Flaw in Fighting Mechanics
The range factor that plays out in fighting really makes no sense in terms of needing "combined arms."
Archers unaccompanied were not an "effective" army. Yet you can just zerg your archer numbers, upgrade the archery tech as far as you can, and have an army of Archers and Fodder.
Really that is what the game comes down to. And its worse against the defensive mechanics. At this point, its the worst invested expenditure in the game.
When you can have 10k traps, 3k towers, 1k logs and rockfalls, and nearly have all of that wiped (saved a few thousand traps and a few hundred rocks) by just a zerg of archers (80k archers/10k warriors) the point of a defense, its cost and time to build is pointless since it can all just be countered to the most basic units.
The fact that you can wipe any basic defenses without needing siege is a major flaw. The fact that you have to open gates in order to fight is another flaw. There should be a sally tech that would allow larger percentages of your troops fight with closed gates. Archers should always fight.
The game itself does nothing to incorporate the idea of mixed units. I suggest they do away with what they have, they can rename the archers to "the unit" and make 1 other unit type called "fodder."
Since thats all this game needs.