My thoughts:
OF was extremely poorly thought out
1) the hover tank, a unit from 2 eras earlier, runs roughshod over the vast majority of units, and pretty much any mixed slate of them. Even moreso since its adjustment which really just made it a little more vulnerable to VF units. In some case it made it STRONGER against AF and OF units.
2) most of the units have no role and their abilities are often more flavor than useful.
- the manta doesn't have enough range to retaliate with contact against the eel, one of the units it's supposed to counter
- the octopod's ability never gets used. it's just a wad of stats that gets blown up by artillery. can't do anything that couldn't be done by any number of other units.
- the nautilus is 100% inferior to its sub cousin. contact and dug-in > energy shield.
- the scimitar is like a worse dragon drone (much higher stats - but no flying makes it hard to use the same way - waiting for a turn just out of range gives the enemy artillery free shots)
- the crab is too short of range to be usable in general
- the medusa is little more than a surprise all ages GvG defense for hover tanks
- the glider's abilities are useless (no amount of swarming can let them survive two hits from anything relevant in the age). The only perk is that it's a new flying unit but usually a dragon drone can fill the fights where that matters as well as a glider.
3) having 10 units means even where there is a particular defense that might justify a niche unit, you *never* see it in GE.
VF is looking even worse
- Ronin Bot : was the bread and butter unit of the age... about to give way to artillery
- Samurai : contact, range 1. what is it retaliating against? "we'll understand better in future parts". All this means to me is we're likely going to get a really bad fast unit too.
- Rocket Squad : well we finally gave a heavy that could handle a couple artillery on defense again... oops! turturret on roids away! Turturrets were already a viable counter to ronin, and the VF artillery is the same ability with double the stats.
- Ninja : primarily defensive annoyance unit. would be situationally useful in mixed offenses if you had to - but mostly you don't. You'd also need to use surrender and restart a fair bit to get good forests/landing spots.
Balance as it will sit after part 2 is released:
Rocket Squad obliterates Samurai and Ronin
Ninja annoys Rocket Squad - enough of them will be prohibitive to using the artillery in two wave encounters with a significant number of ninjas in wave 1.
Ronin survives Ninja but can't really protect things from them. Also beats any defense that doesn't have much artillery.
Samurai isn't really good enough to do anything better than a Ronin Bot.
Hover Tank beats all of them with patience but the stats are getting high enough that they're challenged.
Dragon Drone is also situationally useful with the same stat challenge caveat.
Glider may finally see a use as having enough stats for when you want a flyer because there's a ton of artillery.