please add a fleshed-out AI opponents/neutrals npcs

The pve part of is game has been severly lacking. The "barbarians" behave more akin to wolves/zombies in SE (ie attack until dead, and pretty bad pathing, as well as attacking 1 by 1). Even when I am on a multiplayer server, the game feels pretty empty without a NPC to trade/attack(the only PVP I have ever witnessed in MP was 1 troll with a hammer attacking player's bases while they were offline) I kinof miss the old npcs that were in the game a while ago.

I suggest that a bit of effort be put into the NPC aspect of the game. I would love to be able to, say, hire an army of 15 npcs to go and attack/besiege a friend's castle, while they have thier defences manned with bot soldiers of thier own. Or just for the aspect of trade/lategame in singleplayer. I would love to see a passing tinker or friar going down a road who I can buy things from or stea- trade with. It would be neat to hire guards for protection or have serfs settle on my lands(and pay lovely taxes) or just have servants to do my menial tasks (like planting or mining).

Thanks for concidering

If you have some feature that you want to see added to for the npcs to do (like to besiege instead of charge a castle) leave a comment.