I think modders were waiting for the 'full release' so the game would be stable but since nothing changed with updates breaking the mods after full release modding didn't really pick up. There are still total conversions being worked on though, like In Hoc Signo Vinces, In the Name of Jerusalem II, there's also stuff like the 'Europe' map, Calradia Expanded and other cool mods. They can be difficult to find though.
It would be good if things like this happened due to the traits of the army commanders and the actual circumstances of the campaigns, like one commander outsmarting another or one army having better scouts, but that's not the case. Last time I played an army I was in defeated an enemy army which had just captured a castle before it could enter the castle, there were zero troops in the garrison, instead of taking the castle back with zero effort the army I was art of decided to go and besiege another settlement halfway across the world. Doesn't make any sense. Things like that happen a lot.
So is this an intentional thing then?
Ah okay. So no wonder people don't know about it, it hasn't gone stable yet
Yeah this has been a problem on several of the valley maps since 2020.
This can actually kill NPCs as well.
Are you sure? I've never been able to control what is built when defending a settlement I own.
By that reasoning there should only be one race/ethnicity/skin colour in the game. I mean people can still go around executing all non-white characters or whatever.
That isn't what that means. Male NPCs wearing dresses has been a bug since 2020. That patch note just meant that dresses would no longer clip when a male character is put in a dress - if the player wanted to do that.