This is sidetracking the main idea of the thread, but Combat is pretty much just an equation. Each Age is going to be +x% stronger than the previous age. So to compensate we have GB's/potions/Tavern boosts to get our troops past that +x%. So, given that compensation, when those same troops attack those in the same Age it's not even a match. Before they balanced the neighborhood, as soon as you took the sector with a Tower on it in the continent, you opened yourself up to attack from that Age. But now, since everyone is pretty much in the same Age in the neighborhood, you're usually only getting hit by the top 5-10 players who live off pillaging or those new to combat just trying to attack anything that moves
The first you can't do much about, the second ones are a bit more fun.
So yes there are game choices, but some are not optional, and some are just stupid. Using the cookie cutter 1 heavy/champion & 7 Rogues to auto-battle the whole neighborhood isn't a strategy, it's playing to the game's AI weakness. As a human player, I wouldn't touch the Rogues until every other unit was killed, but the computer AI loves to waste the first attack turning them all into a tank. IMO, the Rogues would have the smallest attack damage, but with a Kraken/Artic Orangery type bonus. So they wouldn't be targeted first and would still do critical damage on a hit, sort of like the Thieves backstabbing ability in games of old. But that would mean more actual work and strategy to beat an opponent, can't have that, can we?