So ...

[Puzz3D]

Ah yes - seeing mention of the difficulties reminds me, are they now functioning correctly again? And is the hard battle setting still just a bunch of bonuses to the AI's troops combat power? Probably too early to tell, but worth asking ...

:crosses her fingers and really hopes that the harder battle settings are closer to MTW's with less stat boosting and more on the extra tactics front, but is not hopeful: I despise stat boosts in battle as a form of difficulty enhancer.

In a v1.3 medium Jullii campaign, I had a dead even matchup againt a Gaul army. Both generals were 4 star and both armies had 850 men. Julii had all hastati with two equite cav. Gaul had warband and a few skirmishers with two or three barbarinan cav.

Julii was in the standard single line formation that is more or less impossed on you by the AI with one equite on each end. I was attacking and moved out of a forest onto a gentle downslope where the Gaul army was waiting. I had the hastati in guard formation, but I didn't have fire-at-will turned on. Gaul had a more balanced army than mine, and their skirmishers inflicted a fair amount of casualties on my units on the left. I used my equite on the right to attack two barbarian cav on that side, but the equite lost and the enemy cav counterattacked. I moved my general to the right to hold that side, and the Gauls then attacked along the whole line. My attention stayed on the right side fighting for about a minute or maybe slightly longer. When I looked back to the left, Gaul was routing the entire left side of my line. My right side fought on for a while longer, but eventually lost. I killed 400 Gauls and lost 800, and my general was killed. It wasn't very good play on my part, and the AI took advantage of it winning decisively at medium difficulty with even odds.

Back on the strategic map, this Gaul army of 500 men stayed put at the entrance of a mountain pass. I was able to assemble a 1500 man army under a 2 star general in a few turns, and returned and eliminated the Gaul army. I lost 200 men doing that.

One very good thing now is that the AI puts its good generals into large armies, and he doesn't charge forward right away. This helps the AI to be a lot more competative in the battles.