The existential horror of playing Mount & Blade 2 on easy mode

In the 400-something hours I've clocked in the Mount and Blade games, I've rarely bumped the difficulty above easy. It only provides a handful of bonuses: reduced damage, decreased troop upkeep, a speed boost on the overworld map. But as those bonuses interact with all of Mount and Blade's systems, they cascade until your character has a gravity that pulls the game off its axis and into chaos. It's a rare image of protagonism, with you playing the monster...
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