Playing Floris, I've noticed one of the major advantages also gives a huge disadvantage. The new battle scenes look far better and feel more medieval-y. That being said, some are laid out in extremely silly ways. Primarily, Halmar.
The layout of Halmar now largely removes the advantage of being a defender. There are two walls, one functioning as a barbican. Playing as a defender, you and all of your soldiers will spawn on the inner of the two walls, meaning the enemy's ladders are on the outer wall. What ends up happening is they climb up the ladder very slowly, as one does, but completely uncontested as it is impossible to move the troops to the outer wall before they mount it. Then, their archers remain on that wall as their infantry comes down the stairs and enters the gate to the city proper. They'll climb up the stairs wherever they can, and slaughter any infantry you've placed there; the battle mechanics of Mount and Blade give an advantage to those lower on stairs, and the troops climb stairs at ~2x the speed as ladders, and can have many more at the top of the stairs at once.
Using the barbican would be awesome, but it completely prohibits defense at the chokepoint, before the enemy get a foothold. It is also far worse to try and hold a gate versus a wall, as your archers can't shoot at the enemy while your infantry brace against them, unless the infantry submit themselves to the enemy archers, mounted on the outer wall.