What Total War do you think is the best and why?

[R'as al Ghul]

Not true R'as, and even I overlooked a change to the battle AI on the hard difficulty setting. This is from frogbeastegg's Guide to Medieval Total War, and I clearly remember the posts by Gil Jaysmith and LongJohn2 which she references here:

Yes, true. I had forgotten about that.

- On hard and above, AI skirmishers will try to avoid being pincered
- On easy the AI will not consider going into loose formation to avoid being shot at
- On easy the AI will not consider outflanking, double-envelopment, or stop-and-shoot tactics
- On easy the AI won't move troops out of the way of castle walls that may be about to collapse
- On easy the AI will try to hide rather than flee if the battle is going badly
- On easy the AI will not try ambushes
- On easy the AI will not try the 'appear weak' battle plan
- The AI is more likely to deploy in woods on harder difficulties, and less likely to camp near the red zone on easier difficulties
- The AI is more likely to consider scouting the map to find the rest of your army if it can't see it all on higher difficulties
- On easy the AI will not skirmish
- On higher than easy, the AI will specifically consider sh00ting at your artillery
- On easy the AI will generally attack rather than defend, and will not consider withdrawing for a much longer time
- On higher than easy, the AI will check to see if it's marching into enfilade fire when attacking your main body
- On easy the AI may come out of a wall breach to chase you if you attack and are repulsed

I cut out the parts that are clear and were mentioned before. Like combat bonus etc.
Honestly, I can only confirm that on higher difficulties the AI will try to ambush and will scout for ambushes and hidden units, it also goes into "loose" formation sometimes.
I'm not convinced that the other points are true or can be noticed by players.
Especially the claim that the AI will use "stop and shoot" tactics or will "move units out of the way of collapsing walls" seem more like wishful thinking.
What's the "appear weak" plan?