Maybe this is against Empire rather than for it.

Could we have another entrance in and out of the Imperial City? Make it so it's not exactly easy, but at least characters would have a choice. The bottleneck with only one access in and out coupled with centurions is pretty nasty. I'm not looking for a cakewalk, but at least throw this idea a bit of consideration.

My proposal is to have some sort of cavern chute (think of crawling through like other underdark parts) leading out the western side either to 1) the lower parts of Mortorn to then go into the underdark, 2) straight to the underdark, or 3) to have the chute drop them out somewhere into the underdark sea (this one is my favorite and the area could use a bit more traffic). Just imagine them falling through this chute, tumbling around, and finally being dropped with a big splash into the norecall waterway of the underdark sea. Pretty treacherous. But having these crazy ambushes in tight spots, water areas, and norecall areas sure would make for some interesting dramatized logs.

I'd like to see this made into a two-way road, though, (must fly to go up but not down) that way a couple sneaky Ragers or Outlanders could ambush the vanquisher, bypassing the centurions placed at the entrane of the imperial lands and finally throwing some surprise into raiding Empire.

Worth a shot. What do you guys think?

Presumably, Empire would switch over to placing Centurions at the entrance to the Palace instead of the entrance to the Lands. That being the case, do you think much would change?

Actually, if I recall, the Imperial Lands are more "city" and not roads, so cannot be Centurion'd. Also, even if they put centurions outside the palace, there's two benefits still.

1) Less warning time for Empire. Yes, they can still put them right outside palace, and outside other entrance..but it's something.

2) Probably the more helpful one...it becomes much harder to trap people inside the Imperial lands. At least with the way in blocked, you have an escape. There's nothing worse than being a rager, or running out of teleport/word potions (though this is more often when I'm being stubborn and refusing to prep gather well enough after a death)...then ending up trapped with no escape.

Personally, I'd be happy if the centurion payments were just dropped somewhat (or allow them to take multiple items at once for payment). With the economy changes, I find it generally difficult to gather ~13k in copper, or harder in the value of one item just to pass. Much less pass 2 (coming in and out), or even 4 (given the typical double centurions in balator + Imperial lands) times.

Of course...I was damned excited when we had KoR and Balator Fields added so that you didn't have ALL of Imperial Lands, and Balator to run before you couldtake an alternative route.