Basin.
I haven’t seen the Hangar Blitz in my recent ventures into the Isle of Conquest; it’s all Docks, all the time. And when the Alliance loses the Docks, sure enough the Ally Keep falls shortly thereafter. So while the Docks convey an offensive tactical advantage to the Horde, they convey no corresponding advantage to the Alliance — except to deny them to the Horde.
The whole article is worth reading, as well as the other Honor per Minute analysis Ihra has done. I’d be lying to say that I’m not pleased my initial hunch that Strand of the Ancients is the best might be right, after all. 🙂
Cynwise's Warcraft Manual 
Well I suppose that makes me feel “better”, knowing that apparently it’s not a battlegroup problem so much as it may be a map design problem.
LOL @ cannons in LM. And so, so true. When you said aerial combat, at first my mind went to the gunship. On a reread I realised you were also classifying siege vehicles in there, because of LOS issues, and that’s absolutely true…anything with projectile motion makes small issues of terrain design markedly more important than places where combat takes place within 30(36) yards with people shooting at each other.
Do you know if you get a range bonus if your siege vehicle is on higher ground than the target? Be interesting to find out, because that could have radical implications for the very-hilly terrain in IoC.
“So while the Docks convey an offensive tactical advantage to the Horde, they convey no corresponding advantage to the Alliance — except to deny them to the Horde”
I don’t exactly know what to do once/if we win and hold the Docks – it doesn’t seem to bring down their walls especially fast – but losing the Docks does often mean an automatic loss for Alliance. Which doesn’t make sense to me either.
Since I play both sides of the fence in IoC (H & A), here’s my 2 copper, for what they’re worth:
Docks has a distinct advantage for both sides. The glaives, if defended, bring walls down fast. Even without quarry or oil refinery under control, each shot hits the wall for ~5k damage. Keep the glaies protected, and they put a hurt on the walls. Add in the catapults and any jumpers you might have from the hangar doing an ant-run with the Huge Saronite bombs that hit for ~9-10k apiece, and they bring the walls down in no time flat.
The problem on both ends, however, is nobody likes playing defence. If your side takes the workshop and nobody bothers to come and attack it, your HK count (and thus, your overall honor) is significantly less than playing paratrooper from a gunship and swooping down into the other side’s keep. But let’s face it: Defence wins games.
The workshop seems to work equally as well as docks in my experience if people are actually carrying bombs. If everyone on offense attacking the alliance fort, use bombs or demolishers, it goes down just as fast as using glaives.
The way, someone got people to use bombs is by telling them about the achievement they get for using 5 bombs in 1 game.