hmm that's funny. i thought it was just the other way around - i found it too easy, personally (i think world difficulty in the scenario is set to normal and i play the "sandbox" game on expert).

i think an "options" button at the start that lets you adjust world and AI difficulty (maybe also tech and production pacing?) would resolve that problem. new/casual players can move it down a notch or two if they find it too unforgiving and nerds can get more of a challenge.

I agree i am finding it very easy so far - right now i have 8 cities.

It's not the syndicate units that kill me; it's the bandit general a bit to the North.  As soon as he's visible through the fog of war, I get constantly swarmed by units that have initiative that I can't beat, and will always kill a unit turn 1 by running up and using the blunt special.  And I can't even come close to killing the bandit general (142 attack right at the start of the game, lulz).

When I tried settling to the South, Tarth immediately took the other spot.  And then proceeded to sit on their ass and make no attempt at doing anything.  Gotta love that your allies literally only hurt you.

Do you mean the Syndicate big guy in the max level syndicate fort? I would stay away from him for a while, unless you get really unlucky he shouldnt leave the fort though. I did not see Bandit lord, unless you mean the questspawn and the boss there has a broadsword iirc.

At least in my games, on the road East toward Yithril you can also recruit some brothers Sparos, I would recomend to do so. Clever use of fortify (fortify, move out, move someone who can take some hits on the forted spot, he will benefit from it all right) is often sufficient to neutralize the Big Bash attack.

And its really strange to have an enemy combination of "initiative that I cant beat" with "blunt special". Your Sov has air, turn the first northern city into a fortress, get aura of grace, and design, depending on available tech, either spearmen or sword and shield guys with the "initiative", Finesse, and one other trait (something defensive, like the dodge trait, or the hitpoint trait, would help a lot. That should give you an initaitve advantadge of up to 7 or so.

Syndicate mobs usually have an assassin, who runs forward and then gets mobbed by your guys without much problems.

Also, some Syndicate guys have a pretty high amount of defence. Note that this defence happens because they have the "defender" skill, once in combat (after attacking something or using a skill) their defence will drop.

Are you only using stock units?

when you settle in the northern location (4/3/2 tile), it's possible to get two more cities to the south on the river (i put one on the bend of the river on a 3/4/0 tile with forest and a nearby clay pit (this became my main fortress), and this location allowed me to settle a decent town on the western end of the river (5/3/0 tile). those 3 cities should be enough to get you started; clear the ogre(or troll?)/mire skath lair near the second city soon, behind them you find 2 gold mines.

when you spread north, you can plop another 1-2 decent cities on near the northern river (halfway between tarth and carrodus). you have to kill a river slag for the second city (lost my starting spearman and militia in that fight grrr).

combat wise, i picked the defender unit, later got the panca archers and made my first champion a defender (my relias was a warrior in that game); with two brickwalls, some range dps and a powerful warrior champ, the syndicate clowns were a cakewalk. once my fortress was done with the basic production and training buildings, i built a few custom spearmen and conquered the yithril enclave. i probably could have started my invasion at that point, but i decided to explore the western continent for a while first and get at least daggers and bows

don't forget to sign trade and economy treaties with your allies (especially the trade treaties - 40% boost to your income is huge); and sign non aggression pacts when they are willing to give you cash for it. when you get to literacy, also sign tech treaties (2-3 coclaves with the 40% boost from 4 tech treaties will get you trhough the relevant parts of the each tree in no time)

after fooling around for a while, i filled up the armies of my champions with new short sowrdsmen and longbow archers and started my invasion; along the way, i picked up longsowrds and later yew bows. resources seem rather scarce on this map, so designing units that don't require much iron/crystal seemed like a good plan. my main designs were swordsmen (to serve as "tanks") whith best sword/best shield, full leather armor, defensive, finesse, ironskin; and archers with accuracy and fury (and one of the dodge traits i think) i gave the archers soldiers boots & gloves, otherwise full leather armor. i had 3 full amries of those units (initially at army size 4, later upgraded to 5/6)

by the time i killed of resoln and kraxis, my units were pretty much fully upgraded and i was done with civ and warfare tech, so i filled the magic tree next; spell of making (for titans' call - great for getting reinforcments to the other continent!) and third book (for the starfall strategic spell) were quite useful for the seemingly endless waves of yithril juggernauts and useless slave armies.

won't spoil the end of the campaign. if you make it that far, the game is won anyway - you just have to conclude it.

At this point in the game, yes.  As the game goes on, I change the weapons/armor to reflect what I've researched. 

My last random game, I tried messing around with traits a bit (stacked every +init boost I could find, and combined that with "Frozen Bones" to attack cities easily), but it's hard to know whether I'm being effective with that or not.

I've tried three times, and wasn't able to get past the early game on any of those attempts.  I don't really have any desire to see the same early game for a fourth time.

Right now, there is not enough settleable land in the area near where you start, as evidenced by the "well, if you pick this one square, you'll be able to plop down three cities if you snake just right".  Most players aren't going to know what that one tile is, nor are they going to snake (hell, I don't snake).  Oh, and the campaign will be the first thing they do as raw beginners.  The patch notes in .91 indicate that the crazy amounts of neutral hostiles have probably been fixed, but that still doesn't fix my other complaints about the campaign as it stands now.