I think a lot of the problems can be modded. The game speed is very high because of the kill rate. I've not yet tried the mod for that but it promises to fix the biggest problems. With that and the timer removed (via mod or a trick that someone has discovered) it should start to make more sense. I think that will give back the feel of watching a battle vs. watching a movie on 4x speed.

The strategic AI is better/more interesting although some flaws are apparent.

Ship battles have improved a lot, but there are problems, especially with few outright sinkings in major engagements. Moving armies by sea is good though. On high settings at least, if you attack with a much larger naval force you still tend to take disproportionate casualties. If you get into a naval war you can spend every dime just repairing your fleet and still lose ground. The ship strategic AI is weak. They don't exploit naval superiority to blockade ports.

The strategic AI is bad about sending a trickle of attackers at you rather than large forces. This makes for a lot of "trash" battles that must be fought. (If you try to use autocalc on high settings you get hammered pretty badly, and the enemy force is not usually destroyed, just beaten.)

The AI really likes bribing armies and family members! This is a real threat, deploy agents in your cities to reduce the chances of success of this AI tactic (I learned this the hard way.)

City sieges are cool. The map and road approach is great. You will spend a lot of time trying to manage your cities. Squalor is a problem that none of us have found a full answer for yet.

The mercenary system is much improved. You probably won't see as many of them, but you can upgrade their armour/weapons (but not train recruits to fill), and you can *merge* like units--so you don't have to throw away partial units after they have been through a tough fight.

The new engine heavily favours charges. This is a bit of a problem with the rapid kills and movement. You can't issue a general charge well (without hitting pause and doing it.)

Diplomacy is more interesting and useful with trade agreements being very hard. However, on "very hard" I still can't get alliances that should be "no-brainers" (like offering an alliance to a faction that is also at war with my enemies.)