I have done a lot of reading, but not posted much. I find the game very addicting even with all its flaws, but I think the addiction is wearing off because of a lot of the issues.I have played quite a few turns into a new game with the patch from last night and will present where my kingdom stands as we go along here. Note: it took me 3 "starts" before I felt like I had a playable position to start. The first one was in a pile of swamps and the second had almost nothing for resources nearby.

First, 1.08 is a step in the right direction, but also broke a few things and some other things don't seem well thought out. The two common resources that most players are short on every game is food and cash. Materials steel? Painful early, but I don't generally bother building any material producers or working on it from a tech standpoint of view. Same for steel. I have played parts of 10-12 games and have seen less than 20 of the "special metals" total. I have gotten crystals maybe 1/3 of the time if that and I rarely use them since what they are used for is very expensive items, which I don't have the cash to buy now. I have actually been able to use mounts in 1 game. Making merchants eat food just compounds the issues with the shortages in the game and making researchers require maintenance puts a strain on cash as well.

Ok, I picked Tarth. First off, they don't get any type of HP bonus like it says they do. I am on turn 191 on a large map, normal setting.

My science output is 31.9 a turn and 33 arcane a turn. Income to the kingdom is 60.6 a turn with 28.5 going to pay the troops and maintenance.

Pop 1171, Food +21, Material 639, Metals 235. 14 settlements, power rating 162. Other Kingdoms are 38, 71, and 196.

I have pretty much finished off Gilden who was pushing me with their borders, so I basically set up to take them out.

Love the fixes with being able to fix swamps, etc so I can get settlements down next to or close to bonus tiles.

Game stability is better.

Issues I have with 1.08:

Forget researching later weapons. They have all been nerfed. War Hammer, Broad Sword, Battle Axes are all 5 attack. Need to fix that.

Pushing the pricing on Bows to 30 and 40 gold is a nerf and strong discouragement to not use them. Sorry, either put them at reasonable pricing and fix the issues surrounding their use or remove them from the game for now until you get it figured out. 4 bowmen may be very expensive, but they are still very deadly. There are plenty of threads on the topics of bows.

I have seen a kingdom wiped out within 5 turns (got a message). I suspect that they ran into a 13 hp wolf and got their butts kicked. Speaking of 13 hp animals very early in the game, how many peasants would it take to kill one of those? Certainly not going to risk a character trying it.

With the lack of "wild life", experience gaining exercises are kept to a very minimum for new troops and characters. Not sure of the fix there, but character development is one of the fun parts of the game and its fairly stunted right now.

Cash issues are worse without the "monster" economy although the extra mines somewhat compensate. Still, try outfitting a character with any amount of equipment and it takes a ridiculous amount of turns for your kingdom to come up with that money, even without expenses or building anything else. I don't advocate the "monster" economy, but it absolutely had an effect on play to a point, both from an experience point of view and cash. 

I have had two children "come of age" during the game so far. Both sport a 1 overland movement. Ridiculous and with experience hard to get, you can't really fix it.

A this point in the game, even tho I am behind one of the positions, I have no doubt I am going to win this. I have a veteran core of troops now and the ability to concentrate enough troops to defeat the other big player and that is if I don't mop up the other two very weak positions first.

Thanks for your time.