Quote Originally Posted by allfathersgodi
I've been thinking about it and I can only surmise that an MP faction would be boring and based on Western European factions whose historical style of combat was much more attritional then the Russian, Mongolian and Muslim maneuver style of warfare.

I do not like the idea. But if there was a historical faction like this, I do not see why it cannot be put into the game.
I think you're missing the point. With a single faction balanced for multiplayer you could build either a slow heavily armored army or a fast lightly armored army. You could also build an army that was a combination of both. Attrition and maneuver would both be important, but would vary in relative importance depending of the type of army you chose. You could win with any of these armies if you used them properly and played better than your opponent.

Such a faction is not an historical faction. It's a faction that actually enhances the gameplay to something more than can be achieved with strictly historical factions. You can't depend on superior combat power to win because you don't have superior combat power than your opponet. You're only going to win by maneuvering better than your opponent so that you get the better unit matchups be it a melee matchup or a ranged matchup. This requires that the player have a good grasp of how each unit is going to perform and use each unit individually. (Using each unit individually isn't possible if the gameplay is too fast.) Ideally, this should be highly intuitive and not require anyone to "study stats". Only then can the player free himself of confusion and play the battle at a strategic level where the superior plan wins provided it's executed properly (tactically correct execution). Only then can a beginner pick an army and not be at an immediate combat power disadvantage compared to a veteran player.

Since the game has a rock, paper, scissors gameplay there will exist highly effective counterarmies to unbalanced armies. You aren't prevented from taking an unbalanced army to catch your opponent off guard, but, if you became too predictable, you will probably be facing the counterarmy more often than not. This guarantees variety in the armies that players choose. Upgrades are ok, but not if they are so powerful that they break the rock, paper, scissors, and not if the cost of those upgrades is calculated incorrectly. The upgrades are too powerful and/or the cost is not calculated properly in all versions of Total War to date. Creative Assembly seems incapable of getting this right.

The reduction in unit size and combat cycles to resolve combat is an example of taking the game in a direction which increases the luck factor in outcome of the battle. Some luck factor is good, but too much is bad because it undermines good strategic and tactical play. The gameplay didn't need a higher luck factor than the already considerable one present in STW and MTW.

Battlefield upgrades are bad for multiplayer because they alter a unit's performance as the battle progresses. We saw 4 man cav units beating 30+ man anti-cav infantry units in MTW because of the battlefield upgrades. This is not intuitive, and undermines a player's ability to make the correct decisions. LongJohn, who designed the battle engine, agreed with us and removed battlefield upgrades in MTW/VI. For some unfathomable reason they are back in RTW.

It's not necessary to use a single faction to achieve this higher level of gameplay in multiplayer as the DUXmod for MTW/VI and other mods such as the Comminity mod for MTW/VI demonstrate. However, Creative Assembly has demonstrated that they will not balance the multitude of units and factions which they have introduced into the game to the extent necessary for the gameplay to achive the highest level of quality. Players who are used to the imbalanced gameplay of the official versions after original STW, don't realize how much better the gameplay can be. This isn't a question of adapting to the gameplay of the official releases. The talented players of the past could adapt, but why play an inferior game to that which they played 5 years ago namely original STW? It wasn't perfect but it was good, and it was Creative Assembly who set that standard of gameplay.