All in all, a very enjoyable Beta.  I really like the territorial monsters compared to roaming ones.  From reading the forums, development seems to be coming along nicely.  I apreciate the team listening and re-designeing.  The few things I have seen are this:

Army organization

  This is a sticking point for me.  I would be happy to play with all other inequities if I could just arrange my army at the beginning of a fight, or even better, as part of the stack option that stays with it from fight to fight.  The default configuration seems to always put my high-initiative troops behind the low- initiative ones, forcing them to waste movement points walking around the slower front line troops. 

Starting weaponry

  I understand that the world is shattered and knowledge has been lost, but people don’t remember how to sharpen a stick and thrust with it?  Starting is hard – much worse with club-wielding peasant militias.  Especially at harder levels, research has to be directed toward economy to get started, which means even more time wandering with clubs.  While axes are too powerful to start with, spears may be a better start than nothing at all.

Tutorial

  The tutorial is pretty skimpy.  I know that some things are explained in the Hiergamon, but simple things like hero recruitment and that the only food/material rating that matters is where you build your city (I thought it incorporated all the areas in the zone of control) would be simple, quick adds that will pay dividends with first time players.

Difficulty

  I do not know if others have had the same experience, but if I play with the world difficulty on “easy” or “beginner,” I get crushed.  The world is very hard on easier levels.  On normal, it seems pretty well balanced, but at higher levels, my NPC opponents get wiped out by “monsters and ruffians” before I have the chance to get to them.  I have read that there is a feature that causes monsters to hunt a sovereign if that monster has been “griefed,” but hunting that civilization until genocide is complete may be a bit extreme.

Hero balance

   If I start with a lot of heroes near me, I can make a champion group and wander about, smashing and killing at my leisure.  If I do not start with them (most often the case), then I end up with one champion who is really powerful and a lot of free gear from stashes not used.

   Mostly, I start with level 4 champions near me, and by the time I research Erog’s Journal (forgive spelling, am writing at work instead of working and do not have the game available) to recruit them, I have no use for them.

  I have to agree with the “[Suggestion] Champion number imbalance” thread on this.

Keep up the good work!