These thread are popping up like mushrooms, it seems. Something I'd like to mention now is that I'm new to the beta: I only joined it a few days ago, hoping to see the modding beta. I therefore don't know if some of these points have been raised before, and I apologize if they have. As for my background with this sort of thing, I've played GalCiv2 quite a lot, D&D 3.5 more, and have modded StarCraft more than I've done either, so I flatter myself that I know how to work with game design--I could be wrong, though.
On to business.
1) On sovereign-building: I see no reason to play anyone other than Procipinee. This is disappointing, since I would really like to play as a custom sovereign, but let me explain my reasoning.
a) Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma are, relatively speaking, unimportant. Trained units are going to be able to outperform a sovereign fairly quickly, meaning you'll only use Str as a last resort or very early on, and, although you might have enough HP to survive late-game without buying health packs--which render Con somewhat useless--the effect of Con seems negligible. Similarly with Dex, the effects of armor far outweigh it. Charisma only seems to matter early-on--by mid-game, there aren't any wanderers any more. Intelligence, to maximize the effects of spells, and Wisdom, to increase your essence (!!) are the only stats that seem to have a real purpose for a sov in the long run.
Equipment costs far too much. I'll admit that it drastically affects early-game survivability, but, again, the long-run benefit of putting points in Intelligence, Wisdom or abilities outweighs this.
c) Procipinee has a better build than any custom sovereign ever could:
Two 15's: 30 points
Four elemental spellbooks: 12 points
Enchantment: 5 points. Although when I research one of the arcana upgrades it says it's unlocked enchantment, so I'm not sure about this.
Meditative: 10 points
Staff: 8(?) points
Total: 60~65 points (Including that I don't recall exactly what a staff costs and that enchantment occupies a fuzzy area)
I've checked this for a couple other pre-made sovs, and they seem to be not quite this powerful, but still over a 50-points build, so if they're all like this then custom sovereigns are going to suffer greatly--the numbers just don't stack up. Furthermore, Procipinee fully emphasizes the traits a sovereign needs in the long run while ignoring those that become, to my mind, irrelevant fairly soon.
2) Also on sovereign-building: What mechanical difference do races make? Is there any? If there isn't, that's fine, but it does seem odd to me that I'm picking my race solely based on what clothes and hair they have available. Another thing: although I like many of the varied costumes, there are only a few that strike me as befitting someone who's aiming to restore/conquer the world. Doing so while in a barmaid dress (albeit a very nice barmaid dress) or with a hairpin in your ponytail seems...incongruous. I'd appreciate more options in general in sovereign appearance-customization, and in particular in suitably regal-looking options, but this is only a minor dissatisfaction rather than a complaint.
3) On equipment: Perhaps this would go better in the "Ideas" forum, but I feel that equipment is too same-y. As you research up the cutting tree, for example, you unlock options--sword, then...better swords, then...better swords, then...better swords. I admittedly haven't done much with blunt weapons, but I can't help but wonder if they're similar. Now, there's nothing wrong with having one type of weapon that gets better as you go up a tree, but I personally would like to see more variety. Some grant a bigger bonus to attack for the same cost, but with a speed penalty--this is very good. This is the sort of thing I love to see, and I very much appreciate that it's in here.
But what if it went further? I would appreciate a bit more variety--some weapons with higher hit chances but lower attack (a rapier, say), or higher damage but lower to-hit (a greataxe, say). Or different critical chances, if you're feeling lucky. With armor, this is already somewhat present, since lower-level armor tends to not impose as much of a speed penalty.
What I'm saying here is that, if possible, and I understand I might be a bit late to offer this sort of suggestion, is that I'd like to see more options for any given cost/tech level in the arena of weapons. To offer a GalCiv2 parallel (we beta testers sound like a broken record, don't we?), missiles, mass drivers, and beam weapons of the same level still differ significantly, and that's the sort of thing I would appreciate seeing here as well. Maybe I've just been spoiled by D&D, where 3.5 has a table over a page long of weapons that all cost roughly the same amount but have very distinct playstyles, and there are at least four types of armor that are equally good choices for different character types. Anything on that scale would be overkill, but a bit more variety in weapons, and maybe even armor, would be nice.
4) On the world (a little thing): I know that Frogboy mentioned in his post about AI that there will be an option for "World difficulty" that will make bandits/creeps not attack your towns. I'd like to see this in as soon as possible, because I'm sick of seeing parties of bandits raze my towns in the early game, when I can't focus my entire resources on Warfare and equipping up to the level of stuff the bandits seem to have (One of their guys is more powerful than my sov when they first start appearing! You know, the 21-HP 16-AT guys.), and late-game I don't want to have to maintain a standing army in every city I own in the middle of friendly territory to ensure the same thing. I've secured that territory, and it's mine, darn it. Needing to divert a good portion of my early-game resources to holding my ground and a small-but-significant portion of my late-game ones to garrisoning things I claimed a couple hundred turns ago when none of this has anything to do with my actual wars just isn't fun, at least to me, and I would very much appreciate being able to turn it off. It does add a certain atmosphere, I'll admit, and I wouldn't want to see it removed entirely, but I would appreciate the ability to turn it off. So although this is a feature that's apparently in planning already, I'd like to see it as early as reasonably possible.
5: On the map sizes: Are there plans for any map sizes larger than Large? The "Continents" in Large don't say "continent" to me; they say "pretty big island." I looked at the map editor and tried making one, but it's still not doing it for scale. If there are plans for bigger maps, I will look forward to it eagerly; if not, I humbly ask that they be considered. I know things would move pretty darn slow, but I always loved playing the Immense galaxies in GalCiv2 and, in any game, going for epic battles. Even on a Large map, I feel like I'm making a principality, or perhaps a ducal state, rather than a kingdom or an empire.
6: There Went Hubby: I've only seen one spell with the ability to resurrect dead heroes, and it was an Empire spell. Do the kingdoms have anything like this? I'd particularly appreciate it since heroes are very fragile early on, plus investing any essence in anyone other than the sov can often seem like a futile effort: the hero's going to die just as quick, but maybe they'll be able to cast fireball once every three turns before they do so and you take a permanent penalty! Sounds like a winning plan! If you do invest essence, it can work out if you dump your level-ups into it, but this just demonstrates again point 1--Wisdom (or essence) is extremely important.
Lest you think I'm being overly critical, I very much like the direction the game's going, and am particularly looking forward to seeing what new spells get added by/for release. I think a fairly accurate summary of the above points could be (in no particular order):
1) Custom sovs aren't good enough--premades are better.
2) Heroes are too fragile.
3) I'd like to see bigger maps.
4) More nontrivial equipment choices would be appreciated (Do I want the accurate sword, or the hard-hitting sword, the better accurate sword, or the better hard-hitting sword? rather than: Do I want the sword, or the better sword?)
To any devs that read this: thank you for all your hard work, and I really think this game is going to be great, even if you don't heed my suggestions 
EDIT: I played a couple more games, and it turns out some of my initial gripes were unfounded. Sovs get pretty resilient at high levels, for example, although trained units still far outdo them.
