In the old lore it was destroyed by the Alliance during the second war (year 6), but after some retcons (Beyond the Dark Portal and Day of the Dragon) everything is unanswered.
In Beyond the Dark Portal (novel) is stated that Alterac was not destroyed but the Alliance imposed martial law. The novels end with no further lore (year 8).
In Day of the Dragon (novel) is stated that, during year 10, the Alliance is still discussing about what to do with the Kingdom. Genn wanted to put Isilden Perenolde (who had taken refuge in Gilneas) in the throne. Again, the novel ends with no further mention of the Kingdom.
Seeing as everything else in the vicinity fell to the Scourge, it’s safe to say that all of the surrounding nations abandoned the Altterac region during the Third War. Real shame too - an evil human kingdom would have been a good addition to WoW.
For what it’s worth, one of the randomly generated Death Knight names in WC3 is Baron Perenolde (also Baroness Perenolde in Reforged). If you take that to be cannon, that would be someone in the Perenolde family casting in their lot with the Scourge.
Retcons make it hard to know what happened. DotD (2001) was released before WoW (2004), which was released before the ToD (2007) and BtdP (2008) novels.
We can probably assume that the structural damage we see in-game was done by Gorefiend and the black dragons, during BtDP. That bit at least was described in Chronicle 2. Chronicle 3 however, does not reference Deathwings involvement in Alterac specifically, instead only his goal of destabilising the Alliance is mentioned.
That said, I think the proposed Calia/Deathwing marriage is still canon, not sure if it’s purpose (to make them the rulers of Alterac) has been changed in the Lore. After that fell through, I can only assume that Lordaeron claimed the villages and farmlands around it, and exiled Perenolde Jr. (who then formed the Syndicate).
@Kurogasa I think that the WC3 map shows it as ‘Alterac Ruins’, which would suggest that it had been abandoned before Arthas’ rampage. Interesting they changed it to Baroness Perenolde tho. The long running theory was that the original Baron Perenolde was Isiden (who’d died when the Scourge attacked Gilneas).
My understanding is it’s not a genderswap so much as there’s now a female equivalent for some heroes (DK’s and DH for now; not sure about other heroes).
Basically what happened is after the second war, the Alliance put its jack boot on Alteracs throat, told its rightful heir that his kingdom would no longer exist, and refused to repair the damaged from the second war and Gorefiends raid.
So then Perenolde Jr. became a bandit lord and started stealing from the Alliance, presumably as some form of vengeance, the Scourge invasion only moderately affected his domain, then we killed him.
My working theory is the Alliance did not take kindly to having Peranolde making a deal with Deathwing to wipe out the Alliance garrison and retaliated harshly against the Alterac nobility.
What damage? Alterac capital was not touched as per Tides of Darkness and it was actually the Alliance forces who were attacked by Gorefiend!
As a kingdom, Alterac effectively ended when the forces of Lordaeron and Stromgarde overthrew Lord Perenolde. However, the Syndicate that arose during the anarchy-filled days after the nation’s dissolution became a politically active as well as militarily forceful entity. Though severed from their snowy heartland, the last of the Alteraci nobility, now leading the Syndicate, has sought to exact its revenge upon its old foe of Stromgarde.
I never actually considered this. It wouldn’t surprise me, the nobility once again attempting to make a deal with the devil (the first being the Horde from ToD). Good food for thought.
Short answer is that we don’t know. There are theories, but no one knows for sure. Same with Stromgarde. We can make educated guesses, but there’s no story or lore source saying definitively what happened. Which is weird, since you’d think after all these years Blizz could at least throw out a paragraph or two in Chronicles saying exactly what happened.
It was mentioned before Vol 1 came out that if there was anything that chronicles left out that came from canon sources, the event(s) in question are still canon. For events that have things like novels, comics, or games. Chronicles just gave you a skeleton retelling of those events. The whole War of the Ancients trilogy was summarized to like 1-2 pages in Vol 1 (excluding new stuff like Elisande and the pillars of creation). And around that same length in Vol 3 which included the whole time travel plot to the event.
So Deathwing attempting to marry Calia in order to gain some political points in order to become the leader of Alterac is still canon.
PvP wise nothing, the Alliance successfully defended it for 100 years I would say.
That said, it was always close and had to be done with Dun Baldr being constantly itself under siege, but more or less, the Alliance won a major battle, while losing Warsong Gulch and other things of course.
Unfortunately… the map of Alteraac doesn’t reaally place the Valley you’re thinking of. That whole area north of Loch Modan is insanely compressed and confused.