I think we are all partly right, no matter we are more fighters or negotiators or a mix of the 2 and perhaps Inno added the orc limitation was for "beter balancing" as they said... but it's for balancing the tournament effect as shadowblack said
I followed the fighter's path in my first city on Arrendyll and as Mykan said, I was regulary slowed down by the need to upgrade my troops or enlarge my squad size, okay...
But I've just started a new city on Wyniandor to check if the negotiator's path would be more easy and after I did 2 provinces circles very fast, reaching the middle of the first age in 2 days, I'm now also blocked because you cannot produce goods so fast : like for fighters you need to build twice more factories and upgrade them to be able to negotiate encounters and to have enough goods for your regular needs so you're also slowed because of that...
Nothing is all white or all black here.
At the point I reached in my first city that I designed only to produce regular goods for building/upgrade purposes, even by going from 400% to 500% production thanks to the tournament, I don't produce enough goods to negotiate more than 2-3 encounters a day (and that would mean nothing for other uses) but I can produce troops enough to fight 1 or 2 provinces a day for a while. In my second non-fighting city I'm already blocked after 2 days because I have no room to build enough factories to produce enough goods to negotiate any more encounters... I'm obliged now to produce troops... I need to go further in this city researches to give a realistic advise about the ability to progress without fighting.