Replying on his holiday? Give this man a raise and overtime pay! Also no rush in replying to this.
Some tweaks were made on this quite some time ago. I presume it's still not satisfactory to you, but I would need more specific feedback to engage with (probably there is a thread or ten on this, maybe you could link me the one you find most valid currently).
Alright, I'll look for past feedback I've seen as well as gather results myself ingame to make sure the feedback isn't outdated, and I'll make a new thread and link it.
If you can spend more - so can the AI. I do think this may be evaluated in more depth going forward and changes may be made, but currently a greater focus is being given to the general economy, army AI and skill progression.
In my mind, the best way of tackling it would be give the AI the option to spend a lot of influence on a vote too, but make them rarely exercise it.
In addition to how clan heads already vote based on their relationship with the vote caller, make their vote also affected by their Traits. (E.g. a Greedy lord is more likely to vote for policies that financially benefited them, a Valorous and Impulsive lady is more likely to vote for war, a Charitable lord is more likely to award a fief to a clan without one). Clan leaders would never spend high influence on a vote, unless it matched both criteria of being called by a clan they had 25+ relations with and aligning with their personality.
This way you would avoid giving the player cheats as you say, in theory they would have the same ability as the AI, but in practice most clan heads would not give as much of a damn about policies and war/peace decisions as the player,
so if the player really wants to get something moving they can.
This will both be more immersive, and make political gameplay more skill based and less arbitrary - if you are good friends with a Charitable lord, you know you can count on them to influence boost your proposed policy that will benefit the realm. Right now voting is a crapshoot where clans often all vote the same way and the player feels like they have little impact even if they have a huge bank of Influence ready to spend.
This seems acceptable in principle. (Otherwise why have voting at all if the ruler always decides?) Of course, the AI ruler would ideally retain some influence for critical actions. I expect that that would be looked at alongside the general influence economy above.
The specific issue is that AI can just spam the same vote and drain your influence. There should be a vote cooldown timer especially on re-voting the same issue. If there is one already, it's too short.
The single most important thing for an AI clan is their settlements. There is no logical reason for them to give it up without a fight. Given that it is so critically valuable, IMO it is okay that it trumps RP/Immersion. It could be okay for them to give up if the odds are entirely stacked against them (1:20 && troops < 50), but even that is a bit finnicky (f.e. they should at least wait until you are ready to assault, since a relief force may arrive while you are preparing your siege camp).
I think it's logical for the garrison to give it up without a fight because they are just hired goons. I also think it's logical for a noble to surrender in the field when their personal fief is not at stake and their life is, but they don't.
Nobles don't value their own lives at all. Unless they're brave/stupid, that is what should be the most important thing to them. The end goal of Bannerlord's detailed simulation should be player immersion and fun, right?
Surrender offers from the player should be accepted by Cowardly or Cautious nobles when outnumbered by 1:2, accepted by castle/city garrisons or regular nobles in the field when outnumbered by 1:5, and never accepted by Impulsive/Valorous nobles. Maybe even make player Charm, traits and relations with target affect surrender thresholds. That's my take for how it could be a feature which is actually useful ever to players and make the game more fun - I don't think many other players would find it too unreasonable either.
Let's face it, it's not like the AI is going to win even a 1:2 odds fight against the player anyway. The outcome is going to be the same as if they had surrendered. If cheese tactics result they should be possible to balance out. So, why not let the player skip clearly won battles to take some grind out of the campaign if they choose, and benefit their immersion in the process?
I think it would be nice to introduce something that would make this a bit easier (whether it is what you describe or representatives that appear in towns occasionally or a conversation with your governor or simply another circle notification with an offer), but so far this is not being actively worked on.
Yes, this would be fantastic and many of us would love it if you could bring it up at a TW meeting.
To be able to talk to a governor or even just a generic "minister" NPC in the lord's hall of a town/castle you own, and tell them to send a mercenary offer, marriage offer, or defection offer as a message to a clan leader, would take an enormous amount of boring/frustrating legwork out of the game that the player vassal/king doesn't have time for when they're fighting constant wars. And it would increase immersion and usage of the lord's hall scene too.