Well, I have played a few games with the new patch and I must confess it looks much, much better.
I managed one science victory on Prince with Egyptians and 3 other AI, and they were quite reasonable. You can see now actual fleet - I met a group of five caravels, too bad I had destroyers by then The AI also tries to haggle for peace when you approach its undefended cities. It even tried to mount a few invasions now and then, but sadly, it still lacks any notion of combined arms warfare.
So seeing a frontline supported by arty from the back and ships from the coast... just forget it. On land maps, it's not so bad, but on islands, where coordination is everything, the AI just sucks.