I am 75% of the way through the game, and as of yet I see no point in having archers. They're not strong against anything, and their range pales in comparison to the wizards and cannons (which, with large sprawling maps like these, is a must). Swordsmen, mages, and cannons are all I've needed. I've haven't put even one honor point into archers yet, opting instead to put them into more useful things. If you want balance, I'd suggest making more enemies weak to bows.
The very first skills you should work towards are cut out study and cut out mastery. Trees will be your main source of money throughout the game. After that, focus on the crypt skill tree. Crypts' fear and freeze are the only things that can buy you extra time when fighting those pesky ninjas.
Many people seem upset about not being able to go back to finish previous levels. Allow me to clear up why you don't need to. First, the epic weapon is chosen at random, it's not area specific. You can get it again on another day. Second, your advancement along the trail is based on your XP, not number of days. This way you don't advance to overpowered enemies.
The thing that kills it for me in this game is the lack of ability to properly command your troops. They automatically attack anything near them, and you can't stop them or pull them away. If there are multiple points of interest nearby, you cannot choose which one to attack. Or if I for example, place a banner of healing, and enemy comes by, my troops will rush out of it's radius, and I can't get them back in. If I want to move one squad, but it's icon is directly under four others, I must move all four other squads. It's details like this honestly make me not want to play through the whole game.
I'd love it if you could somehow set the focus for what you want your workers to build. Like you could set them to prioritize houses or religious buildings or whatever instead of others. Other types of buildings would still be built, just not at as high a rate as the prioritized building.
To everybody who can't get past that guy stuck to the wall with the butterfly in the second level, you can't jump straight over. There are steps behind you. Jump off the steps then double jump onto the top of the wall.
Ugh, there's all kinds of glitches. I dunno if it's just me, but my ship constantly auto-shoots and rotates to the right. And the shield doesn't work. It seems like a good concept, but it's just unplayable for me...
Good game. I lost 3 missles to the very first obstacle, lol. "WTF?! I'm getting the hole dead center! Oh, wait, that's the wall, the OTHER part is the hole..." lol.
Awesome game, sequels even more awesome. 5/5. Got all badges. But I got really annoyed when I one was trying to get the time trial badge, and I just spontaneously died. o.O