I play as WRE much more then ERE (I still play more Romans then non Romans), and the ERE is much easier then WRE.

With WRE you will have a civil warm you will be deeply in debt, you will need to face Barbarians and Rebels at the same time, and you will need to consider your cash flow when training troops much more then any other faction.

After plenty of games though I found a good way out of many WRE problems, however it is still hard.

In playing ERE though I generally don't get too many unrest problems, and have yet to face a civil war with them.