Yes exactly, see my post below from a similar thread recently...
Just knee jerk switching to the low-side isn't necessarily the right move. Often the two low countries are ganging up on the higher #'d country. Say Knights have 100 people and Rooks and Bish each have 75 people. Often , especially on certain maps, the combined 150 Bish & Rooks are almost exclusively arrayed against the 100 Knights, putting them at a crushing disadvantage, so switching off Knights would actually hurt gameplay. So, before you switch, check the map to see how the forces are arrayed. Also, if there are more than 100 people in an arena anything less than 10% variance between #'s has negligible impact on gameplay. Now, if there's less than 100 people in the arena 10% or even less disparity can make a dramatic difference in gameplay.
I have seen squaddies log-in, check country status with 300+ people in the arena, see Rooks have 8 less people than Knights and switch to Rooks, which is just silly from a statistical perspective. Without factoring in how forces are arrayed and understanding the concept of statistical insignificance this kind of move would at best have zero impact on gameplay and could possibly hurt gameplay if forces are arrayed disproportionately, which they almost always are to some degree.
The above example exemplifies one glaring shortcoming of the side balancing measures in place. It doesn't take into account how the forces of each country are arrayed. Just because a team has more people on paper doesn't mean they are not getting tag teamed by the other two simply because they happen to be sitting in the reset corner of a particular map. The opposite can be true too, a team with low #'s in reset corner can be fighting both the two higher number country's forces so their actual numerical disadvantage is much, much worse than the side-balancing measures calculate.
This is when people get really pissed off about the side balancing and ENY stuff. Just last week this happened and it happens all the time. All day Knights had the most #'s, throughout the day they were even penalized by the ENY limiter. But, all day, with the exception of perhaps a dozen Rooks and Bish combined fighting each other off and on, everyone else was fighting Knights. So, in reality they were numerically disadvantaged all day AND getting penalized by the ENY limiter. But, if you checked the Country Status it would look like they had a healthy numbers lead on paper, in reality they were getting swamped and losing bases left and right...So, anyone who switches without examining the map, purely based on the Country Status readout, is deeply flawed and just as likely to do harm as good to overall gameplay...
As a general rule, even without examining the map, if the difference between a given side is less then the average number of idle players not in-flight, you're not accomplishing anything by switching...So, switching can be a huge boon to gameplay if done for the right reason based upon the right information. But, it can also hurt gameplay if done for the right reason but based upon the wrong information. This is especially true for high impact players..those that kill a lot, therefore have a disproportionately higher impact on gameplay balance than your average player.
