I feel the game in general has taken a "stupid" direction lately. Not that scaling has ever really worked in FE this far, but to try to elaborate, no matter what race i choose, what monster options, etc, there are always plenty of STRONG armies in relative proximity to me.

This might make sense if you are 150 turns into a normal game, but when you are on turn 30 on epic, and massive armies steamroll the only other city you've managed to establish, and then "siege" your capital for the next 500 turns, it just turns stupid. This has been the norm for me now in the last 10 or so game starts (0.983)

If feels like "if you set your foot outside your castle walls, you are going to get steamrolled by half the map". I've also tried various difficulty settings, they do not seem to make any difference.

Only once in the last week or however long have i been able to establish a few cities and actually progress the game, the other times i've been thoroughly stampeded by massive monster armies that i have absolutely no means of defending against. A tad frustrating that