Like the changes so far.  Haven't played much but noticed a lot of differences.

* Merchants give 1 gold for 1 food.  Interesting!  Probably will want to have merchants be kind of temporary now until you get a few gold mines up and running then raze them.

*  The powerful hero abilities cost a lot more in the create hero screen.  This is good.  Organized costs quite a bit it should it's powerful.

*  I cannot figure out for the life of me how the terrain costs changed.  It looks like a guy with 2 moves can move through forests at 2 squares per turn, and some types of hills only 1 square per turn.  But it doesn't seem consistent.  Maybe it's where you start the turn that makes the Difference?

*  More female heroes early on.  This makes marriage much easier, thanks.

*  Wild Creatures and Unhired heroes seem to move around the map in a way that make the game more fun.  Also there seem to be more "level 2 and level 3" type creatures before it was either one weak guy or 8 spiders.  I like that it is more gradual.

*  UI is more responsive and especially to zooming.

*  Money seems to be harder to come by at the beginning of the game.  That caused me to expand slower.  Fast expansion was kind of an exploit for me.

*  Tiny Map is the default map.  Strange choice.  I've been playing on Medium and resources seem much more spaced out.

That's all I noticed from 100+ turns.  So far so good!