Balance Question and Concern

[happygeek]

Due to time restraints and still generally being a newbie, I have yet to engage in MP, so my knowledge of this comes mostly from my extensive readings of these forums here. By no means exhaustive, I still feel that I have at least a general idea of what to do in an MP situation. And yet I am still hesitant -- not merely due to time restraints and my own feelings of inadequacy. But also, because of the following reason, which I am purposefully overplaying in the hopes of starting a robust critical discussion.

With one big exception, I like SP. (The exception being that the AI cannot hope to compete.) I like SP also because I can play and have fun with my little nations. I feel that this may not be the case if I jump into MP -- because in MP, I see that there are a few (and sadly, only a few) things which always get mentioned as included in any game. ("Tarts", for example.)

Normally, I would call a strategy game (relatively) "broken" if it were to contain elements which *must* be integrated into your strategy in competetive play -- because any option or choice which is a "no-brainer" or whose non-inclusion hampers any other choice / option is not a real option at all.

So I am wondering if I am misunderstanding all of these discussions. If (competetive) MP play is all about controlling more of these few elements than the other people have, wouldn't that make the game dangerously close to being broken? Please show me what I am not understanding. Alternatively, I would also be interested in learning if there is a sub-community dedicated to non-competetive MP, where people will not be dissapointed if less-than-optimized strategies are played for fun's sake. (I am almost certain that, unlike, say, the majority of the Warcraft III community, nobody will scream "You F**kng noob! LOL!" at me for doing something unorthodox in an MP game, but the point is that (1) some orthodoxy, something orthodox exists and can be named as such, and (2) in MP the expectations of the players are high, perhaps due to the amount of commitment a game of Dom3 takes -- compared, at the very least, to a game of Warcraft III.))

I realize that I have not formulated my worries very well; sorry.

Thank you in advance for your constructive responses.