I've played the Italian campaign recently with drop-ins enabled. When you enter a battle it doesn't tell you who you're online opponent is, it just says the name of the character in the SP game you are fighting, so there is no sure fire way to tell who your human opponent is. This, in my opinion, is the pinnacle in NTW MP. For one, the armies are based on the SP campaign, and not some yahoo camping out with 8 units of howitzers and rockets. So the players have equal advantage on a strange map with realistic army builds. Secondly, you get to utilize your art of war. There is so much more to being a successful commander than the battle itself and applying your art of war with a MP flavour is the tops. You don't get to make the same kind of headway in the SP game with drop-ins though, but who cares, its way more fun then beating on the poor helpless CPU all night.