I agree. The archers need some sort of limiter. Late game they are unbeatable.

Five things I'd like to see:

1. Arrow keys work on tactical combat map the way they do on strategic map.

2. A much improved automatic-end-of-turn logic.

3. A vastly improved auto-combat resolution.

4. The AI stop webbing my archers at the start of combat.

5. When the fight is hopeless and the AI can't retreat from the battlefield, it shouldn't retreat units away from battle (unless it's going to heal them).

I don't mind the dumb AI so much - although Coyote raises 2 good points about it -. The AI is not a human, that's why you can give it all sorts of bonuses playing on higher levels.

I do mind all the bugs. Or not so much bugs, but all those tings that don't seem to work as intended:

- Pathfinding doesn't always work. Units ignore roads when calculating fastest route

- Select next unit 'u' often skips units

- When your sov dies in battle, you don't lose the amount of mana listed. That's the amount of mana left. You lose all the rest

- Research trading

- Zones of control don't always get updated

- 'Oracle' Conclave improvement does not improve spell effects like 'Meditation'

I found that it skips a unit that has leftover movement from the previous turn. I have gotten into the habit of making sure a unit has no leftover movement unless I'm sure I don't want to change its path next turn.

I know I am not good at this game but I fell inlove when I realised it is the kind of 4x that I have been looking for. I have a couple of problems though, playing on medium map with 5 (I guess I am the sixth player?) opponents and I encountered 2 crashes so far (one on turn 196 when I ended a turn and the other is elemental stopped working and closed). Hoping they could iron out the bugs and fix the crashes and stuff. I fell in love with the game and it is the kind of 4x I want where I feel like I am playing fire emblem with the option to conquer the world my way. The game also feels so personal because you start with a party of heroes and end up commanding large armies.

As for imbalances, I could not comment at this point for I am still confused about how to equip units properly for the situation and what are the pros and cons of weapon x and armour y and what units must my army comprise of. Great game and cross my fingers they will iron out stuff and squish the remaining bugs. Would not think twice of supporting stardock if they ever release a proper Expansion and not just DLCs and hopefully it gets its own "beyond the sword" or "Gods and Kings" kind of expansion (where a lot of stuff would be added).

I have been fortunate not to have any crashes since 1.1. However, under Options, I still have autosave set to save after 1 turn. When I have had the occasional crash in the past, I would lose almost nothing.

I've generally found archers to be effective against AI opponents but they often suffer against monsters.  That said, a mixed force of archers and mages wielding a mix of fire and ice staves is flat-out nasty.

Spell of Mastery is WAY too easy.  I generally save it until I get bored with a game.  

Definitely some AI improvements would help.  Web+Beguile on an archer unit amuses me to no end.

Firstly I'd just like to say that the gaming experience is much better than E:WoM.
It is actually a pleasure to play. There are various ways to progress to win and that always makes a game enjoyable & replayable.

However it is currently hamstrung by the AI. The AI problems/concepts are not that dissimilar to GalCiv so it really has had a long time to evolve, but yet hasn't.

The factions should be more tuned to their strengths rather than all appearing quite bland and often chosing paths which have little or no cohesion.
Whilst that may remove some of the randomness/replayability it would provide a better challenge than the rather aimless activity that it currently undertakes.

I would expect the AI to
a) maximise dodge with Resoln - it should be spamming warg riding, shield carrying, lithe, acrobatic units   
b ) have fun with henchmen leveling with Altar - should be improving the henchmen to maximise bonuses so that they level quickly coving all magic schools, hitting quest huts etc.
c) fortify a dodging meat shield with ranged unit support with Kraxis. It needs to realise that fortify only works if the enemy is forced to come to it so it needs a ranged punch or its advantage is useless
d) spam ranged units in small stacks with Tarth.
e) grab mana production with Pariden, looking to capture shards and magically build outposts all over the map. However Pariden needs to level its spell casters to be able to use this. (The AI really struggles with this faction as it needs to have lots of combined actions to make it work).
f) maximise defence techs and grab iron mines with Gilden so that its units are even harder to destroy(this is about the only one I seem to see done)
g) Slave spam, hunting down human troops/bandits + sacking cities with Magnar + converting population to mana for fire magic

A decent human player can counter each of these. So eventually it would be nice if the AI could adapt and branch from their main strategy
but right now the AI doesn't act with any recognition of what strengths it has against the norm.  It therefore doesn't seem to know how to maximise those strengths.
It also should look to coalesce its strength, with its strongest units looking to form stronger stacks or at least acting in unison.
It should be able to assess weak points and judge relative strengths before throwing weak troups at strong stacks that just become stronger through gobbling up cannon fodder.
The AI should be able to calculate regular moves from its opponents to cover its resources/cities/units. (It is fair enough for it not to understand wind walk but right now it seems to ignore which targets you can reach in a number of moves)
In general it allows itself to be out manovered far to easily.

Having said that, E:FE is a real game, E:WoM was a collection of nice ideas. With some AI improvements I really think this could be the best 4x game ever.

dihir

I agree, there are other viable strategies, I just rattled off some ideas and by no means did I mean to make it an exhaustive list.  It would be nice if some factions had alternate plans, but a single plan would be a huge step forward. It would be nice if it was apparent how each faction was playing to win. (Economic long game, rush military, spell of making, quest, accumulated military might, overwhelming magic). Right now it appears that they are playing a game without any plan (or real desire) to end the game.

Yes, archers could be improved.

As an Xpyre said, the Tarth fraction should have a an archer oriented research and build strategy.

The AI needs better archer counter tactical strategies.  For me its usually a choice of do I target enemy archers first with a ranged attack or cast Gust of Wind to protect my units. If the human player is using archers then counter with mounted units or ranged units. Just once, I wish that the AI would use a ranged based attack strategy against my Kingdom (i.e. archers + fire staffs + catapult + ranged attacks from champtions).

I would like to see a greater variety of bows - short bow with a limited range, long bow with a longer training time, compound bow and a variety of bow related traits (accuracy +10%, Rapid Fire +2 initiative), Crossbow with a longer reload time and a shorter training time.

Perhaps, a trait called: Arrow Shield, that gives units with shields the option to use a tactical strategy (like fortify) that provides a bonus to their ranged defense at the cost of losing a movement point (you move slower with a shield raised above your head).