I am playing as Sweden and using DarthMod, so maybe it has to do something with my impression below.
I must say, however, the 1.5 has also improved the darthed AI significantly.

1. No one attacks me from turn 1. Neither do I. Meaning, the AI goes eco-crazy and lets me pay upkeep for my standing army.
2. Pretty hard to get alliances, the british refuse, french and spanish demand too much cash. Only the danish really want one, but they're dead in my plans. So i refuse.
3. Russia declares on me in 1704, after a while Poland joins them, danish too. A nice ganbang of allied forces. My army is bigger than any separate army of their, but hey, there are 3 of them.
4. Danish raid my economy, polish keep my troops defending the region above courland (modern Estonia) and the russians attack Petersburg. I am able to defend region capitals, not the econ, however.
5. A very nice battle with the danish
i have 4 line infantry, 2 militias, 2 cavalry, 1 fixed arty and a general. they have 6 militias 1 pike, 2 line, 3 cavalry a general and a fixed arty.
i have a good position, but I am the attacker. Unfortunately for them, my arty can hit them, while their cannot hit me. they advance in line, with cavalry behind, moving all the time to avoid atry.
their militias engage me at extreme range, their pikemen charge my the extreme left of my flank. pre-bayonet, pikemen murder line in melee, so i have to either double up, or run away. i move my cav further to the left to charge the flank of pikemen. they still move on and charge my line. 1 their cav charges mine.
my left flank is in utter chaos, no clear advantage, so i send another cav there, to improve the odds. Then their militias advance, and their 2 remaining cavs go flanking to my right flank. militias come to close range and a serious firefight begins.
i have 1 line in reserve so they go help avoid flanking on the right (or shoot some cav in the process).
then their 2 line charge my centre militias, their militias that had been in a firefight charge nearby line on the flank, their general charges the centre too. my 2 militias rout, my line on the right is charged by their cav. I manage to kill off the pikemen, but my centre is overrun. my general engaged, my right flank encircled and their 2 line attack my 1 line and 2 cavs on the left flank.
after a few more minutes and many casualties my army flees. here you go, a deserved defeat.
6. next turn i manage to beat the danish back to copenhagen, but my eco is in shambles.
7. the british declare and land. i beat them too. not a complicated battle as i have experienced line, while thei land lots of militia and cav . my arty maims them, line routs them and cav kills them.
8. a most satisfying siege of copenhagen, where the AI timely leaves the walls. uses arty to attack chokepoints where my troops are engaging armed citizens. sends cav OUTSIDE to engage my troops (infantry and arty only) on the back. no more bullshit "stay on the wall until it goes down" crap.
9. battle for petersburg, no fort, outnumbered by russians (2 cav and general each, they have 10 line, I have 6). their line engages mine 1 on 1 while their 3 extra line inf charge a single unit of mine. 1 stays in reserve. my units, overwhelmed rout. my cav kills 2 russian line, but then gets stuck in the masses of footsoldiers and is killed off. petersburg lost.


so far, very challenging and no more fooling around. no longer as easy to defeat the AI when being outnumbered 2:1. actually, it seems to perform extremely well in some cases. some stupid decisions sometimes too (like not hiding a general, obviuosly targeted by my arty), but generally a much more realistic experience. i love it.

every victory is bloody, hard thought and hard fought ()