Some feedback and personal wishes for the next patches after I played the current patch a bit (besides the obvious optimization that needs to happen and the balancing of rebellions):
1. The roguery "no-defection" perk effect (so we can recruit bandits over the party size limit)... Please don't forget about this perk, I've been waiting for it for ages and I hope there wasn't a change of heart regarding it. It would be the only perk in roguery that is worth grinding for, it will provide a new and fresh playstyle, and it will finally take us out of the "party-size" meta, where I feel obligated to go steward and leadership on every character because it's the best way of winning battles. Some cunning/roguery character would be a nice change of pace finally, with a big blob of semi-worthless bandits, and that will be so fun once siege AI has been fixed as well. [I really want to experience those kind of sieges, where 300 defending militia will still be hard to defeat with 500-600 of those worthless bandit scum! Also, please make thugs on the streets recruitable, it will give us one more reason to walk in towns! Let them be bandit troops and let me recruit them wherever I find them for cheap!]
2. We also really need armor improvements. One problem in the current game is that you don't really need to upgrade troops much (maybe max 1-2 tiers to get a shield for them). Tier 1-2 units are all you really need, high tier units aren't worth the effort of so much clicking! (PLEASE give us a better way to upgrade units. The ability to set upgrade paths and click once instead of clicking 100 times will give me eternal happiness. Only then troop upgrades will be worth the effort).
^ so like I mentioned there currently isn't a big difference in effectiveness of low tier vs high tier units. What you currently need to win is bigger numbers, regardless of unit quality... upgrading troops is pretty much a waste of time when you can just outnumber an enemy party and F1 + F3 with a full party of low level infantry and win with minimal casualties (Start as shield wall charge, then line formation when they're fighting). In even battles: if enemies have half their army as infantry and half as archers + few cavalry, they won't be very effective in battle because that means I will have 100 infantry troops vs their 50 infantry troops and my blob of troops is definitely winning, while their archers don't do very much since I just charge in quickly. Their cavalry also just suicide into my units at the beginning of the battle instead of keeping distance and tactically flanking my units once my units engaged their infantry, so I pretty much win the battle very quickly with minimal losses (maybe 20 troops out of 100 with no archers in my party...).
^ so what we need is also some cavalry tactics improvements/fixes for the AI besides the better armor in general. Armor: it should provide a more effective defense for high tier units, to make the gap between low tier units and high tier units a little bigger so that if we're lazy and do what I just described (F1+F3 low tier -freshly recruited units) it would at least be more punishing, as I expect the AI to have at least some high quality troops that last longer in battle vs the low tier weapons. Better armor will also make it harder for the player to abuse archer units, as they won't absolutely decimate enemy troops (so right now it feels like whatever style you choose to play it seems to be pretty easy for the player to win on realistic difficulty. I tried limiting myself to only infantry troops to avoid the easy archer spam-heaven, but it still feels too easy).
3) Clans make peace with me without my permission some moments after I've attacked them, and I wish that wasn't a thing. Let me stay at war with them, or let them make a proposal of peace and not automatically take that decision for me.
4) Lastly, main character death. Heir system is 100% unneeded right now, and it's a shame. An option to enable main character death in battle would be great for immersive playthroughs, and it would provide tons of satisfaction for keeping your character alive and also some tense moments after you inevitably get a little bored, stop paying attention, and you get knocked out unexpectedly ("omg did I die?" - moments). Playing well and not dying will be a well-needed challenge to avoid boredom and a really cool survival aspect to manage.
~ Other things like siege fixes are of course essential but I know it will take more time to fix. Troops still kinda walk into a wall as a big blob when they really should be climbing up on that siege tower instead. 1.5.10 is overall a better patch than the previous with many tiny improvements, but I had to play with the current performance issues so I'm done for now. Will now wait for the next patch which hopefully introduces more perk effects (bandits?!) and other improvements as well.