They took Crusader 1 and made it worse.
There's not a single thing here that is done better than a game from 20 years ago, that you can routinely get on sale for next to nothing.

They haven't even addressed the frustrating elements of the original. Lords have been beefed up even more, and it's harder to build a sizable army, so you end up in situations where the war was won 30 minutes ago, and you're just waiting to amass an army large enough to finish off an opponent with absolutely no chance of winning.

Stone walls take much more stone to build now, which I initially liked because it makes having a large castle more of an accomplishment, but the walls fall down just as quickly as in the original game, so the end result is just a game less focused on castle-building, the one thing that makes it unique.

The AI has become markedly worse. Some of this is by design, which is even harder to forgive. To nerf fire ballistas, they've been patched so they won't attack on their own anymore. That was the best idea they had. Not making them weaker, or making better methods to counter them, just making the AI too inept to defend themselves. Overall units are just generally much harder to move precisely compared to the originals.

They took Crusader 1 and made it worse. There's not a single thing here that is done better than a game from 20 years ago, that you can routinely get on sale for next to nothing. They haven't even addressed the frustrating elements of the original. Lords have been beefed up even more, and it's harder to build a sizable army, so you end up in situations where the war was won 30 minutes ago, and you're just waiting to amass an army large enough to finish off an opponent with absolutely no chance of winning. Stone walls take much more stone to build now, which I initially liked because it makes having a large castle more of an accomplishment, but the walls fall down just as quickly as in the original game, so the end result is just a game less focused on castle-building, the one thing that makes it unique. The AI has become markedly worse. Some of this is by design, which is even harder to forgive. To nerf fire ballistas, they've been patched so they won't attack on their own anymore. That was the best idea they had. Not making them weaker, or making better methods to counter them, just making the AI too inept to defend themselves. Overall units are just generally much harder to move precisely compared to the originals.