We are going to have to coordinate large groups of people to succesfully take the 6 keeps around the Imperial City and put our guy, whoever that may be, on the throne. The faction that works as an army will be hard to beat. This thread is to explore the possibilities.

One thing which I think will prove decisive is horses. They are quite a bit faster than the player and a group of horseman could quickly reinforce defense and exploit any breakthoughs and holes in the defense.

A disciplined army is what is needed to win the throne.

Any ideas are most welcome.

Strategy is absolutely crucial in these types of PvP.
Divide and Conquer, distractions and splitting of larger groups into sub groups to hold resource points will all play a role, I think a well organised group will easily beat a large group of players who mindlessly charge in ol' Leeroy style.

In the end everybody will have horses, so that's balanced, no advantage or disadvantage here.

For the rest: At the beginning, for some weeks/month: Zerg, so large groups runnig around like a plague of locusts getting everything the need. If this group of players is coordinated / more skilled than the random enemy group, they will get everything the need. A large group of skilled players (guild) will always beat a small group of skilled players, so this zerg "strategy" can work.

Maybe (was not working in GW2) at a later time more people will try to do different things in AvA, but perhaps zerg will still be the best option. It needs game mechanics to disable zerg tactics, so huge advantages if not only 200v200 are fighting all the time. GW2 has plenty of secondary goals in WvWvW, but nobody cares really, as just mowing the lawn is pretty enough the be successful.

Thrones will not be held by a guild, they will be held by structured consortiums of guilds with coordinated pvp forces.

I don't think zergs will be all that effective in capturing all the keeps, a lot of zergers seem to attack one keep, overwhelm and capture it, they run straight to the next one leaving the keep they just captured nearly empty.
Any good group of PvPers would take avantage of that and just retake the keep when the Zerg moves on.

You hope this or you believe in this or what's the background of your assumption, Heisenberg?

Well, you can expect some time of defense after a turnover, but then the faction that just lost the keep needs time to travel (run, ride) again there, and during this time the zerg is moving getting the next keep. Just look in 3 faction PvP out there and see, what is done there. Also it needs (I'm pretty sure) less defenders than attackers, so leaving some in the keep will be fine as long as the majority moves on for lawn mowing. And if you think it will be different in ESO, please explain why after you've anolyzed the games with 3 factions out there and all there "strategy", "tactic" and secondary pvp goals (which nobody is using)? I would be interested and it would be a pleasure if it will be different in ESO, but I'm not so naive to believe this. I would need a proof why it should be different in ESO - so no advertising, but a proof.

Experience with zergs in DAoC, highly ineffective for long term protracted warfare like this.

Oh also in DAoC it was (depends) possible that zergs are feasible. But, I don't want to argue against this: Let's hope, really, that it will be no suitable "strategy" in ESO. I don't believe in it until I can feel and see it in the game.

if you manages to garter 200 players of various skill and zerg with them it should be an pretty successful strategy.

However if you take one keep and move on to next, at this time the enemy has more people in their keep, they also has people coming overland and hit you from behind perhaps taking out siege equipment and so on. An huge zerg group and some smaller skilled groups would be more effective, guard your back, distract or hit enemy from behind.

Not all zergs are just mindless ppl running from point a to b to c. From my experience in DAoC running with one of the alliance zergs was very succesful. The thing is though that most all of us were in vent had balanced groups and listened to the person leading. Groups would break off when needed as in taking all four towers of a keep at the same time. Stealthers feeding info from choke points and boat drop off points etc. our alliance BG would work with the other alliance BG and some of the 8 mans to coordinate attacks or attack something we never intended to take. All kinds of tactics ppl CAN use. It's just now basically what tactics ppl WILL use.

Guilds or I guess Zergs, if I have this right, small, medium and largish groups, will make up the units of the army. They are self forming and I guess real command is in getting these groups to work as a team. That seems to be a bit of a problem and I wonder how this, unified command of the entire force, could be achieved, or if it is even possible.

Certainly a well led army composed of most of the groups doing PvP in a faction would dominate a less organized faction, or so it seems.

That sir, is not a zerg

A zerg uses numbers and not strategy to win.

Yeh this, most Zerg groups don't talk to each other and just follow the person at the front to the next keep, since it's AvAvA, one alliance could wait for a Zerg group to take a keep, move on to the next place then come in and take that keep.

Even though it isn't the generic Zerg that plagues other MMOs such as GW2 it was still labeled as such. Fairly or not the same will happen to any large group of ppl that PvP together in ESO. By the uninformed of course but never the less it will still happen.

My main...not really a concern. Maybe what's nagging at me (besides the wife) is how long will it take for the campaigns to settle in with that set group of guilds where we can have these great back and forth battles for days and days. That and the fact that I could play all day Saturday in PvP log off to go to the store or whatever then come back and not be able to get into my campaign because now its full. That would really piss me off.

Don't forget we now will have to repair whatever damage we cause to the keeps after taking them. I hope that cuts down on the keep to keep to keep Zerg.

If your current strategy isn't to take the keep, but to hit the opposition financially...

Raze it to the ground and walk away.

True.

Either way this form of PvP is going to be really interesting, given we'll be fighting mostly the same people throughout the campaign, some fierce rivalries are bound to form.

Correct

If a well coordinated group of players is successful than - I guess - nobody will complain. But if a random zerg group (so only numbers count) is also successful, than this is an issue. And unfortunately in most of the large scale PvP games out there (also the one's with 3 faction PvP) that's simple enough. So ESO has to proof that it's not working there, as all other things (resource supply, repair costs, ...) is also included in other 3-faction games (so for instance taking the economy/finanicial area into account - that's nothing new guys).

This is so true. Also the inter-faction rivalries between guilds for "top dog" status. I think it will be glorious. Can't wait.

What other 3 way PvP game makes you repair after taking a keep? The best of all 3-way PvP games didn't. Only if you defended the keep did you have to repair it.

Really asking as I haven't played GW2 or ps2.

As an Alliance the Emperor needs to have access to the guild leaders. So the guild leaders need to be in Emperor vent and guild vent simultaneously. The Emperor can then communicate with the guild leaders who will then communicate with the raid or guild. Not only does this keep the pvssyr down it also protects vital intel from spies. The emperor will need raid teams, sabotage teams, and small armies for reinforcement and taking less guarded keeps. The guild I'm in intends to be a sabotage team, a small, tight, and highly specialized team for those missions the emperor needs done fast and quiet. In the end we need not just emperors but generals. The emperor leads the generals and the generals lead a force composed of specialized guild alliances. ...Also as a raid we need buffers, not just heals and dps.

This is going to be a two front battle and those are tough to win. I really doubt anyone will be able to push both sides simultaneously to both scrolls, but what you can do is deceive the enemy. If the Ebonhearts push into Aldemeri's border with Daggerfall and take those keeps they can change the face of the battle. If the Ebons hold the keep against the Aldmeri but abandon it to the daggerfall then it will cause a skirmish between the Daggerfall and the Almeri, from which the Ebonheart heart can then push into the Daggerfall flank on the Ebonheart border. Effectively giving the Daggerfalls a two front war. At that point you push hard for those scrolls while fighting a single front war against an opponent fighting a two front war.

As the Ebonhearts If you have the numbers you can push both borders halfway into both alliances, then remove your forces from Almeri lands to reinforce the armies against the daggerfall alliance. You will be fighting a single front war against the daggerfall with better numbers while the Almeri will be preoccupied retaking their lands.

At any rate I think the strategy will be in keeping your alliance in a single front war instead of a two front war. Making it to a single front war is going to take great communication, immediate response and guilds that are team players. The alliance that cant get their guilds to work together is the alliance that will fail. You can also verbally ally with an alliance but I don't think that will happen unless the numbers get real bad.

Nah, more like the faction who manages to get the most people to login at 3:00 AM.

My experience has been that after 6 years of DAOC, PVP guilds will use Zergs as the distraction to capture strategically important keeps... Enemy factions are dealing with the zerg and if that wasn't bad enough you have a well coordinated 8-12 people hitting you from the far left.

Enemy force has to honor that guild's advance, once they do that. Another group (8-12) players can attack on other key targets.

Goal would be to keep defensive numbers relatively low in the keeps you're really wanting to capture. That way you can bust through the front door and claim your keep.

Keeping enemy players stuck beside the transit portals will be your best friend. They can't defend because they don't know which keep to defend.

To counter that, you will have well coordinated groups in the enemy faction too. Makes for hella fun group on group fighting

Sigh, yeah your right, I forgot about that. The old night ninjas, man I hated that. Maybe they could scale the elder scroll keep guards with some regen to require X amount of dps. Or maybe they are already too tough for a night ninja, here's to hoping. Hopefully, if the game is international enough we can rely on the sunny side of earth to be fighting the good fight while we rest for the fight tomorrow.