That's fine, but it means you can't blame the sheer number of engines on N-1 to its poor performance. There is no law which forbids launching, e.g. Soyuz with 3

That's fine, but it means you can't blame the sheer number of engines on N-1 to its poor performance. There is no law which forbids launching, e.g. Soyuz with 32 working from the start chambers, or Energiya with 20 chambers, or Falcon Heavy with 27 chambers successfully. It's other reasons - maybe computer control (KORD was a complex system to create), maybe metallurgy (even though NK-33, manufactured in ~1973, manage to fly after 40+ years in storage), maybe something else. This is just to compare optimism for heavily multi-engined BFR with suggestions that N-1 was doomed just because of the number of engines.