Some more feedback on the bandits grouping.
I definitly don't like it. Last night I had to take on 76 steppe bandits.
Currently lvl 19, good-sized companion group with a few levels behind them, 9 men-at-arms, pair of sword sisters.
While the enemy lords ganging up is a tougher battle there are a few differences.
1. They are only going to attack you if you are at war with them. So it is easy enough to control. If I am running around in enemy territory and I get ganked, well that is my own fault for either not bringing enough troops, not having allies with me, or just being careless.
2. One would expect a higher level of coordination between fuedal lords who together make up an army than one would expect out of random groups of bandits.
3. One of the great things about this game is that it accomodates multiple playstyles. So while a large mob of bandits is fun and easy for mr power gamer who runs around with a full rack of top tier troops it isn't for everyone else. I don't consider myself great in combat but I think I am decent. With the above described band I have no problems taking on a large band of bandits and I get many personal kills myself, but I don't want every bandit battle to be epic.
I think it needs to be scaled down to a minimal range or the maximum size of bandit groups needs to be made much smaller. I would also have no problem with them all joining in if they had to come in as reinforcements but I don't know if that is something the game engine can accomodate.
Also, and I think this is a longstanding bug but this makes it even more noticeable. When doing the troublesome banditsquest it is a fail if combat is not initiated directly between your party and theirs. I have gone to rescue village farmers from them who were being slaughtered and of course I got a fail. Last nights battle I was chasing them but of course another party engaged me and the quest group joined in. Even winning the battle I still failed the quest.
On an unrelated note, just been observing the Khergits. As many have noted they are pretty gimpy and I don't disagree. It is funny though how they still are very successful in war. Every game I have played they tend to take terriory more often than not (left to their own without them coming up against me of course). I would speculate it is because of their higher mobility and so they can more easily concentrate forces at the point of decision and avoid battles they don't have superiority in by virtue of being fast enough to outrun pursuers. So maybe the Khergits aren't so bad off after all, and if their troops were made tougher then they would be too powerful.