This is what bothers me about the game the most. The shang "problem" doesnt even measure up.
In history, infantry was the most common unit and were the "grunts" of the army. Cavalry/more advanced cavalry were excellent at taking out ground troops. First of all, I think that ES should make some major changes. But lets face it, ES and MS are pretty ignorant at times. ES is decent, but they have no care to listen to anything we, the gaming community, have to say. Players who play single player could care less, so why not release an online patch just to humor us?
This is what I propose: Make cavalry stronger like epic_hoplite said. Make the upgrade to phracts about the same price as the scythe upgrade, except with food instead of wood.
All archers cannot hit units within two tiles. The reason I say this, altho this may be a bit disputed, is because in real life if some guy is hacking away at you you wont be able to fire arrows right in his face.
Infantry recieve large amounts of piercing armor, because they should/would carry a shield to block raining arrows on them. Infantry should be faster, and the axe upgrade should not be required (they are after all two completely different units, its not like axemen turn into short swords anyways!)
Scythe chariots. Well all I can say is that something should be done with these things. I dont think they are completely dominant, but they are definently too powerful for not costing any gold...any ideas on this one?
More civ bonuses. I think that there should be more bonuses for civs. Not any particular bonus, but I would like to see another bonus for yamato (faster firing rate on HA/HHA would be nice, so that they arent considered a weak civ anymore...I used to like em)
I would also like to see assy get engineering on their catapults.
Notice how I didnt mention the little shang problem,because I think it has been debated enough as it is. Tell me what you think about these suggestions, im tired, and I have a headache so I probably wasnt thinking well when I wrote this anyways