I agree. Although it will never be perfect the AI is given me hands full now. Yesterday started a new campaign VH/H with Scipii, and was smacked all over Siciliy by the Cartaginians with their elephant army. We slugged it out in 4 big (given it was the first 5 -20 turns) battles. Quite rough all of them, won the first three but with very narrow margins. It was cool to see that they shipped in reinforcements from Carthage as much as they could, just as I did from Italy. In the final battle I was annihilated with my faction heir dead as I no longer had the archers/skirmishers to scare off their bloody elephants. The next turn they sieged me and the turn after attacked and killed my faction leader! So got kicked all the way back to Italy, and just love it.

Cavalry charges do seem even more powerful, as was mentioned in other threads. The carthaginians managed to annihilate full hastati units in a matter of seconds a few times. Still, if you have 'm face the right way and put them on guard they should hold, still take rather heavy losses though.