Caravan ambushes had never problems in the above mentioned way. Theres no second or third battle following the first encounter.
We are not talking about xp-gain for heroes but for troops.
As a matter of fact, it´s even moving backwards, as old and formerly resolved bugs are back in game or former workarounds don´t work anymore.
Some skills are depending on (high <-- whatever "high" means) morale. Formerly you could at least check your other clan parties morale (and then get angry, because it was allways somewhere around 49/100 and hardly went higher), but now I have no clue at all.
Prison breaks are difficult at the moment, because AI lords don´t put their noble captives into prison for some reason. First and only noble prisoners I recently saw where held in a city that recently revolted.
But often this behaviour is contra productive and exactly the opposite you need. Especially when there are more than one enemy parties nearby, the party rather chases a bunch of looters than going for the enemy that really matters.
It´s not only two handers... you can make javelins that require far less material input, that sell even higher. The whole smithing system needs a rework.
Thats a thing, that needs some rework. Because often you can use this behaviour to your advantage : When you want to chase an enemy party/army thats a little bit faster than your army you can disband one of your parties (the fastest one preferably) and take it back into the army right afterwards. If you are lucky, the party will show exactly the behaviour you described... and by doing so, involving the faster enemy into a battle which gives you the opportunity to catch up.