Different difficulties

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

However, I believe that this was probably the best choice. The Ai was very likely incredibly difficult to program, and CA probably couldn't make it any better. So, they had to resort to other methods to balance the difficulty.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. The CA managed to successfully create an AI in Medieval: Total War and Shogun: Total War which was much more intelligent that the one contained within Rome. The AI seemed to respond more cleverly to the players manoeuvres and made more natural and sensible manoeuvres themself - it also had the very useful habit of being able to gain a victory the player much more easily. It wasn't perfect, no AI is, but, despite it being older, it was most certainly superior to Rome's. They also managed to develop the more enhanced difficulty system which I described. It's a crying shame these, and many other features were lost - mostly because the CA wanted to target a larger and younger audience and focus on other aspects of the game.