I still win tournament battles easy. A little practice will do the trick. Losses are now significantly much higher as compared to the older system. Likely you cannot go past a certain number of provinces since the advantage of the AI will yet again show up.
However, it is no better compared to the older system. In fact it is worse. And yes, I do believe there is a "greater plan at work". Since there are now even more AW and buildings you are forced to build for more units or some miserable reduction of advantage.
There is no unit that a player now commands that has first strike. The AI archers has it now. Given the advantage they have in terms of units and groups, you go to a battle with 3 vs 8 now.
Light melee units are no longer meat shields. You lose range & elite units faster than ever.
The heavy range units cannot deal enough damage(up to 200 a unit max) to take out an orc(about 500hp each).
The only advantage you ever had apart from the first strike were the near invincible sorceress who now cower in front of melee & range units alike. It might well be called a downgrade not elite.
No doubt here at the forums there would be some sympathizer to the programmers saying it is "so negative" , "unfair", "wailing" etc.
This is the only place you can feedback and gather some kind of consensus from players experiencing this. Hitting out at the weakest link does not mean lashing complaints or just being negative. How much feedback to actually improve the game came to heed?
Already I have pointed out the programmers will follow their own schedule. As to whether feedback gathered from players here and beta would be taken note shows for itself over the past 2 years.
You want to claim its balanced? You should bring forth some solid feedback on areas that actually are "balanced"