Yea it would be weird that they could taken the Castrum and still we dont have an open path to Ala M'higo
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http://i58.tinypic.com/11ih4sy.png
If you look out of Monument tower at the direction of the Castrum (red arrow on image) you can see it lines up with that little spot of land from the 1.0 Western Highlands (circled in red). Now I didn't play 1.0 long enough to pay attention to what this area was, but maybe someone who did can shed some light on it.
I think that area is Falcon's Nest, there's a Coerthas map here that is clearer. So it's possible the Garlean's took over that area in the chaos following Dalamud's fall.
On the subject of Falcon's Nest, what was exactly in the area. I don't remember visiting it in 1.0. If we know what was there then we can figure out what made them interested in basing in that particular point outside of isolation for a gate.
Yes, but the attack happened when they were at Silvertear lake by the looks of it. Don't know whether they were attack before that or not.
But if you want other options, they don't need to fly over either Coerthas or Dravania or Mor Dhona to get there, although that would be one hell of a detour. Or they could have always sailed there from Vylbrand. No idea what the Coerthas coast looks like though.
I've never been there back in v1's alpha, dont even know if you could access it back then but I think besides a few lakes there are no coasts in westhighlands
The Falcon and Owl's nests had various Ishgardian NPCs. There was also the "shephard" guild icon. One also had a female NPC who talked about "ladies of Ishgard taming beasts and using them as pets."
As for the Castrum there's no information yet sadly, hopefully we'll get to the Western Highlands of Coerthas someday and hopefully Nidhogg appears soon. The island in the lake was clearly a reference to him "The Dreaming Dragon."
I never played 1.0 so I have no idea what the west highlands map looked like, but the official art of the Eorzea worldmap shows that Coerthas has a coast. And if the map is anything to go by the land flattens near the coast and there is some sort of river delta. Some nice people have deciphered the writing there and it looks like it says "Yafaem Saltmoor ".
Looking at the old west Coerthas Higlands map there are definitely some rivers and lakes but it looks like we are not far enough to reach the flats before the coast yet. None the less, Coerthas has a coast and they could have entered the west highlands from there. There is a Castrum in Eastern La Noscea after all, so all they would have to do is cross the Strait of Melthor.
based on wikia, it looks the same..
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/G...rlean_Base.jpg
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...rlean_Base.jpg