ok so after giving the baron a spin, i have some feedback to give:

Monastaries being tied to ancient forests is a nice idea, while i have my issues with it in general, it's interesting enough by it's self, however, building a monestery deprives the baron player of one of their best units, the unicorn knight, while this is done in exchange for extra money, and free spwan units, the issues is that said free spawn units spawn at the monestary, and are not part of conscription, wich imo should be changed to that, so that there is a greater efficacy in action point usage in relation to units.

Royal guard, interesting concept that peters out fast, by the time a player can unlock a royal guard unit they are much too weak and much too rare for any real use, rather then being a mercenary recuitment option, they should be made a (pricy) addition to the main roster of recuitables so that the barons new found economic might be better utilized.

Levies costing money: while seemingly minor, and not as central as it used to be to the baron now that most settlements spawn a town watch, i still recomend they costing nothing, having ever so slightly better defended settlements is a huge bonus for the baron, since it allows yuo to play more aggresevily with him rather than creating a "police force" army to deal with any stronger-than-a-deer pests, the 10 gold cost scales rapidly specially if a player decides to opt for a slightly more tall play startegy (focusing on upgrading hamlets) adding an uneccesary punishment for a faction that is already punished for slightest bit of slack.


Mercenary recruitment of knights: to be as candid as possible, they are a bit of a pointless additon, they do not come in significant numbers or at a sufficent discont to have any real use, cavalrymen have fast, making them execellent for a high lord recon force, but knights do not, even has loss replenishment thing, they are useless, if conscription is not providing the addequet numbers of knights, it's either early game wich usually means not enough money to but them, or late game where they are dying in droves by wich point the mercenary recruitment is woefully insufficent, my recomendation is a better discount and in's stead of Knights make it cavlarymen that will at least give them a situational usage to make a cost effective highlord recon-in-force/raiding army.

with all that said, still the rest of the baron additions are excellent, the queen, prince, alchemist interactions are verry good. tough i have yet to give a good test run of the alchemical fire throwers. Hope yuo continue the good work