The Patch messed up the difficulty settings!

[Jambo]

I think this is nonsense, the battles are not easier! Battles are over quicker because of the increase to attack that the AI gets, but that's all..

[Slaists]

To Jambo: The AI does not seem to get the same attack bonuses they used to earlier. Test a unit of peasants against a unit of peasants on various difficulty settings... The AI side does not get higher kills on higher levels now...

[Quietus]

The longer the melee, the easier the battle. It is the same reason why MTW was incredibly easy, one spear unit can soak a bunch of other units while you flank with the rest.

As for the bonus, I can't say for sure it is gone for infantry. But heavy cavalry is definitely overpowered. I believe the battles are more manageable since the skirmishers are now working.

I have to fight more barbarians to be sure. I've dealt mostly with the greeks after the patch.

[Jambo]

Slaists,

Isn't that simply because the peasants in the hand of the human rout quicker at the higher difficulty level due to higher kill rate?

[Red Harvest]

It is a morale slider now. I do not see any indication of an outright attack bonus for the AI anymore. When I tested this a week or so ago based on somebody's post I had very odd results. The interesting test was triarii vs. triarii. I seemed to get a better charge in (despite trying to match the AI's as best I could) and would win handily on VH. I saw some similar things with cav, but even with a winning advantage during melee my cav would usually rout early. So I think they scrapped the attack bonus for a morale bonus. That bonus is not always enough for the AI to win and is very sensitive to initial losses.

Easy battles take a lot longer. Probably because of increased morale improving defense in some fashion.