With the Total War engine the possible uses for the terrain allow a defender to hold out against larger attacking armies. This is often seen in the SP portion of the game. This makes for excitiung and fairly realitic battles.
In real life an army mounts an attack because it feels it has the advantage, which is generally numerical. Other advantages may be technological, superior troops, or it simply has the initiative and thinks one more good push can do it. The defender is generaly defending because it is inferior with the amount or quality of troops. It is assinged an area to defend or it simply isn't a good time due to outside factors ie. weather, politics, supplies etc.
However in MP its mostly even teams with equal florins going at each other on a flat, featureless map. This makes it almost even except the defender still posses a small advantage that their ranged units are in place and firing as soon as the opposing force comes into range. What I am advocating is perhaps two on ones with equal florins on a defensivly oreintated map or maybe two on two with the defenders with much less florins. Something along these lines would really flesh out battles and make them more realistic.
Obviously bridge battles would almost certainly be out of the question but an entire host of other exciting options exist. Fair odds would need to be worked out prior to the game to ensure everyone is happy but I feel it would be worth while and interesting. Anyone who would like to give it a shot could e-mail me at FMJ75@mail.com or IM me at Lactas281. I can't host due to my firewall, also if we can get it to work we could put out a few films and maybe shake things up around here. Just for the record I'm not doing real well on the switch to MP and am 0-2 so I obviously I am not great.