Quote Originally Posted by allfathersgodi
Hmm, the Danes, the Sicilians, the Byzantines and other Factions historically had major disadvantages and weaknesses. I am not sure what you mean by balance, but I enjoy using a weaker faction against a stronger faction, say the Sicilians against the Byzantines, or a small force of good units against a larger force of good units.

I don't like balance or an even playing field, I like to win when statistically I should loose. There should be another option in MP, random mode, where the computer picks an army for you and you got to play that army.

Something else, Fog of War. I can only see what all of my units can see... and if a unit gets its LOS with the General cut off, I cannot command it...
Balance is the thing that is required that makes the game impartial, so that any faction you choose should theoretically not place you at a disadvantage. This becomes increasingly difficult the more factions and units are introduced. Without balance MP suffers. It is and always has been, possible to defeat more than one army through tactical skill, however this becomes less possible when there are obvious strong and weak factions. Sure, you can still beat a strong faction with a weak one but against a player of equal or better ability this is not going to be the case. Regardless of whether we play for fun, we want an equal chance of victory and balance is the defining factor in achieving this.
One thing that has not been mentioned in this thread is army cost. STW was created with a target of 5000 koku per army. Of course this does not stop people using higher or lower but it does affect the balance because each upgrade increment has to be calculated correctly to maintain the original ideal. With the introduction of weapon and armour upgrades, this has not proven to be the case and if you add factions that are weaker than others into this equation, the game becomes a mess.
The conclusion has to be ...
A: Programmers spend the necessary time to make sure that MP is balanced.
B: A desired army cost is applied to ensure that balance is maintained.
The likelihood of getting the above is quite slim and I think NC can see that too, which is why he has asked for a MP specific faction so that we can return to the days when victory lay solely in the tactical skill of the player

.......Orda