Firstly, on some settlements while playing as the Byzantine Empire, settlements near Trebizond ALWAYS crash when you initiate sieges or if the AI does sally outs. This breaks the game and makes certain settlements unobtainable. I'm not sure if you encounter this playing as other factions but I did when playing as the Byzantine Empire. It only accepts auto-resolves here and in harder difficulties it's rather unbalanced unfair.

Secondly, the balancing of units is absolutely ridiculous especially cavalry. Infantry are absolutely useless when you fight against cavalry. It does not matter if the cavalry is light or heavy (it gets worse as the cavalry get heavier). Hopiltae and elite spear/pike units capable of phalanx formation do not affect cavalry charging head on. I've had battles where, I've had elite byzantine spear units (forgot the name) capable of phalanx (fresh, fully armoured troops) on flat ground get head-on charged by Boyar Knights (simple heavy cavalry) while in phalanx get decimated by frontal charges while in phalanx formation (Yes you read that correctly). The cavalry endured no losses. I lost over 50 men (80%) of the unit to the charge and they glitch through using some-kind of run through method. It's absolutely stupid. I thought, maybe this is just a VH/VH problem. No! This is a problem for all difficulties (H/H, M/M, E/E). It defeats the purpose of even using pikes or any infantry when a heavy cavalry unit of 12 men can decimate multiple units of spearmen in phalanx. I've simply had to get my general or another heavy cavalry unit to attack them, get them in melee then send in phalanxes while engaging in melee to beat heavy cavalry and hope they don't charge into the units, lest they run through glitch and take out 600 men all of whom are elite phalanxes with the best armour and upgrades lol. At least in medieval 2, while heavy cavalry is strong, it wasn't invincible to the point like it is here and has you even questioning if the game is cheating or if the unit your fighting is a god-on-earth. Heavy cavalry no matter the units always die to pikes or spikes when charging head-on in Medieval 2 and those cavalry are truly the strongest. Even in Rome 1: 2004, Cataphracts, arguably the strongest heavy cavalry unit in that game with their high armour, stats and their maces are susceptible to pikes. If they charge into pikes in phalanx mode (even militia hoplites), would endure MANY losses assuming the unit does not route, especially if they charged HEAD ON. Here, they attack whenever, whatever and however they please, take no losses and just route everything it attacks. It's not realistic, its a sandbox game which feels unfair to the player for no reason.

Third, some textures and unit sprites such as the Norman Knights are missing. Fourth, the lack of mercenaries makes me sad :(