Yes the Ai is more aggressive and there will be more armies. Garrisons are for the AI too-harder for player to take down. Armor and morale and fatigue settings changed for longer battles. Play with a double unit size mod and your battles will last way longer still. Battle can last even longer I could do that ...but I think this is fine...no grind fest that last on hour-20-25 minutes for full stack battle is good. My Thrones of Britannia mod has very long battles-too long in the first version battles over an hour- cut that down to about 35-40 minutes. This is a modular mod that you can use with most mods to create your own thing. If you want the ultimate challenge play on Very HArd.