Spartacus mission on DE

Whats with that silly mission and AI overall in DE?

I remember finishing all of them in the original on hard/hardest but some of them on DE are just straight impossible without massive save scumming and cheesing.

Like on spartacus for example. I have noticed the AI between 4-10 minutes mark straight ignores yellow and rushes my poor base with his full post iron age army. I have managed to reach iron before his attack but nowhere near enough time to muster some defense(aka spam siege/ships) I thought attacking him or geting scouted triggers the attack but no, using reveal map to study the ai, at some point some legions just walk through yellow and go straight for my walls, then the rest of the army just rushes in.

I tried to sack my original base at start to prevent scouting a bit and build a new one to the shores at 6 o clock so I can have some ship support but the pattern repeats. Best I have managed is to build some trimeres and ballista just before his attack but they just get crushed by like 10 heavy catapults and helepoli while the army destroys my base.

Some ideas that failed was using horses to find and kill all his catapults or trying to steal them with priests but this delays alot iron age plus triggers his attack sooner...Any tips?