I "finished" my first campaign, in about 18 hours. (i lost, i play max difficulty).
Doing the first part of the campaign quest was a slog. Finding those 10 lords is no easy task, especially in the early game. When i was presented with the choice of siding with the empire or trying to **** with it, i decided to fight for it's downfall (i'd been a merc for them until then, so it kinda made sense from a RP perspective?).
I then joined the Vlandians.
Like in Warband, the Vlandians get their ass kicked constantly, and the only way to make them win seems to be to start a snowball of defections on an enemy faction. I didn't manage to create one, so MANY vlandian lords defected after we lost 1 city. (lost 1 city to war, about 5 castles and 2 cities to defections, within 1-2 months). Couldn't recover from that, so i defected Vlandia too, only to realize that the Northern Empire had conquered 3/4ths of the map by then. Guess i failed my mission!
some general thoughts:
1. Wood Workshops are game-breaking. They produce WAYY too much money.
2. I didn't find a way to start looking into romance mechanics. Tournaments don't generate feasts (was it just me or are feasts gone?). I met exactly 0 ladies. (Some warrior women but those don't seem to count).
3. The economy seemed to be... ****ed? The stocks of armour/weapons on the vast majority of cities i visited seemed to be static. No matter the prosperity of each city.
4. I love the new army system.
5. The performance in sieges has been horrible for me so far. Campaign and battles are OK (90-120 fps on a 2k resolution). But Sieges easily dip into 10-20 fps. I'd like to think this is some kind of performance bug hogging too much resources.
6. Snowballing seems like a bit too powerful. Defections can brutalize a faction within a matter of days.
7. Combat seems OK. I was sad i couldn't use autoblock anymore (i used it in SP). But since i've got a bit of experience in MP i didn't struggle too much to take those empire cataphracts down in tournaments. Newcomers will **** bricks though.
8. Tournaments are a wasted opportunity, IMO. Some Warband mods turned them into really fun and lucrative events. Now they're just a high-risk grind. Most tournament rewards were lacklustre. Their formula felt repetitive to me.
9. I didn't really explore the barter system/social aspect of the game with other lords. Maybe because my faction got ****ed early on and there weren't many of us left. (around 5 clans).
10. Sea Raider Hideouts are bugged and don't ever load.
edit: a few more additional thoughts
11. I ****ing love the new horse animations (all animations in general but specially the horses). Those turns though.
12. Not sure how i feel about the new skill system. It feels a little convoluted to me. (and i somehow stopped gaining much points at all once i hit lvl 10).
13. Companions feel a bit hollow to me. Not sure i enjoy them having a family name, either.
That's all i can think of for now. Loving the game so far.