When I started off in EB, I didn't know that the difficulty made the units unbalanced. I actually thought the difficulty change made the AI smarter.

Yeah, I didn't find that one out until later on.

I began seeing Spartiartai Hoplitai take massive casualties in battles, and engulfing phalangites was tough as they died so slowly and never seemed to drop in morale until they were completely surrounded. But it helped with the skill of choosing battles carefully.

But I've played on VH/VH for a while. I even played as Epeiros and nearly conquered Roma until my computer crashed entirely. Careful if you play on VH/VH though. It'll make you seriously have to reconsider the way you deploy soldiers.