So ...

[Viking]

Though i think i should add that VH/M is not the hardest setting, the difficulty bug was fixed in the Xpac AFAIK.

If that`s the case, battles can actually be difficult. I remember once playing a Carthaginian campaign on VH/VH. There was two battles against the Scipii were we both had fullstack armies and around 1000 men. I lost both horribly. I replayed the first one more than 10 times, but it was simply impossible to win those battles because of the morale bonuses the AI got.