I think the pacing of the game is "wrong" : what I mean by there is too little happens at the same time on the strategic level for several reasons :

The main one is the relation between the units movement allowance and the minimum city distance : units usually travel 2 tiles a turn, but cities must be 8 (!) tiles apart. It takes a much longer time to go from one city to another than in Civilization or Master of Magic (especially without roads), where heroes would travel 2 tiles/turn for an intercity distance of 3. That and many tiles are impassable, or unsuitable for settling, so it takes ages going from one city to another, and wars feel a bit "clunky" as there are little movements.

Other reasons why the pacing is so slow are : too little building options at the beginning : I think there should be many more things to build from the beginning, and not only cavemen with club or workshop. It makes the game horribly slow to start, and it doesn't really fit there as it did with Civilization.

I think the tech tree needs to be reworked, with more troops and building options given to the player from the beginning (they should be replaced by some other techs). On a side note, giving some traits unlock for troops in the tech tree would be a nice touch IMO. 

That and the economy is a bit clunky. There should be an option to turn production into cash when you don't have anything to produce (and I'd rather have the buildings that provide a bonus when the city is producing nothing removed). 

On the other hand, the movements are a bit too easy on the tactical map : it is hard to block an unit (there should be a higher penalty for leaving a Zone of Control, to make shielding your weak units possible, or even an auto attack like in Age of Wonder), and way too easy to focus fire (there is no long range reduction for archers and casters, and with diagonal attacks and no effective way to block movement, there is little way to avoid one of your unit being attacked by several ennemy units).

If diagonal attacks were not possible, or restricted to a few weapons, there would be some point in avoiding being flanked.