Well not really a problem. At some point I got Mount & Blade for free, tried it out and loved it. Since so many people said the warband was better. Picked it up in the sales. But the combat now just annoys me to no end, well on horseback. I tried setting it up the same, invert mouse attacking, which seemed to do nothing.

Now my problem, I do like the changes over the 1st one, from what little I have seen. Is there some mod or something I can do so the combat is the same as the 1st one? Or is this kind of screwed. I do also miss having my horse just run down everything in view, but made sense they at least changed that.

What are these differences everyone keeps talking about? Combat looks the same to me.

I seem to recall I had some problems with hit directions (swing from left/right/up) after switching to warband, don't know what changed specifically though. Don't know if that's it or what.

After a bit of playing I've been more at home with WB than ever with the original.
I'd suggest just playing more until it feels natural.

In the 1st one you could run straight through a massive pack of guys, in warband you can't. Which that change doesn't really bother me since it felt so op. With the best horse foot guys were beyond weak.

But in the 1st one, combat was simple, on a horse, you could only attack 3 different ways, two by either sides and one by straight on. In warband its by how your mouse is. So if I move my mouse to the side it attack that way, but then if I move it a little bit just before the attack it completely changes. I wasn't so good with attacking from a horse, so normally I have my attack move in place than try to line up the guy, now it doesn't do that cause I move my mouse by a tiny bit throws it out.

The only thing I have found is where I change it so I attack whichever side the enemy is on me, but that feels like auto aim at that point.

But yeah I did just want to play more, I do enjoy it more. Just really annoys me cause I felt I was getting attacking from a horse down pat, which took me ages to finally get used to it.

Yeah. In original the "paper, scissors, stone" game of what troops to pick, was really down to "pick swabian knights and kill everything". :D

I'm currently replaying "The Prophesy of Pendor" mod, and it's real refreshing to see heavy infantry first halt a cavalry charge and then hack the said cavalry to pieces. Great fun, highly recommended.

Anyway, early on I found 2-handed slashing weapons (without thrust attack) to be the easiest to get the hang of. Like scythes or cleavers and such. Maybe worth a try.

You can still do that. It's just that it requires a certain amount of speed, if you're above that threshold your horse will trample the enemy, otherwise they will block you. Each soldier you trample will slow you down, so breaking through a big group is not possible unless you are already going at very fast speed. Ah, I see, WB gives you an extra side swing. But in the first M&B swing direction was controlled by the mouse too. It doesn't bother me because I don't use 1h weapons in mounted combat. I prefer polearms since they have better reach, are easier to aim, and on average they deal more damage (piercing damage partially bypasses armor).
Other than that, if you want to stick to swords and maces, remember you can setup the attack in advance by holding the left mouse button, and then release it when it's time to swing.