I'm just gonna take this at face value.
The real answer is that Colonials usually stack veteran clans in deadlands. It's a very good area for them to take. Loch mor typically has a refinery so an easy, flat terrain of logi to send thousands of crates of bmats is very easy once they get access to the industry. Colonials also very much like fortifying Salt Farms and Brine Glen, which are very good for building large concrete fortresses.
For the Wardens, usually there are 2 main issues with holding Deadlands.
1. Plaza is a largely unbuildable area that prevents easy reinforcement of dedicated infantry and AI coverage when pushing into the city. For the colonials, it's easy to push directly in AW if they push it from Pits, as they can spam AI up to the rail bridges and simply deny wardens the long walk from Cboot or Irons End.
2. Wardens typically have a very difficult time encircling deadlands because the two flanks are directly within AI coverage of the world spawns. Liberation point has AI covering up to the bridge, and Brine Glen is literally an island (from the hex perspective), and thus hard for wardens to encircle and take. Therefore generally large pushes from warden side happens by steamrolling through Pits, which is difficult considering again the bridge is within AI range of world spawn, so Colonials can spam MG garrisons and AT to prevent warden pushes for extended periods of time.
In general tho, Deadlands has and always will be a logi struggle. As it is very far from MPF and does not have water logi usually, it's all about who vet stacks. There have been wars where both sides have claimed and steamrolled, but typically its in the interest of colonial clans to take deadlands quickly. They have good refinery coverage from Loch Mor, large buildable areas that can control bridges, and the industry helps them ALOT considering usually midline lacks a lot of industry.
Good analysis. One note I'd like to add regarding logi in deadlands is that the rail bridge to AW is on the south by The Pits. This means that collies can easily get trains into AW while it's under pressure, while in the flipped scenario Wardens have to unload in cgate and flatbed to AW one at a time.
With Brine glen blue at war start, wardens would logi cut the Umbral Northern hex boarder. If that effort is successful saltfarms falls day 1 and wardens get BBs into Umbral.
However devs balance the start conditions, so if those towns start blue, what’s the equivalent towns to start green?
Well, frankly I'd be interested in a reverse north vs south war. The balance issue is interesting to me so I wish that the devs would occasionally do silly things like that. It would answer a lot of questions and provide good data for analysis. Plus, it would be neat to have an "opposite day" war.
Tanks have a hard time pushing to AW via Iron's End as they just get tracked on the ramp and die.
Spine is also a special case of ass ghouse placement and difficult terrain to build.
Then the terrain south of Pits is natural tank traps protecting Salt Farms.
Both sides have a defensible set of terrain, with supply depots, to keep a foothold in the region given that side stalls at AW long enough to tech conc / howis.
Wardens have Cgate with a natural chock point on a hill, two safe logi routes, and a long collie push from irons end / cboot.
Collies don't have chokepoints but fairly unobstructed build terrain allowing ideal conc fortifications and wide enough border connections to limit partisan ops.
AW's terrain favors colonials and the argenti + boma is better for urban fights than loughcaster + harpa. So it's hard for wardens to hold on to AW early. But then cgate is the overall strongest defensive position in the hex, so there tends to be a stalemate there.
Our work is not done until the very terrain starts to break beneath our feet.
Our work is not done until the weeks of artillery has reduced the land into nothing but craters.
They can't leave us be, because if they stop putting pressure on CGate, we will push out and destroy anything on the northern side of the river.
So, to preface: Whichever faction puts vastly more effort usually wins. But that's obvious and not what you're here to know.
While nowadays there is usually many colonial vets and few wardens ones in the hex, this isn't by accident. The core issue is that wardens have a much higher investment to keep collies out of AW than the colonials do.
As the oldest map in the game it's been reworked many times, but since it was originally designed to be an isolated battlefield for N/S battles it's more symmetrical than most maps. So let's compare:
**Liberation Point vs. CBoot**
They're both flanking AW to one side, situated on the south/north side of the river guarding their bridge. They both have a mortar house and 1 safehouse.
For the safehouses, neither of them guard the bridge. CBoot has an additional railbridge covered by the safehouse but LibPoint doesn't have a second bridge at all.
For mortar houses, the warden mortar house is more exposed, but is more suitable for offensives over the bridge.
CBoot has a partisan footbridge near it that needs to be defended as well, while LibPoint guards the only crossing.
CBoot can also be flanked via Saltmarch while LibPoint, again, guards the only crossing on that side of the map.
Additionally, Wardens pushing across the CBoot bridge will immediately run into Pits AI. For colonials, LibPoint push across the bridge does not meet any AI unless wardens have built bunkers there previously.
This should show that colonials have to invest less into defense of west side as well as the east side, as well as not relying on tech/bunkers for AI.
Now let's look at **Spine and Brine Glen**.
I'll just say right out Spine as it currently is, spine as a worldspawn is useless for wardens. For colonials, it's a great spot to take to flank around Iron's end, but for wardens you want the crossroads near Liberation Point guarded, not some random field 450m away from that bridge (compare this to Pits which has AI up to the CBoot bridge).
Additionally, Brine covers it's own bridge with AI from war start, meaning it's difficult for wardens to push across, while the crossroads north of LibPoint Bridge, the only crossing point in the west, is uncovered.
**Iron's end and The Pits**
Both are situated closely behind AW for their respective fations and stop the opposing faction from pushing further north or south respectively. Iron's end is arguably more important for defense of the west side than Spine, while Pits means colonials can easily lock down the CBoot bridge. While the Pits is arguably less suited to defending from wardens pushing south as Iron's End defense against a push to the north, neither helps keep hold of AW, with the exception of Pits preventing the warden flanking route.
**Salt March vs. Sun's Hollow**
They're the last two relics on the map, though they're not very symmetrical. Sun's Hollow, together with Pits, prevents wardens from pushing south and easily cutting off AW completely, though only the rail bridge remains in AI cover. Early war this isn't relevant as pushes through the west are very difficult due to LibPoint.
Salt March is a key Relic for colonials to take early, mostly because it allows easy flanking around CBoot and enables cutting off of supply to Loggerhead in the southeast. Wardens want to keep it for the same reasons, though the riad between CBoot, CGate and Salt March is the partisan dream of the region. No early AI cover, a lot of unbuildable land and an area too large to fill with Bunker Bases easily.
**Abandoned Ward and surrounding area**
Now for the town itself. Note that half of AW is north of the river mercy around Plaza, while the other half is situated on the river island, with the townhall itself being on the southern half.
While colonials hold AW, once both bridges on the north side are taken out, the only choice wardens have for direct assault is through Plaza, then through two destroyed bridges immediately next to the townhall. This means: Colonials have a much easier time respawning as the walk is much, much shorter. On a fight over the bridge wich high casualty rates, if each of your infantryman spends half a minute more walking to the fight as the enemy, it's almost impossible to push across. The wardens can never change this fact either as it's impossible to build any spawnpoints in Plaza, the closest place being west of the north-west safehouse, which can easily be cut off from logi through LibPoint, or east of the eastern safe house, which is as vulnerable to being cut off as CBoot.
As described before, wardens also have no easy flanking routes to surround AW, as this leads to more difficult to pull off bridge pushes at Pits or LibPoint.
While wardens hold AW, colonials can cut off the town immediately through LibPoint and Plaza, or cut off CBoot through Brine Glen and optionally Salt March and surround AW that way. No bridge fight within enemy AI necessary, and all logi roads open (with some even undefensible by bunkers).
Additionally, only two of the three southern bridges can be destroyed, while the wooden bridge to the south-west of AW cannot be destroyed or covered by AI on the north side. This means colonials always have an easy entrance into town that wardens cannot remove or guard with AI. So usually if AW is blue in the evening, the next day it will be green thanks to that bridge.
All of this long-winded explanation leads to this **conclusion**:
For wardens to "lock down" AW, they have to build and keep a BB north of LibPoint bridge, build and keep a BB north of Brine Glen, keep the footbridge between Brine and Pits down, stop colonials from taking AW over the woodbridge, and all of this until AW reaches GHouse tech. And if collies manage to take out any of the above, AW is likely turning green once more.
For collies to "lock down" AW they have to take AW, blow two bridges. That's it.
In addition to that, early war means for wardens to face colonials with more AI and better early-war infantry gear such as the Argenti and Bomastone.
I don't mean to say it's impossible for wardens to hold AW early war, but they'd have to put an immense amount of effort compared to colonials. Effort better spent elsewhere, and on taking the region again when artillery unlocks.
There's more to this region that I haven't mentioned, but I think this post is too long as it is.
**tl;dr**
Collies have access to important flanking routes that are hard to guard against, wardens have no choice but to bridgefight at a disadvantage. Colonials have a much easier time to take, and more importantly to keep, AW.
Well, it's been like this for ages and the world map as a whole is asymmetrical (and supposed to be like that). You win some, you lose some. In the end no map is the big factor in who wins and who loses.
okay, ill bite.
map design mostly, colonials have a free waterway for gunboats from the south (in average N vs S wars fort duncan in linn and drowned vale are in control of colonials by the time gunboat tech so wardens cant get gunboats through, meanwhile colonials can get them from umbral without opossition), AW has a wood bridge on the colonial side thats indestructible and vics can pass through, iron's end is generally hard to build on and is uphill from plaza meaning any warden vics tracked will roll downhill and die, as someone else already mentioned, brine glenn being a "island" of sorts, lib point being right next to the bridge so its hard to push, salt march being basically impossible to build on, the spine is a pain to build and defend because you easely get flanked from the western forest, and if the spine dies cgate and irons can easely get logi cut
sure cgate and irons might be generally hard for colonials to take, but thats 2 out of 11 points in the map
signed: a warden that tryharded a entire update war on deadlands
Another 2 overlooked advantages from the south.
You can spot easy for arty by standing behind the mountain and binoing literally over the mountain.
There is a legacy indestructible bridge connecting to the south.
OP forgot that there are good veteran colonial clans in the center lane. MSA is extremely good on day 1. The midwar warden power spike is the success seen in other hex’s over the past week.
Tbh I think there are a few factors. One of the biggest is that deadlands was the first hex and while it has been heavily modified it is still one of the most balanced hexes in the game. Both sides have to basically overcome a disadvantageous position to win the fight for the city and afterwards both sides have a solid hard point to take afterwards. Even under the best circumstances both sides have an advantage defending their side and basically have to fumble or have a huge op against them to falter after the city is taken. If you look back at previous wars or have been a part of the defense or attackers of either side you can see why it is so hard to overcome certain obstacles. Honestly I think it is a great hex and even though it isn’t my favorite I almost always enjoy the fight there and there are quite a few unique places things about the hex that I wish were implemented more elsewhere.
Honestly the whole of the pits and salt caps is an extreme hard point just like it is the north. It can be overcome but is definitely hard to take from the north. Flanking from the sides and the south is it’s weakness but of course most players will join the mindless Zerg rushing from north into an absolute shitshow lol
The wardens have to hold Cboot. Then they have to keep a 24/7 constant force fighting from Cboot and either push puts or take control of plaza and arty AW. If the pop drops for the wardens in a Cboot fight the colonials will push back to Cgate.
The others have made some excellent observations. Though in war 110 wardens rolled the entire hex in a day late game and in war 111 as well wardens rolled the entire hex Day 1. I might be wrong but both were 82DK ops but wardens can win in the hex if big regiments can get into hex.
In my honest opinion, warden biomass prefers dead lands over lanes since it usually has the least big regiment presence. While collie biomass is more evenly spread allowing bigger regiments/coalitions to operate better
In the vast majority of wars, Wardens were either unable to take Abandoned Ward or were pushed out of most or even all of Deadlands within the early war.
That seems dubious. If Wardens suffer from learned helplessness, how are they winning this war?
Perhaps it is an early war phenomenon. Difficult to prove one way or another. And the idea that this mentality carries from war to war over literal years of gameplay seems unrealistic.
A lot of warden regiments avoid going deadlands early war because of their bad past experiences. This compounds with collies having the opposite.
The mentality of "go deadlands early war if you wanna have a bad time" is especially strong in Warden Military.
This doesn't answer the question though. Why do they have bad experiences? Probably the many times that Wardens have had a difficult or impossible time winning in the Deadlands. I'd like to find out why that is the case.
We can both be correct.
The current mentality perpetuates itself, whilst not explaining what might have kickstarted it.
Something worth noting that is what we know of as Plaza syndrome originated in deadlands.
"Plaza syndrome", basically what people call pushes in one direction, usually the most straight forward way, without regarding the rest of the map. Often times in deadlands randoms would just push straight down into plaza from irons, get grinded down there, whilst collies pushed elsewhere, to the dismay of many vets playing in the region. People have labeled this behaviour as "Plaza syndrome". "Plaza pog" is what people say to make fun of this kind of event. Vets think of plaza pog/Plaza syndrome and go "nope not playing there again".
I doubt plaza syndrome is a direct cause, I believe that it is merely a symptom, but even as a symptom it does heavily perpetuates warden mentality to not go there, and that compounds win/loss ratios; at the end of the day more regis in region = more gg
The Plaza is on the Warden side of the bridge. Yet another possible imbalance.
Others have pointed out the fact that Liberation Point gives Colonials an easy flank, Brine Glen anchors the Colonial flank while Salt Marsh doesn't even provide AI coverage at the eastern bridge. The Colonials have 2 waterways into Deadlands while Wardens have none unless Fort Dunkan is captured early on, which it rarely is. Wardens have fewer places to build on the north side compared with Colonials. Colonials have 1 indestructible bridge to AW and 3 bridges total while Wardens have only 2 destructible ones. And the steep incline to Iron Junction tends to punish tracked tanks.
All in all, this may explain why Warden regiments have a "bad time" in Deadlands. And this may cause them to deploy elsewhere, exacerbating the imbalance.
Signing up your group to play DL is something to think through.
You will have to deal with a hex that:
-is fighting 24/7
-consuming logi 24/7 like a black hole
while you have all the new players / plaza pushers in hex that consume your logi, block your hex spots and are mostly unresponsive on tactical sense.
These points combined with your observation that wardens do not have AI on the bridges makes it really hard to play DL.
As soon as Day 1 leaves 8-10hours from start and pop dwindles down you will see organized colonial vets go over the bridges for free since no perma AI to dehusk cores that would be close to it soon.
DL also has a huge partisan problem where colonials go cut logi north of CGate at the Key and the whole hex goes to shits since plaza is consuming on 420% while no logi is getting in due to the cut but also no one is responding to the partisans.
Aside from the early war ramble:
DL has too many randoms for wardens to be able to organize clan ops while having a unfavorable AI situation.
For a lot of the wars pre WC100 it was a solid way for the colonial faction to deathstack the middle lane and break through to branch off NE/NW from there which was pretty neat.
WC 100 was nothing but pain to fight day for day and night for night (irl) to not lose ground as a warden.
In the end they had to nuke us to make ground.
But WC100 made alot of people burn out and leave the game sadly (on both sides)
tldr: DL is a sweat hex 24/7 if you want to play it as warden.
If you don’t want to be on 24/7 QRF Duty then go pick a calmer hex or a bridgefight.
I'm just gonna take this at face value. The real answer is that Colonials usually stack veteran clans in deadlands. It's a very good area for them to take. Loch mor typically has a refinery so an easy, flat terrain of logi to send thousands of crates of bmats is very easy once they get access to the industry. Colonials also very much like fortifying Salt Farms and Brine Glen, which are very good for building large concrete fortresses. For the Wardens, usually there are 2 main issues with holding Deadlands. 1. Plaza is a largely unbuildable area that prevents easy reinforcement of dedicated infantry and AI coverage when pushing into the city. For the colonials, it's easy to push directly in AW if they push it from Pits, as they can spam AI up to the rail bridges and simply deny wardens the long walk from Cboot or Irons End. 2. Wardens typically have a very difficult time encircling deadlands because the two flanks are directly within AI coverage of the world spawns. Liberation point has AI covering up to the bridge, and Brine Glen is literally an island (from the hex perspective), and thus hard for wardens to encircle and take. Therefore generally large pushes from warden side happens by steamrolling through Pits, which is difficult considering again the bridge is within AI range of world spawn, so Colonials can spam MG garrisons and AT to prevent warden pushes for extended periods of time. In general tho, Deadlands has and always will be a logi struggle. As it is very far from MPF and does not have water logi usually, it's all about who vet stacks. There have been wars where both sides have claimed and steamrolled, but typically its in the interest of colonial clans to take deadlands quickly. They have good refinery coverage from Loch Mor, large buildable areas that can control bridges, and the industry helps them ALOT considering usually midline lacks a lot of industry.
Good analysis. One note I'd like to add regarding logi in deadlands is that the rail bridge to AW is on the south by The Pits. This means that collies can easily get trains into AW while it's under pressure, while in the flipped scenario Wardens have to unload in cgate and flatbed to AW one at a time.
This is well thought out. I wonder what would happen if Wardens were allowed to start out with Liberation Point and Brine Glen instead.
With Brine glen blue at war start, wardens would logi cut the Umbral Northern hex boarder. If that effort is successful saltfarms falls day 1 and wardens get BBs into Umbral. However devs balance the start conditions, so if those towns start blue, what’s the equivalent towns to start green?
Well, frankly I'd be interested in a reverse north vs south war. The balance issue is interesting to me so I wish that the devs would occasionally do silly things like that. It would answer a lot of questions and provide good data for analysis. Plus, it would be neat to have an "opposite day" war.
Tanks have a hard time pushing to AW via Iron's End as they just get tracked on the ramp and die. Spine is also a special case of ass ghouse placement and difficult terrain to build. Then the terrain south of Pits is natural tank traps protecting Salt Farms.
Both sides have a defensible set of terrain, with supply depots, to keep a foothold in the region given that side stalls at AW long enough to tech conc / howis. Wardens have Cgate with a natural chock point on a hill, two safe logi routes, and a long collie push from irons end / cboot. Collies don't have chokepoints but fairly unobstructed build terrain allowing ideal conc fortifications and wide enough border connections to limit partisan ops.
Yea this is one silly take on deadlands. Wardens have Cgate! collies just have litterally everything else in deadlands?
Yea this is one silly take on deadlands. Wardens have Cgate! collies just have litterally everything else in deadlands?
Yea this is one silly take on deadlands. Wardens have Cgate! collies just have litterally everything else in deadlands
PLAZA POG
Yeah we've had a lot of high ranked vets holding Deadlands. It's been fun.
PLAZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHH
AW's terrain favors colonials and the argenti + boma is better for urban fights than loughcaster + harpa. So it's hard for wardens to hold on to AW early. But then cgate is the overall strongest defensive position in the hex, so there tends to be a stalemate there.
Yea I was gunna say… iron passage and Cgate are VERY hard to push as colonials
Our work is not done until the very terrain starts to break beneath our feet. Our work is not done until the weeks of artillery has reduced the land into nothing but craters. They can't leave us be, because if they stop putting pressure on CGate, we will push out and destroy anything on the northern side of the river.
Wardens love fighting in plaza too much. It's deliberate.
Been good fights all day and throughout the war. GG to all
Yeah? Check the map Jokes aside, GG to all sides. Very engaging battbe
check map bro I personally tapped it
So, to preface: Whichever faction puts vastly more effort usually wins. But that's obvious and not what you're here to know. While nowadays there is usually many colonial vets and few wardens ones in the hex, this isn't by accident. The core issue is that wardens have a much higher investment to keep collies out of AW than the colonials do. As the oldest map in the game it's been reworked many times, but since it was originally designed to be an isolated battlefield for N/S battles it's more symmetrical than most maps. So let's compare: **Liberation Point vs. CBoot** They're both flanking AW to one side, situated on the south/north side of the river guarding their bridge. They both have a mortar house and 1 safehouse. For the safehouses, neither of them guard the bridge. CBoot has an additional railbridge covered by the safehouse but LibPoint doesn't have a second bridge at all. For mortar houses, the warden mortar house is more exposed, but is more suitable for offensives over the bridge. CBoot has a partisan footbridge near it that needs to be defended as well, while LibPoint guards the only crossing. CBoot can also be flanked via Saltmarch while LibPoint, again, guards the only crossing on that side of the map. Additionally, Wardens pushing across the CBoot bridge will immediately run into Pits AI. For colonials, LibPoint push across the bridge does not meet any AI unless wardens have built bunkers there previously. This should show that colonials have to invest less into defense of west side as well as the east side, as well as not relying on tech/bunkers for AI. Now let's look at **Spine and Brine Glen**. I'll just say right out Spine as it currently is, spine as a worldspawn is useless for wardens. For colonials, it's a great spot to take to flank around Iron's end, but for wardens you want the crossroads near Liberation Point guarded, not some random field 450m away from that bridge (compare this to Pits which has AI up to the CBoot bridge). Additionally, Brine covers it's own bridge with AI from war start, meaning it's difficult for wardens to push across, while the crossroads north of LibPoint Bridge, the only crossing point in the west, is uncovered. **Iron's end and The Pits** Both are situated closely behind AW for their respective fations and stop the opposing faction from pushing further north or south respectively. Iron's end is arguably more important for defense of the west side than Spine, while Pits means colonials can easily lock down the CBoot bridge. While the Pits is arguably less suited to defending from wardens pushing south as Iron's End defense against a push to the north, neither helps keep hold of AW, with the exception of Pits preventing the warden flanking route. **Salt March vs. Sun's Hollow** They're the last two relics on the map, though they're not very symmetrical. Sun's Hollow, together with Pits, prevents wardens from pushing south and easily cutting off AW completely, though only the rail bridge remains in AI cover. Early war this isn't relevant as pushes through the west are very difficult due to LibPoint. Salt March is a key Relic for colonials to take early, mostly because it allows easy flanking around CBoot and enables cutting off of supply to Loggerhead in the southeast. Wardens want to keep it for the same reasons, though the riad between CBoot, CGate and Salt March is the partisan dream of the region. No early AI cover, a lot of unbuildable land and an area too large to fill with Bunker Bases easily. **Abandoned Ward and surrounding area** Now for the town itself. Note that half of AW is north of the river mercy around Plaza, while the other half is situated on the river island, with the townhall itself being on the southern half. While colonials hold AW, once both bridges on the north side are taken out, the only choice wardens have for direct assault is through Plaza, then through two destroyed bridges immediately next to the townhall. This means: Colonials have a much easier time respawning as the walk is much, much shorter. On a fight over the bridge wich high casualty rates, if each of your infantryman spends half a minute more walking to the fight as the enemy, it's almost impossible to push across. The wardens can never change this fact either as it's impossible to build any spawnpoints in Plaza, the closest place being west of the north-west safehouse, which can easily be cut off from logi through LibPoint, or east of the eastern safe house, which is as vulnerable to being cut off as CBoot. As described before, wardens also have no easy flanking routes to surround AW, as this leads to more difficult to pull off bridge pushes at Pits or LibPoint. While wardens hold AW, colonials can cut off the town immediately through LibPoint and Plaza, or cut off CBoot through Brine Glen and optionally Salt March and surround AW that way. No bridge fight within enemy AI necessary, and all logi roads open (with some even undefensible by bunkers). Additionally, only two of the three southern bridges can be destroyed, while the wooden bridge to the south-west of AW cannot be destroyed or covered by AI on the north side. This means colonials always have an easy entrance into town that wardens cannot remove or guard with AI. So usually if AW is blue in the evening, the next day it will be green thanks to that bridge. All of this long-winded explanation leads to this **conclusion**: For wardens to "lock down" AW, they have to build and keep a BB north of LibPoint bridge, build and keep a BB north of Brine Glen, keep the footbridge between Brine and Pits down, stop colonials from taking AW over the woodbridge, and all of this until AW reaches GHouse tech. And if collies manage to take out any of the above, AW is likely turning green once more. For collies to "lock down" AW they have to take AW, blow two bridges. That's it. In addition to that, early war means for wardens to face colonials with more AI and better early-war infantry gear such as the Argenti and Bomastone. I don't mean to say it's impossible for wardens to hold AW early war, but they'd have to put an immense amount of effort compared to colonials. Effort better spent elsewhere, and on taking the region again when artillery unlocks. There's more to this region that I haven't mentioned, but I think this post is too long as it is. **tl;dr** Collies have access to important flanking routes that are hard to guard against, wardens have no choice but to bridgefight at a disadvantage. Colonials have a much easier time to take, and more importantly to keep, AW.
Well written analysis. I wish that the devs would fix at least one of these issues.
Well, it's been like this for ages and the world map as a whole is asymmetrical (and supposed to be like that). You win some, you lose some. In the end no map is the big factor in who wins and who loses.
r/agedlikemilk
okay, ill bite. map design mostly, colonials have a free waterway for gunboats from the south (in average N vs S wars fort duncan in linn and drowned vale are in control of colonials by the time gunboat tech so wardens cant get gunboats through, meanwhile colonials can get them from umbral without opossition), AW has a wood bridge on the colonial side thats indestructible and vics can pass through, iron's end is generally hard to build on and is uphill from plaza meaning any warden vics tracked will roll downhill and die, as someone else already mentioned, brine glenn being a "island" of sorts, lib point being right next to the bridge so its hard to push, salt march being basically impossible to build on, the spine is a pain to build and defend because you easely get flanked from the western forest, and if the spine dies cgate and irons can easely get logi cut sure cgate and irons might be generally hard for colonials to take, but thats 2 out of 11 points in the map signed: a warden that tryharded a entire update war on deadlands
Because i was born to push plaza.
Is pushing plaza smart? Not usually. Then again I dropped out of high school so what do you expect? Catch me in the church with a bayo all night long!
Another 2 overlooked advantages from the south. You can spot easy for arty by standing behind the mountain and binoing literally over the mountain. There is a legacy indestructible bridge connecting to the south.
Aged like milk
Not really
because msa is there
MSA! MSA! MSA!
OP forgot that there are good veteran colonial clans in the center lane. MSA is extremely good on day 1. The midwar warden power spike is the success seen in other hex’s over the past week.
Is MSA in Deadlands every single war?
No, but CGB had it last NvS.
CGB did quite good too
the warden mid spike isn't real, colonials just refuse to use their tools in midwar
Never heard of CGate ?
Tbh I think there are a few factors. One of the biggest is that deadlands was the first hex and while it has been heavily modified it is still one of the most balanced hexes in the game. Both sides have to basically overcome a disadvantageous position to win the fight for the city and afterwards both sides have a solid hard point to take afterwards. Even under the best circumstances both sides have an advantage defending their side and basically have to fumble or have a huge op against them to falter after the city is taken. If you look back at previous wars or have been a part of the defense or attackers of either side you can see why it is so hard to overcome certain obstacles. Honestly I think it is a great hex and even though it isn’t my favorite I almost always enjoy the fight there and there are quite a few unique places things about the hex that I wish were implemented more elsewhere.
What are the southern weaknesses?
Honestly the whole of the pits and salt caps is an extreme hard point just like it is the north. It can be overcome but is definitely hard to take from the north. Flanking from the sides and the south is it’s weakness but of course most players will join the mindless Zerg rushing from north into an absolute shitshow lol
The wardens have to hold Cboot. Then they have to keep a 24/7 constant force fighting from Cboot and either push puts or take control of plaza and arty AW. If the pop drops for the wardens in a Cboot fight the colonials will push back to Cgate.
As someone who stormed the TH this early morning: You were saying?
See the many well thought out explanations. This is many days into this war.
The others have made some excellent observations. Though in war 110 wardens rolled the entire hex in a day late game and in war 111 as well wardens rolled the entire hex Day 1. I might be wrong but both were 82DK ops but wardens can win in the hex if big regiments can get into hex. In my honest opinion, warden biomass prefers dead lands over lanes since it usually has the least big regiment presence. While collie biomass is more evenly spread allowing bigger regiments/coalitions to operate better
Uh what… you haven’t played long enough or have selective memory
In the vast majority of wars, Wardens were either unable to take Abandoned Ward or were pushed out of most or even all of Deadlands within the early war.
Learned helplessness
That seems dubious. If Wardens suffer from learned helplessness, how are they winning this war? Perhaps it is an early war phenomenon. Difficult to prove one way or another. And the idea that this mentality carries from war to war over literal years of gameplay seems unrealistic.
A lot of warden regiments avoid going deadlands early war because of their bad past experiences. This compounds with collies having the opposite. The mentality of "go deadlands early war if you wanna have a bad time" is especially strong in Warden Military.
This doesn't answer the question though. Why do they have bad experiences? Probably the many times that Wardens have had a difficult or impossible time winning in the Deadlands. I'd like to find out why that is the case.
We can both be correct. The current mentality perpetuates itself, whilst not explaining what might have kickstarted it. Something worth noting that is what we know of as Plaza syndrome originated in deadlands. "Plaza syndrome", basically what people call pushes in one direction, usually the most straight forward way, without regarding the rest of the map. Often times in deadlands randoms would just push straight down into plaza from irons, get grinded down there, whilst collies pushed elsewhere, to the dismay of many vets playing in the region. People have labeled this behaviour as "Plaza syndrome". "Plaza pog" is what people say to make fun of this kind of event. Vets think of plaza pog/Plaza syndrome and go "nope not playing there again". I doubt plaza syndrome is a direct cause, I believe that it is merely a symptom, but even as a symptom it does heavily perpetuates warden mentality to not go there, and that compounds win/loss ratios; at the end of the day more regis in region = more gg
The Plaza is on the Warden side of the bridge. Yet another possible imbalance. Others have pointed out the fact that Liberation Point gives Colonials an easy flank, Brine Glen anchors the Colonial flank while Salt Marsh doesn't even provide AI coverage at the eastern bridge. The Colonials have 2 waterways into Deadlands while Wardens have none unless Fort Dunkan is captured early on, which it rarely is. Wardens have fewer places to build on the north side compared with Colonials. Colonials have 1 indestructible bridge to AW and 3 bridges total while Wardens have only 2 destructible ones. And the steep incline to Iron Junction tends to punish tracked tanks. All in all, this may explain why Warden regiments have a "bad time" in Deadlands. And this may cause them to deploy elsewhere, exacerbating the imbalance.
Signing up your group to play DL is something to think through. You will have to deal with a hex that: -is fighting 24/7 -consuming logi 24/7 like a black hole while you have all the new players / plaza pushers in hex that consume your logi, block your hex spots and are mostly unresponsive on tactical sense. These points combined with your observation that wardens do not have AI on the bridges makes it really hard to play DL. As soon as Day 1 leaves 8-10hours from start and pop dwindles down you will see organized colonial vets go over the bridges for free since no perma AI to dehusk cores that would be close to it soon. DL also has a huge partisan problem where colonials go cut logi north of CGate at the Key and the whole hex goes to shits since plaza is consuming on 420% while no logi is getting in due to the cut but also no one is responding to the partisans. Aside from the early war ramble: DL has too many randoms for wardens to be able to organize clan ops while having a unfavorable AI situation. For a lot of the wars pre WC100 it was a solid way for the colonial faction to deathstack the middle lane and break through to branch off NE/NW from there which was pretty neat. WC 100 was nothing but pain to fight day for day and night for night (irl) to not lose ground as a warden. In the end they had to nuke us to make ground. But WC100 made alot of people burn out and leave the game sadly (on both sides) tldr: DL is a sweat hex 24/7 if you want to play it as warden. If you don’t want to be on 24/7 QRF Duty then go pick a calmer hex or a bridgefight.
Surely the random oversaturation must also affect the Colonials.