Is character creation and general character development unbalanced?

[Gerg]

Or you can have fun and be a leader at the same time.  Create a character that is focused on horse archery.  Go solo until you have a lot of renown.  Now you can have an army of about 100 without having to get charisma up.  You'll also be able to distract enemies in the field and be a force in sieges.

 

[Archonsod]

After retiring my first character and ready to create a second, I've began to wonder about something. What's the point to creating a non-leadership based character?

What's the point of not playing someone who can solo an entire castle? A general requires completely different playstyle to a combatant, though it is possible and it can be a fun class to play. You're broadly right in that the beginning game can be tricky, however you're dead wrong on some of your observations:

+ Doesn't have to worry about bandits and sea raiders

Not a good thing necessarily

+ Doesn't have to manually fight every battle

You'll want to be on the field. Relying on the autocalc will see a poor performance, and you're unlikely to be in a position where you can afford to waste troops for a long time.

+ INT+CHA base gives you an unfair amount of extra skill points.

But STR + AGI set the limit on some useful skills.

All you need to do is buy (or loot) decent armor, equip a lance, and couch.

No, no, no, no! Unless you're arrow proof, you need at least STR 7 for reasonable protection, otherwise you'll be leaving the field with a jarid through the eye within minutes. A horse worthy of charging and resilient enough to not collapse in the middle of the enemy needs at least riding 4, which means AGI 8. Even then, your low hitpoints and poor strength mean couching isn't worthwhile. For a commander the weapon of choice should always be the light crossbow. It deals decent damage for minimum skill investment, it keeps you out of the thick of the fighting and you can use it from horseback while commanding your troops. A general should never engage in melee, that's why you recruit troops.

In general going the leadership route has three major drawbacks to overcome :

1. Income. Recruiting troops costs money. Paying troops costs money. Keeping them fed costs money. Usually you'll take longer to amass enough renown to claim a fief by joining a faction, and claiming a castle as a rebel is going to be beyond your means for some time. Your first problem is securing an income with which to recruit and pay for an army.
Without combat skills the prime source of starting capital (the arena) is a no go. This leaves you with three options; bandits, trade or questing. Quests are probably the more lucrative, and they'll also help push renown and relationship which is otherwise difficult to obtain. You need to avoid any quests involving personal one on one combat though, and anything involving hunting down groups will need to wait until you have a decent army. Trading can be a good option, particularly before you've pissed off any faction. The trick is to get the balance right between recruiting enough men to dissuade bandit attacks but keeping the party small enough that you don't lose most of your income on supplies and wages. Bandits are a good source of loot and cash, but you need to find the sweet spot of having an army capable of taking on a group and winning while being small enough not to cause them to flee. Also, all those goods will slow you down, as will your lack of agility and pathfinding, so don't expect to be able to outrun anyone too big to take on.
2. Fragility. Low hitpoints through lack of STR and Ironskin is not good. Similarly, without STR investment you're limited in what armour you can take. Be particularly careful in sieges or when attacking ranged troops unless you want to leave the battle early. On a similar note, as a non-fighter you're limited in how much you can directly influence the battle beyond issuing commands; knowing when to cut your losses and make a run for it is essential.
3. Fame. Since most of the combats you engage in will be fairly even you won't amass a whole lot of renown. This hurts on two counts - firstly, it makes getting a fief difficult, and secondly renown is one of the prime factors in how many men you can recruit.

Another of your points regarding assaulting villages is also problematic. You'll want to recruit faction troops as much as possible for the cheaper wages. This means paying careful attention to your relationship with villages. Ideally, pick a faction or geographic area and work on building good relations with the villages. Not only does this increase the number of recruits available, but eventually you'll be able to recruit higher tier troops and circumvent the whole training/ XP problem.

A good template for this kind of character is a merchant adventurer type. Focus on building your trade skills and running errands for the village elders or guildmasters. Between quests, stock up on trade goods and find some decent trade routes to keep the money rolling in. In the beginning, concentrate on a smallish band of experienced troops as bodyguards. Get yourself some decent equipment : a fast courser, some good armour (thick nomad robes or the like, aim for at least +30 protection) and a crossbow. NPC wise you probably want Borcha or a similar pathfinder as a priority, and you may want a good melee fighter or two to shore up the battle line. Surgery and similar medical skills can be a good money and time saving investment, and of course any bonus you can glean from NPC's helps here too. In combat, set up your forces and allow the enemy to come to you, remember your main role is as a commander rather than a fighter - skirt around the outside and harass with the crossbow rather than driving into the thick of it. Keeping your archers, cavalry and infantry separate can help. Once you start getting an army of thirty or so decent troops together you might want to think about questing for a king if you're interested in joining a faction - you should have enough men to fulfil any combat based quests and you can use the relationship gains as a substitute for high renown. Once you have a castle (or garrisonable fief) try taking small parties of recruits out to practice on bandits; it'll build their experience much quicker than the training ground or trainer skill.

Leader Characters don't level as fast as fighters since they can't kill nearly as fast.

You can gain plenty of XP from completing quests (in fact, some quests can grant more XP than an entire party of Sea Raiders). As a bonus, most also give you a gold and relationship boost, and of course the quest XP is shared with the rest of the party, making it easier to level up your followers.