Any way to play the battles on hard and the campaing map on easy?

[HicRic]

The difficulty cannot be altered in the middle of a game. It is set when you start a new game.

Like Procrustes said, the difficulty is only for the battle map, and the only difference on the strat map is the money you start with. I think your provinces might be a bit less rebellious on easier difficulties, but I'm not sure about that.

The idea with the U shape at the end of the bridge works with the idea that enemies attacked from the front and both sides suffer large penalties and will rout much faster. I've always found that putting a U shape at a bridge with three units works much better than just plugging the bridge with one unit-you're taking away your defensive advantage! By plugging with one unit, you're effectively "attacking" the bridge rather than defending it. Let the enemies come to you, and wipe them out from three sides as they come off the bridge. My preferred units for the U shape would be a strong spear unit directly opposing the bridge set to hold formation/hold position, and two high attack sword units on both flanks set to engage at will. Anything-and I mean anything-coming off that bridge will die. Don't use vanilla spears, their morale could fail and then things would not be good.

However, I often favour a different form of bridge defence. Often plugging the bridge with either one unit or the U shape will mean the AI will put missile troops on the other end of the bridge and shoot them to bits. So I tend to have my units a bit further back...but still very much ready to destroy. ;)

If someone could tell me a place I could upload images and link to them I'll post some example screenshots of the U shape thing and my other tactic.