Hi everyone, only got this game this weekend but i'm addicted  . I like the gameplay and the empire building and find the game somewhat challenging.

Now, here a few thoughts about the game from what i seen so far (i'm quite far in my second game and keeping up with the AI on the challenging setting):

Defending cities:

I feel that part of the game is quite borked currently. It's very hard to keep troops where they are needed, and when you do have them keep them up-to-date. Militias, while they improve in damage potential, are attrocious because they are slow and don't use any armor. It's also silly they are outfitted with club/hammer weapons, i think it would be more fitting if they used lances or sword/shields instead (something more fitting for throw-away troops). Would be nice also if all the troops improvements affected the militias in town, making it more worthwhile to build those improvements even if you don't plan to make troops there.

Maybe there could be several types of militias:

Sword militias: Leather armor and sword, some bonuses to initiative. 

Sword/shield militias: Leather armor and shield + sword.

Spear Militias: Leather armor + Spear.

Archers Militias: no change there.

Crossbow Militias: When you get those...

Weapons:

Being somewhat knowledgable about weapons, i find it a bit sad the in game counterparts aren't used in a similar way to the real life ones. For example hammers were mainly used against armored opponents as they were much more effective at piecing/denting armor. Swords on other hands were more common/easier to make and much more effective at swatting lightly/non armored foes (quicker to swing, lighter to carry around). Spears/pikes, while they could be effective against armored enemies, were much more useful against mounted enemies (long reach, could impale the horse or it's rider). Axes were the middleground between swords and hammers... Oh and the bows and crossbows. Bows were much quicker to use, but required more skills to use (thus were less accurate), but could throw a lot of arrows at enemies. Crossbows on other hand were easier to use, and far more deadly (knights in full armor could be dropped by a peasant with a crossbow), but firerate was slow and range shorter than bows because bolts were much heavier.  

I think it could help immersion if the weapons were rebalanced in that regard.

Hammer: Less effective against lightly armored troops (easier to dodge their blow when not wearing combersome armor). That would help making lightly armored units more viable when heavier weapons are becoming more common. Maybe the initiative difference between the attacker and the target could be added to dodge, while heavier armor would reduce it.

Swords: Those weapons should be good at hitting lighter amored foes but less effective against high armor enemies (armor were made to protect against those).

Axes: Middleground, less accurate than swords, but also more damaging.

Spears: Add a bonus against mounted units for all the variant. Would be nice if they also had more reach, like 2 squares, but less effective when up close (this would make them more useful when in second line, behind shield troops).

Bows: Reduce the initiate penalty. Bows could have a "rain of arrows" special attack that could shower and area with arrows. Oh and set an appropriate range to them (like 6-12-18 depending on variant).

Crossbows: Give them an armor piercing effect and an accuracy bonus (would make them way more useful as well late game), but keep them slower than bows. Range could be 5-9 depnding on variant.

Besides that i think it's alright so far.

Is it something that can be modded?