So I had played Fallen Enchantress some and then Heroes in beta.  I got interested in other games and by chance played this the other day and am back to wanting to play it.  I feel like there are soem game mechanics that are importnat to know but I have forgotten.  Any answers to my questions would be great.

Experience point calculation - I remember something that the more Champions you had in a battle the less experience everyone got.  Is this true?  What is the general formula?

Is level 5 the max city Size?

I typically play on bigger maps with the research and other build rates a bit slowed down along with sparse resources.  My goal of this was to draw out the game and allow a lot of play at each tech level.  I fee like the problem used to be that the computer would make a quick run for the spell of making victory and I would be forced to take over cities to stop them.  This has basically meant I leave this option turned off (as I want to extend the game).  Is it still the case that the computer is much more likely to win the game with spell of making (versus them trying for world conquest, quest, diplomacy) or has something changed with research to slow them down?

Maul and Swarm used to be pretty overpowered.  In my recent playthrough the bears and wolves no longer seemed super powerful.  Have these two features been toned down or did I just get lucky?

It used to be you could get huge amounts of resoucres (so like horses and wargs were a joke as once you had one spot you had more then enough to give every unit horses or wargs).  I feel like in my play through this may have changed (like I think they maybe spawn at half rate now).  Has a change been made to resource rates / usage (this is one reason I made resources sparse as otherwise everything I built had horses or wargs)?

Other then AI improvements / bug fixes are there any other major game balance changes since beta that aren't clearly obvious in the stats when you highlight items, spells, etc... (I am aware of the encumberance now all being initiative impact)?

Thanks in advance