Questions about the difficulty for newbs.

[Lemur]

Yes, the games are hard, but rarely needlessly so. One of the things I admire about the Total War design is how the developers seem to make every effort to avoid introducing pointless complexity.

Given the amazing under-documentation of these complex simulations, I'd recommend that you follow a basic rule: if it doesn't make sense in real life/history then it won't make sense in the game. Examples:

Leaving a province without a garrison immediately after you conquer it
Charging horses directly into massed spears
Running heavily armored troops all over the desert
Pushing an army way the hell into enemy territory without a line of retreat or supply

These are all nwhoo-bie mistakes that I made in my time. I'm probably forgetting a few hundred that I learned the hard way. In general, I found that following a line of reasoning based on good, solid history made the game much easier. Unlike a lot of strategy games, there's not a lot of un-intuitive, counter-rational elements. Except maybe the naval stuff. Anything involving boats is kind of wack.