Ok I have been playing a game tonight and having a pretty good time, I thought I would put down some thoughts that may or may not be helpful.

I am using the mod on here that replaces the spells graphics and has bug fixes.

I'm going to use point form for ease of viewing.

OVERLAND MAP:

-I noticed as the game went on, tons and tons of monsters spawned around, mostly standing and doing nothing.

-I conquered a independant faction and got with it an ogre spawn paint, however aparently my faction can't use them.  I didn't like this mechanic, I think any think you can produce as in allies you should be able to use regardless of faction(for fun reasons, not so much realism)

-actual combat strength of enemies you fight really means nothing as it seems I can beat monsters way above my level.(this is a balance issue)

TACTICAL BATTLES:

-Need to move to a initiative based movement instead of one side move one defends.  Makes it really easy to explaoit the AI.

-RESISTANCES are needed, I can literaly wipe out large armies with a fireball spell and a shard.

- Ranges need to be looked at, this makes archers insanely powerful.

it has been stated that combat is being looked at and I hope these three things get looked at.

CITY BUILDING

-This was smooth, however it was hard to see what the city was producing.

Overall, alot of fun, not alot of challende from the AI...did have a great battle where they outnumbered me quite a bit but it came down with me having one guy left at the end of the battle.

Hope this helps.