Which is exactly what this patch enables, as said, illustrated, and explained the workings in the opening comments.

This. Fights necessarily involve attrition.  There's a place for formations, especially at the start of fights. But fights shouldn't be determined by on player clicking their fighting units into formation and the other player being slow to hit H before their units try to chase enemy that ran to the back of a formation.  As a related note, I don't think units going into formation should be able to run. There should be a cost associated with having a disorganized army and calling them into formation. Right now, going into formation is mostly a gimmick to get kills similar to how dancing heroes used to occur.   ---------------- I think the voting options are overly limited. I would want melee in front and range in back, regardless of whether those units are cav, inf, champ, and/or CS. 

Still, it is phantastic with all this atmosphere!

Sorry, I just have to express it: I am loving it!

It would be better if Petra AI weren't an all-powerful know-it-all, but instead mimicked the behavior of a real player. It would definitely be more correct if the bot built scouts (land and sea) and scouted the territory. Or did so with any available unit (as real players do). And then, having found something, it would choose tactics to attack or contain. I'm sure it's not that difficult to get a bot to scout the territory. Many new players complain that Petra AI is too strong, even on easy difficulty. And the open map and lack of fog of war are precisely the unfair advantages of the "computer player." If you're unsure whether the bot will be too weak as a result, make it optional when creating a match, using a checkbox like this: [V] "Computer player simulates real player behavior" (slightly obscured, not explicit) or something like that "Petra AI can see the entire map always". Or, in other words, explicit options: [V] Map explored for all Petra AI Bots [  ] Fog of war for all Petra AI Bots