Ever since the newest update the early game has become borderline painful to get through, especially on higher difficulties. The new "balancing" seems to just mean every enemy can perfectly telegraph your attacks, so unless you have better equipment or stats than them any fight feels completely broken. Enemy looters can now perfectly block nearly every attack unless otherwise distracted, and don't even get me started on how crossbowmen have become the ultimate infantry units. It's made tournaments just into a game of who has the best armor and shield (which was bad enough before) since the enemy all seem to have the exact same combat AI now.

Now the only thing that matters in the game are stats, not how you play. It feels like a huge regression into how the game felt back in pre release, and a million little new features won't matter if they continue ruining the actual core gameplay.

Edit: Well this is getting an annoying amount of comments, instead of replying to them all I'll just put my two cents in here. My issue isn't just that "it's hard", I don't like how the AI for various troop types seem to be becoming more similar. I don't like that crossbowmen respond the exact same as high tier infantry with the only difference being their speed due to skill level. Have fun commenting below.

Edit 2: This post was also a rant with hyperbole, I didn't mean for it to get traction or be taken very serious. This was my folly, and I'll fall on my sword.