I would not play this game without mods.
Mods give some quality to it, enable very basic things one would expect, would hope, a game like this has. IMHO the game is unfinished, lacking in features and basic quality of life, big time.
Mods have unfortunately ruined my games, with game breaking conflicts and stability issues. I don't know if they are an answer, maybe eventually, I hope so, but at the moment I'm frustrated. However, I still rather play with mods (before a game breaking conflict ends it), than the skeleton of a game vanilla Bannerlord is.
Well, battles are pretty fun, even without mods. It is not a good strategy game, though. It's a few days fun game, but leaves me hungry and dissatisfied. I enjoyed Warband more. It had more interesting battle maps too. I was hoping Bannerlord improved from Warband, but no.
During my first week of playing I would have given it 3 or 4 stars out of 5. But as I learn more, now I would give 2 stars out of 5.
Below the most important mods for me, if no game breaking mod-conflicts. These are quality of life mods, not giving content to the game.
Detailed Character Creation (DCC),
Character Manager,
Character Reload,
Custom Troop,
Improved Garrisons,
RecruitEveryone,
BUTR's Player Switcher,
GT_MegabodyBB. (A mod without which Aserai sultan's life has no point.)
I'm also going to try No Fief Elections If You Are King, because that fief election feature really irritates me.