I have a post pretty much exactly like yours just a few threads down from you.
This question probably gets asked a lot (and doesn't get helped that often because of it).
Anyway, I started playing again with Diplomacy. The only bug I've run into so far was how everything on the map disappears (trees and cities), and then the water sometimes turns into the sky, but save/quit and reloading the game seems to fix that (maybe has to be done more than once, or different variations of save/quit, like saving in a town instead of saving outside), and it doesn't happen too often, so it's not that big of a deal.
I like Diplomacy because it doesn't change the game that much, just adds things that I think should have been there in the first place. Like, I think, you're able to start businesses in cities that make some extra money, which really helps cover the cost of troops if you don't want to be a part of a faction at first. Also lets you trade cities/towns with other lords if you are in a faction and they're closer to your main hub (like if I had Ryibelet Castle and wanted Ryibelet village that someone else had, I could trade another town maybe closer to him/farther away from me). They don't always accept that, but it's a nice add. That's all I can really remember right now, since I've mostly just been wandering and leveling up before I help a claimant, and I haven't done much else to explore my options in a long time.