I'm just the average player who plays on the default setting as far back as MTW so I can't atest to the difficulty of the game on VH etc, but what I have noticed is that I have an abudance of money and a very peaceful excistence. In M2TW I would bulid up trade as fast as I could but I would always be low on cash and waring with one or two other factions.

As opposed to ETW where I seem to have almost an abudance of cash and hardly anyone trying to topple my empire down.