My impression is that the unit balance has changed substantially, in favor of axes (cleave) and spears (impale). The ability to damage multiple enemies at once is amazing. It's also fun.
The computer players and town defenders tend to use hammer/mace style units a lot. These have not improved much at all - an ability that does double damage, then causes you to skip a turn, is only good if it kills with the double damage, otherwise the skipped turn eliminates the entire benefit.
From a balance point of view, improving the ability on hammers/maces (eg to 50% more damage, no turn skipping) would be a good thing. Or remove that ability and give them overpower.
From an AI point of view, the computer players need to use more unit variety, and maybe even design units, based on the where they will be built (different fortress towns have different bonuses). And they need to specialize fortresses to build better units; good amounts of essence, and enchanting the fortress to make troops better when they are making troops.
The combat tactical AI needs to use abilities that damage more than one thing at once (examine their options, work out what is likely to cause most total damage, or most total kills). They might even benefit from considering their opponents abilities, and position their units to prevent the enemy using cleave and impale (and fireball) to kill multiple things at once.
