Re: Faerun.
 

I don't really have that much in depth knowledge about faerun (I have a copy of baldur's gate 2... that's about it), but my first instinct would be to go either political or factional. Perhaps both actually. Deity based doesn't really make sense and would probably never work.

Remember that most of the inhabitants of the world are human, and while there are differences between them I don't there would be a huge difference in the kind of troops available for the most part. You could probably come up with a fairly generic mega-roster and give some of the units to some nations and not others. For non-humans it would probably be a bit more work, but I think you should probably avoid these at least for a little while if you are going to do it. I would also highly advise you NOT try to make all ages, that would take far too much work and I'm not sure how sensible you could make it. Doing it all in LA makes sense to me.

I would consider making some of the stronger factional units into summons, probably as national spells for the nations that get access to the particular factions.

Re: Faerun.
 

But the player is playing a god. The second good reason for doing it from a deity point of view is i have a set of GFX all ready for flags... for Faerun alone at first.

Also, if I plot the Late Age as the Time of Troubles, the avatars have starting points in the canon. *shrug*

I may include a few pre-built pretender gods although I'm sure I'll need some help drawing a few sprites.

I totally see your point though. Any way I cut it, I lose essential characteristics of the universe of FR. sigh.

Re: Faerun.
 

The player isn't actually technically playing a god, they're playing someone who's trying to become a god. Something more like raistlin, or the events in Throne of Bhaal. You could look at it from the direction of powerful people trying to manipulate the world around them in order to ascend to godhood.

Just a thought.

Re: Faerun.
 

I thought the factions overlapped the territories of the politicals. Im not sure that the Bards would feel right as a separate nation with their own capital and expansion. Maybe you could make YOUR version have the factions aligned with various politicals. That way the unit "bards" might appear with more than one of the nations.