Finally got to play mtw2 a bit. didn't even bother with the campaign -- just tinkered a bit in custom battle. Some initial thoughts:

1. Cav are going to dominate, as in rtw. I won't be building anything but cav and peasants (for garrisoning) in the campaign. Cav charge is even more devastating than in rtw, and unlike in rtw, it seems that you can charge multiple times with equal effectiveness, even if your cav are fatigued.

A unit of armoured sergeants gets absolutely decimated 1on1 by most heavy cav. And non-spear units do even worse. JHI, despite their armor-piercing, literally are instantly annihilated by chivalric knights without doing any signifciant damage (2-3 knights, sometimes 0) themselves.

The only unit that does reasonably well against cav is a pike, since the charge bonus (as in rtw) is turned back against the cav. Even pikes do very poorly unless you spread out their formation a bit -- if cav charge in around the corners/flank, they'll send men flying all over the place.

2. Spears/pikes seem significantly nerfed, both against cav and other inf. Pikes can still do reasonably well if you spread out their formation, and give them support. But they seem to have problems engaging enemies unless you actually right click to attack. (They will stand there doing no damage, while the enemy infantry wakl straight into their pikes as if walking into a wall.) But if you do right click, they break formation.

3. Very disappointed in the lack of an easy way to manipulate unit stats. I scanned through the mtw2 directory, and no analog to the unit_descr file from previous tw games.

4. Gunpower units still seem very weak for their cost and tech requirements. Though i suppose, by the time they're available, cost probably isn't a problem. Still, as in mtw, i will probably end up ignoring them completely. Or at most including 1 unit for the morale effects.