Quote Originally Posted by SoxSexSax
Factions may be "balanced", but only because every faction has basically the same unit selection.

The french have longbows. Are you taking the piss CA?

The english have 2 units of spearmen with IDENTICAL stats, negating the 4 unit max rule entirely.

Not to mention 3 different types of footknight, with just 1 stat point between them.

Not to mention 4 different types of cavalry with just 1 stat point between them.

So balanced it may be. Interesting? Not really.
That's a good observation. The battle system is limited in the number of units it can differentiate in terms of combat capability. In the old engine, the dynamic range of the melee combat points is -20 to +20, but the usable range is more like -2 to +8 and you need a difference of at least 2 points to differentiate one unit from another in melee combat. That gives you 6 places on the scale to place melee units. The new engine increased the dynamic range to -64 to + 64 but reduced the size of the steps on the scale to half which helps when balancing the units, but only slightly increased the number of places on the scale for melee units. There is a new parameter in the new engine called lethality which could provide an additional way to differentiate melee units as long as it doesn't simply muddle the difference between the units. You have to have clearly differentiated units each serving a unique purpose for rich tactical gameplay to exist. If instead you put in lots of units with minimal differentiation between them, the differences are swamped out by the uncertainty of the combat calculation, and no one can make intelligent tactical decisions when the result is highly random. Numerous decisions were made by Creative Assembly in the design of the new battle engine which increased the randomness of the combat results, and this has detracted from the tactical gameplay.