1) There seems to be an increased number of food resources appearing on maps for me. Used Ctrl+U cheat to check this after I noticed it on my first game (cut short due to unrecruitable champions). It's not only more food, but Wild Wheat and Twilight Bees as random resources, neither of which I have ever seen apart from the twilight bees the kingdom tech provides.
2) Kingdom empires start with access to the watchtower city upgrade.