I bought Mount and Blade-Warband after reading over and again over that this is the best game ever. I play Computer games for over 30 years, and there is not one of them that I didn't love, even those that i didn't really like (I don't know if you understand what I want to say, I always tried to find something that was good, even if it was hard to do).
But this one? What is there to like in this garbage? THE WORST GAME EVER! Even the 3.99 Euros that it cost me was too much. I would rather have burned it in the fireplace, it would have saved me the time I spent to download it, the time to uninstall it and, most of all, the awful experience of playing it, just to discover that there's a limit to idiocy and stopped trying to find even the slightest element that would excuse its existence. What? The terrible graphics? The unbearable gameplay? The vulgar, barbaric, disgusting lore ("Kill 'em all cutthroats, let's slaughter some more villagers!"), the "towns" without inhabitants, no buildings to explore, no interactions, no voices, no inspiration, no nothing!!!! Are there any pros and cons of this "game"? Of course:

Pros:It occupies only 1 GB of space on your Hard Disc.

Cons: It occupies space on your Hard Disc.

The charm of the game is its combat. As you have found out, there is not much else to the game. Compare to games like Tetris that is also simplistc but still liked by a lot of people. Not all games you get will be to your liking no matter what. I have some of those in my library too.

Don't mean to rub salt in your wound but there was no need to buy it blind: Warband actually has a trial mode. I'm mentioning this if anyone else finds themselves in a similar predicament (i.e not knowing if the game will be worth any money to them).

If anyone wants to trial the game, download it from the developer's website. Without a license key you'll have a level cap (at a very low level), but you can test the basic gameplay loop. Which, as Themken has mentioned, is basically mounted combat - everything else is sparse set dressing.

Download link: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Warband (check the Downloads section)

The graphics of a 15 year old game are not pretty enough for you? GASP!!!!!!! It's not the Elder Scrolls, GASP!! You buy games knowing nothing about them, not trying a demo, looking at reviews, videos, or screenshots and then it is the worst thing that has ever happened in the world? I have to guess that you also found it too hard and unexplained after declining to play the tutorial in the game. If you're horrified that a medieval war game has bandits and war........I just don't think the internet is a safe place for you.

The battles, combat, and mods are unmatched even to this day. If you want Fallout, play Fallout. If you want to be smashing skulls like medieval Rambo/Punisher/GoT(whatever floats your boat) and/or maybe build your own empire out of a world at war then download Warband and some mods.

You have to enjoy the combat. There's no way around that.

On top of that is a military/political sandbox, which is where the game comes into its own. You can pledge your fealty to a king, and rise up the ranks, or piss off everyone and make your own. Make friends and enemies from other lords; hopefully they'll come to your aid when you need it. Perhaps you can even persuade them to defect to your side?

Beyond that, you can do things like make friends, find a husband/wife, and improve your towns/castles/villages until they are the envy of the entire area (and feel that sting when your mounting list of enemies conspire to steal them, or burn them).

It's just a big, open-ended, RPG sandbox. What you do, who your enemies are, who your friends are, who your friends' enemies are, etc, all slowly shape the game.

Personally, I like to turn all the difficulty down. Not because I like my games easier (I don't), or that it even makes the game easier (it doesn't). What it means is that you get to be a super-human power-trip. It's not so much that it makes your encounters easier, it's that the encounters you choose to take on are more ridiculous, and it forces more of a backlash from the game.

For example, taking a castle with 150 garrisoned with only 40 men seems impossible, and would be embarassing for the castle's lord. But, you can do it (though the battle will not be easy!), and likely, the lord will want to take it back (even after the end of the war). Do this enough, and you may find lords (or even kingdoms) ganging up on you, for some epic battles.

That's the best way I can sell it: it's a responsive sandbox, where you can fit in or shake things up, and the results are almost always entertaining.