Just finished my first DE campaign mission (Barbarossa)

I bought DE really really late, so i only played my first mission yesterday. So anyway, straight to Barbarossa 1, hard difficulty, no wall no turtle rule, and take the 1 v 6.

My observations:

1) AI seems to attack "single file" like mooks in a TV show, one by one far apart without grouping their units.

2) i defeated the wave of orange spearmen with 3 starting knights just by intercepting them as they came 1 by 1. Just a single patrol command no micro needed.

3) For AI reasons, blue tried to raid with longswordsmen. Despite my map being fully open the straightest route passes through my start castle, so 1 by 1 they sacrificed themselves. They might have more success reaching my vils if they tried to sneak by in a group. Or they could use another path...

4) i never even noticed blue "attacking" it was caught in the replay. Blue also had battering rams but never sent them to the unprotected castle.

5) AI puts one big fight when attacked then seems to give up and wait to die, while sitting on high resources like 10k gold, not even producing from buildings. They dont even rebuild TC.

6) They dont care about my rams

7) For strange AI reasons, they spread every military to cover a large area, so that each unit is by himself and easily picked off. Killing one triggers the rest to come, but since they never group up, its reinforcements 1 at a time.

8) Easy win for me while I deathballed through 6 AI without bothering with Imperial Age, or the mission objectives, my units beating the unit counters just by map position

My conclusion: this isnt "hard" difficulty...