ORIGINAL: noooooo
You brought up a good point in your AAR. Once multiplayer is introduced everything will become about balance and no matter what happens historicity will have to take a back seat. So there are some (arguably) good sides of a singleplayer only game.
Yes, multiplayer leads toward competitive play, which encourages balance, which generally leads toward a dumbed down 'quick' event. Working against imbalance and pondering at length is the heart of strategy, but has little place in a fair match. Creativity generally takes a back seat to competition.
I've been playing a larger battle. I am about four hours in, slowly advancing upon a fortified line. It's interesting to me because I am constantly adjusting units and slowly inching toward the enemy line. I still haven't taken an objective, although I finally destroyed a pillbox on the outskirts. I can't expect another person to sit there and wait, but the AI is happy to serve as a punching bag.
Honestly, the AI is undoubtedly better than most of the opponents I would encounter in a multiplayer setting. If you can't tell whether you are facing an AI or a human, then what difference does it make?
So far I haven't seen the AI do any of the stupid things that I would associate with 'bad' AI. I would encourage people to play the game as either a defender, facing a very strong attacking force, or as an attacker facing a strong defense. So what if it makes piecemeal attacks - just give it more pieces! It's not at all easy, and although a campaign would be nice, considering that I'm 4 hours into this battle and haven't even started the fighting, I think it's clear that single battles are sufficiently complex. You can muster an entire brigade (reinforced)!
I honestly think that the generated missions kind of miss the mark, and people shouldn't be judging the game based on the fact that many of them are 'easy'. It's not that they are bad, but you can really create your own missions, and that's where the true value of the game is. Find a forest, or a city, or a river, and make a genuine challenge. This game really lets you create something complex, and that's a lot more interesting than just playing another quick match-up in multiplayer.
Would I enjoy multiplayer against another person? Sure, but a large battle would probably never even get finished, so I'd be stuck with relatively small engagements and to keep it fair we would have to agree to a bunch of house rules that completely take the most interesting aspects of the game away.
Has anybody tried using the time phase option to send save games back and forth for PBEM? That might actually work?
