Your example is very good! BUT, in total, the GE became easier now than it was in AF. Only the Eels causing problems, every battle which doesn't contain Eels is ridiculous, i didn't lose a single unit on the last encounter against 250% boost, never ever before could i do the same, i've always lost a lot (the same happaned at every encounter where were no Eels).
To understand the problem, look at the stats! 35 movement, 10 shooting range, and hiding skill. The terrain is always good for it. No other unit can move so much, the dragon drone has almost so high numbers, 32, but it's range is 1. Usually the artillery units ignore the hiding skill, but the Eel has bonus against them, and starts first, so if there're 8, they will definately turn the 6 rogues (in GE i always use 2 normal units + 6 rogues), and kill 1 e.g. plasma immediately! Because of the high boost in GE, and the Eel's boost against artillery, you must be very lucky to kill an Eel with two shots (my boost is 215/195% now, so i can say, quite high)! So your 7 plasmas only could kill 3 (with huge luck), the 5 remaining will kill 2 of your plasmas etc. You won't have enough units against CRABs in the second wave because the CRAB got reactive and the orangery won't affect.
I think i don't have to explain how impossible is to solve the encounter with dragon drones, maybe they could win the first wave with less casualies than plasmas (again with luck if the Eels move good for them), but there's no chance to win against CRABs with them, especially because the Orangery wouldn't affect.
(Some of us were complaining about the Orangery when it was inroduced, it definately must affect on units from it's own age, and on units from higher eras too!)
The fact is, there's no chance to solve the encounters where're 8 Eels in one of the two waves, because only the CRAB could fight against them well, but we still will lose at least 2 (if the terrain is good, the CRABs numbers are ridiculous) and there'll be a damaged one for the second wave too, so our chances to kill 8 of them with 6 are very low, even with my lvl 80 Orangery (the Eels will deinately kill our 2 unattached CRABs not some which turned from rogues in the most cases, now i'm talking about a lucky case when we could keep one unattached for the 2nd wave, if we use more than 2 CRABs, the Eels will kill one by the first step because only 5 must hit rogues and 3 can immediately shoot a CRAB, so it's a worse sollution).
To summarize, the era is very imbalanced again, the GE became easier than it was in AF, and that's not normal, especially because the Orangery doesn't affect on the half of the units at the most encounters (i wrote, i use 2 plasmas at all the last encounters where the enemy contains 4 plasmas and 4 CRABs), and i could still win all these encounters without losses!!! On the other hand, where we fight against 8 Eels in one of the waves the encounter becomes impossible without healing, and some others where're some Eels we must be very lucky too (i had some other problems with the habbits of theenemy AI, because the enemy units won't attack our rogues in every case even if they could reach all of them not just one)
I'm always talking about the fact that the game must be hard, challanging, but now i have to say, the balance is gone again and the game is not hard, it's easier than before, and there're some impossible encounters which can't be solved with good strategy and a little luck! The Eel must be changed somehow!
+1 suggestion, if we can get the 5 types of goods in the first part of an era, why can't we get the 5 types of units? That doesn't mean that we can't get more units in the 2nd, 3rd part (we had 2 heavy units in AF, so why not?). I think if we would get the 5 types in every 2nd part, the game could keep the balance, the old units doesn't have to be strong enough to fight against the new ones, and no rebalance needed later...
