The XL mod does 2 things that make it more challenging then vanilla.
1. Land is power: This concept increases the land income values and decreases the trade values. Since your fairly new to MTW in vanilla you can set up a mamoth trading empire with lots of income. The AI struggled with this and could never compete economically with the human player. Now it at least can develop land and get a similar income.
2. Better units: The AI in XL dosent seem to employ crap units as much, it seems to spend its money and get better quality units. While certainly not insurmontable for a human, its a harder fight for sure.
Points 1-2 are stated by ajaxfetish when he talks about the AI ability to manage its economy. I agree with him and I believe its the the increased land values that make the AI have more income, build upgraded buildings and therefore produce more units.
Most mods find away to do this, I just happen to play XL exclusively because it does everything well enough for my taste. I have played it for sometime and dont think I will ever go back to vanilla. The additional music scores are nice as well, They have grown on me. So yes I like it, but MTW has been around so long that there are 4-5 very good well developed mods for the game, try them all and find one you like.
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