I just started a campaign with this last night.

I was hesitant at first due to alot of the changes I disagreed with, but having started a Macedonian campaign and having the AI offer ZERO challenge with vanilla I gave it a shot.

It really, truely is an improvement. They seem pretty anal about force feeding you their version of "realism", but if you don't like some of the unit changes they've made it shouldnt be any real challenge to mod the units back in. Everything about the game is more challenging, while at the same time it doesnt seem to turn into the micro management nightmare vanilla does once your cities start to grow wildly out of control.

They are absolutely working in the right direction, while things are not perfect they are improving the strategic AI through many of the changes. No longer are you seeing a stack of 6 units come at you. If you're facing a local "super power" be ready for 20 stack armies, and more than one. As the Armenians right now, having pushed Parthia out of modern Turkey, i've got the Seleucids all up in my business. I've anhilliated 2, 20 stack hoplite armies with horse archer armies, and i've got a full 4 more 20 stack armies either in the process of sieging me, supporting a siege, or moving through my frontiers. My coffers are running dry due to the interruption of my trade network and soon i'll be in the red. If I were playing vanilla this run through, i'd already be making 20k+ per turn.