Why is Very Hard the recommended campaign difficulty?

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm not entirely sure why this is the recommended setting. Is the game intentionally balanced for that? If so, why? To my mind it's an absolutely awful setting.

We get diplomacy that simply doesn't function. It's bad enough that it makes little sense as it is, but on VH the AI won't even willingly accept gifts or trivialities. It's as good as disabling diplomacy.

There's already a script which helps the AI with their economies, only on VH they automatically get an additional 10,000 mnai a turn. Which IMO aids bigger factions moreso than smaller ones, but worse than that it means stack after stack after stack of enemy troops. Which isn't "epic" after the third or fourth turn of fighting six battles every turn, just tedious. Even better, there's another script that replenishes their populations, so there's almost no cost to the AI recruiting near-endless numbers of troops.

Factor in the ridiculous AI diplomacy, and the way they all hate you regardless of what you've done, and it's contrary to a slower game since you spend your time defending yourself, or else conquering to end the repetitive stream of attacks.

Lastly, naval warfare is screwed up. Your fleets of quinquiremes can be sunk by AI transports and pirates.

Sure you get a "harder" game, but it's also one which doesn't make a lot of sense, historically or realistically. So why is it the recommended setting?