History Main / ChokepointGeography

* On a more tactical level, Thermopylae Pass was what allowed a severely outnumbered Greek army to hold up and inflict severe losses on the invading Persians during the second invasion of Greece before being overrun, buying enough time for Athens to be evacuated before the Persians could capture it. The pass being so narrow in an era where most combat was hand-to-hand meant that the Persians could not capitalize on their superior numbers. This tactic was repeated a few meters and about 2400 years by ANZAC troops in WorldWarII during the Nazi invasion of Greece, buying enough time for Allied units to withdraw.

* On a more tactical level, Thermopylae Pass was what allowed a severely outnumbered Greek army to hold up and inflict severe losses on the invading Persians during the second invasion of Greece before being overrun, buying enough time for Athens to be evacuated before the Persians could capture it.

* The Fulda Gap gained strategic relevance during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Thanks to geography, NATO planners saw three plausible avenues of attack for a potential Warsaw Pact ground invasion - the North Germany Plain along the coast, the Fulda Gap cutting through the middle of West Germany, and up the Danube River through Austria. An attack through the Fulda Gap would have been more difficult for tanks compared to the North German Plain, but the heart of both the US military's operations (Rhein-Main Air Base) and West Germany's financial center (Frankfurt) would be right in this path. Consequently, both sides allocated considerable resources to this area until TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

With that principle in mind, the world map will be [[LawOfCartographicalElegance designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

** It's even worse with the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Winged Elf]] race. [[CaptainObvious This race has wings]], so now all that's guiding you is a yellow arrow if you decide to fly there. Granted, all characters get flight at level 30, so everyone has this problem.

* A variation occurs in many RealTimeStrategy games, where the map is often a square shape and units cannot exit the map to circle around. Similarly, forests (or other large swathes of resources), rather than being treated as rough terrain, are often obstacles...as long as they're still standing. This can lead to interesting moments when a less-experienced player will set up his base to defend via chokepoints created by trees...only to be rather screwed later in the mission when his worker units have removed all the chokepoints.
** This trope occasionally pops up in TurnBasedStrategy games, most notoriously the ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'' series, where a one-tile pass can be completely choked off by placing a ''fighter jet'' on the open tile. If the enemy force has no units which can attack a fighter, you've effectively created an unassailable buttplug that breaks the map in your favor.

* Used occasionally in ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'', but downplayed or subverted as often as it's played straight thanks to TacticalRockPaperScissors. For example, "shallow water" tiles will heavily slow most units down as well as inflict a stiff penalty to their defence stat while "deep water" is largely impassible, forcing you to fight for control of single hex-wide "bridge" tiles... unless you have access to flying units or [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent merfolk]] (who actually get a terrain ''bonus'' from water tiles). Some Undead-faction units like zombies or skeletons can also use "deep water" tiles to become invisible thanks to their "Submerge" trait (which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin), but this doesn't come up much in campaigns because it'd be a huge GameBreaker.

* In order to not break the game's sequence, in ''VideoGame/BaldursGate II'' you start in Waukeen's Promenade and ''have'' to go to the Slums next, where you meet a representative of the Shadow Thieves who offers to help you and gives you a goal to shoot for this chapter. From the Slums, no matter which way you exit, you can suddenly go anywhere in the city.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': Conde Petie, the dwarf home situated on two roots of the Iifa tree spanning a chasm between a large plateau and the mountains, blocks passage to the Iifa Tree and Madain Sari, the village of the summoners. Note that the various Gates (South Gate, etc.) are not examples of this since, while they regulate passage through the mountains, they do not involve stairs or narrow areas that would prevent vehicular transportation. Gizamaluke's Grotto on the other hand, would.

* This is justified in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind''. The only way into the Blight is through an inn/barracks/base filled with soldiers. It makes sense, because it's stopping the blight getting out. However, you can freely hover over the wall at any point if you have a levitate spell, which can be learned very early in the game. You don't even actually have to go inside the building; you just have to hit a couple of buttons to open the gate.

** The Mohawk Valley in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState upstate New York]] was a vital target for both the British and the French during the SevenYearsWar, serving as one of the only easy ways to get from the East Coast to the Midwest. French control would've heavily restricted the growth of Britain's northern colonies, while British control would've confined France to Canada.[[note]]It wound up being a moot point anyway, as France lost all of her mainland North American colonies, Canada included, at the end of the war.[[/note]] Years later, in peacetime, it became a key factor in the state of New York's economic growth; at one point nearly 80% of American exports went through UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity because of the Erie Canal running through the valley, connecting the Midwest to the Hudson River.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': Conde Petie, the dwarf home situated on two roots of the Iifa tree spanning a chasm between a large plateau and the mountains, blocks passage to the Iifa Tree and Madain Sari, the village of the summoners. Note that the various Gates (South Gate, etc.) are not examples of this since, while they regulate passage through the mountains, they do not involve stairs or narrow areas that would prevent vehicular transportation.
** Gizamaluke's Grotto on the other hand, would.

** ''FinalFantasyXII'', thanks to an MMORPG-like overworld, it takes very long time to reach your ''real'' destinations marked on the map. Most dungeons - whether they are plains, mountains, beaches, forests, or caves - are just there [[FakeLongevity to extend the amounts of running, fighting and minor cutscenes]].

* This is justified in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind''. The only way into the Blight is through an inn/barracks/base filled with soldiers. It makes sense, because it's stopping the blight getting out.
** However, you can freely hover over the wall at any point if you have a levitate spell, which can be learned very early in the game. Elder scrolls games generally avert this trope, you can generally travel freely over the game's area without any restrictions.
** Plus you don't actually have to go inside the building, you just have to hit a couple of buttons to open the gate.
** Shows up in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' in the Planes of Oblivion, where getting to the central towers often requires going through a series of caves filled with monsters or in a looping path around the rocks at the edge of the map. [[note]]In theory: these areas are [[SequenceBreaking incredibly breakable]] though.[[/note]] Mankind is not privy to the details of how you'd actually launch an invasion from these supposed military installations.

** [[UsefulNotes/{{Panama}} The Panama Canal]].

** ''FinalFantasyXII'', thanks to an MMORPG-like overworld, most dungeons - whether they are plains, mountains, beaches, forests, or caves - are just there [[FakeLongevity to extend the amounts of running, fighting and minor cutscenes]].

** ''FinalFantasyXII'', thanks to an MMORPG-like overworld, most of the dungeons - whether they are plains, mountains, beaches, forests, or caves - are just there [[FakeLongevity to extend the amounts of running, fighting and minor cutscenes]].

** ''FinalFantasyXII'', thanks to an MMORPG-like overworld, most of the dungeons - whether are plains, mountains, beaches, forests, or caves - are just there [[FakeLongevity to extend the amounts of running, fighting and minor cutscenes]].

** ''FinalFantasyXII'', where forests, beaches, and cave are just there to [[FakeLongevity extend the amounts of running, fighting and minor cutscenes.]]

[[AC: RealLife]]
* TruthInTelevision, especially before the invention of air travel and still relevant in the maritime business. Specific examples:
** The Strait of Hormuz, which separate the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf (with major oil fields) - sink a couple of vessels (or toss some mines) in there and you seriously damage the global economy as 20% of the world's oil passes through it annually.
** The Suez Canal was blocked for several years following the Six Day War of 1967. For a more recent example that hits nerds closer to home, [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4070755.stm an accident in the Suez Canal in 2004 blocked a shipment of Playstation 2's heading for the UK holiday season.]]
** The Khyber Pass, since time immemorial a chokepoint connecting Central Asia to South Asia.
** [[UsefulNotes/{{Panama}} The Panama Canal]].
** Singapore, a major sea transit hub in South-East Asia. It's basically filthy rich just from harbor taxes alone. The Malacca Strait in general sees huge amounts of maritime trade (pirates are ever-present threat), which is why China is funding the development of the new Kra Canal in Thailand.
** Gibraltar and its namesake Strait, as it connects the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. British control of it since the early 18th Century allowed it to exercise control over the trade through it and helps bottle up any potential invasion fleet from there sailing on the Isles.
** The Bosporus and Dardenelles. [[IstanbulNotConstantinople Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul]]'s location as a crossroads of trade both over land and by sea made it a very lucrative trading destination through history. Militarily, it also allowed its owner to severely restrict other countries' power projection. The current [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreaux_Convention Montreaux Convention]] governs what Turkey can and cannot do in regards to other nations' ships passing through - during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the US-allied government often used those terms to largely keep the Soviet Black Sea fleet within the Black Sea and not out in the eastern Mediterranean.
*** The Soviets, in turn, got around these legal restrictions with some [[LoopholeAbuse very creative totally-not-an-aircraft-carrier designs]].[[note]]The obstacle of being unable to get significant numbers of ships into the Mediterranean remained, though.[[/note]] They also turned the legal blockage back on the US on occasion - since the treaty stipulates a limit on the total amount of tonnage that can traverse the strait at a given moment, the Soviets would often just leave a ship there in mid-transit to prevent the US or other NATO ships from using it to get a ship into the Black Sea, effectively turning it into a Warsaw Pact lake.
* The GIUK ('''G'''reenland, '''I'''celand, '''U'''nited '''K'''ingdom) gap in the North Atlantic was a key consideration in warplanning for both UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo and a speculative WorldWarThree for the British and later the Americans. Control of this gap (combined with British control of Gibraltar) meant that supplies and manpower from the US could traverse the Atlantic relatively safely to the UK or Western Europe - they could still be harrassed (as happened in World War Two) but large-scale interdiction by hostile powers would be nigh-impossible.
* The Fulda Gap gained strategic relevance during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Thanks to geography, NATO planners saw three plausible avenues of attack for a potential Warsaw Pact ground invasion - the North Germany Plain along the coast, the Fulda Gap cutting through the middle of West Germany, and up the Danube River through Austria. An attack through the Fulda Gap would have been more difficult for tanks compared to the North German Plain, but the heart of both the US military's operations (Rhein-Main Air Base) and West Germany's financial center (Frankfurt) would be right in this path. Consequently, both sides allocated considerable resources to this area until TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

** The Bosporus and Dardenelles. [[IstanbulNotConstantinople Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul]]'s location as a crossroads of trade both over land and by sea made it a very lucrative trading destination through history. Militarily, it also allowed its owner to severely restrict other countries' power projection. The current [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreaux_Convention Montreaux Convention]] governs what Turkey can and cannot do in regards to other nations' ships passing through - during the ColdWar the US-allied government often used those terms to largely keep the Soviet Black Sea fleet within the Black Sea and not out in the eastern Mediterranean.

* The GIUK ('''G'''reenland, '''I'''celand, '''U'''nited '''K'''ingdom) gap in the North Atlantic was a key consideration in warplanning for both WorldWarTwo and a speculative WorldWarThree for the British and later the Americans. Control of this gap (combined with British control of Gibraltar) meant that supplies and manpower from the US could traverse the Atlantic relatively safely to the UK or Western Europe - they could still be harrassed (as happened in World War Two) but large-scale interdiction by hostile powers would be nigh-impossible.
* The Fulda Gap gained strategic relavence during the ColdWar. Thanks to geography, NATO planners saw three plausible avenues of attack for a potential Warsaw Pact ground invasion - the North Germany Plain along the coast, the Fulda Gap cutting through the middle of West Germany, and up the Danube River through Austria. An attack through the Fulda Gap would have been more difficult for tanks compared to the North German Plain, but the heart of both the US military's operations (Rhein-Main Air Base) and West Germany's financial center (Frankfurt) would be right in this path. Consequently, both sides allocated considerable resources to this area until TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

!Examples:

* Subverted in [[PerfectWorld Perfect World]]. Usually, the only thing leading you to your next destination is a small path and a yellow arrow. This has led to certain new players ending up in places inhabited by [[BeefGate level 50 or higher enemies.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{World of Warcraft}}'' has this in Azeroth, where different areas are usually connected only at specific points, with the rest of the border blocked by impassable mountains. Averted in Outland and Northrend when you get a flying mount, when you can fly anywhere you like.
** For ''Cataclysm'', Azeroth has been redesigned for full freedom, too. However, you can only learn flight at level 60, by which point you're done with questing in the old world anyway.

* Subverted in [[PerfectWorld Perfect World]]. Usually, the only thing leading you to your next destination is a small path and a yellow arrow. This has led to certain new players ending up in places inhabited by level 50 or higher enemies.

** [[UsefulNotes/Panama The Panama Canal]].