How to increase Rome: Total War beyond "Very Hard" settings

Question

Rome Total War was a classic game that I had the pleasure of being introduced to as a teenager on Christmas day. After re-installing this game and playing both the locked and unlockable factions on "Very Hard" I found the battles and campaign scenarios trivial compared to when I was just a kid. Although I have played as every faction, I feel that I could derive more enjoyment from this game if I could find a way to make it more challenging.

Is there a mod(s) or configuration files that I can adjust to make this game truly challenging?

Note: At the risk of sounding immodest, I will say that I am a military genius as far as gaming is concerned. I am a grandmaster in Starcraft 2 and have won RTS tournaments and crushed dozens of human opponents at LANs and other organized events. SO BRING ME A CHALLENGE!!!

Answer 1

Although the difficult settings modify the aggressiveness of the AI, it does not improve the AI. It just adds income, building speed, attack, defence and moral bonuses to the AI. If you feel it was too easy you can increase the difficult by reducing spending in campaign, or spend less point in allocating troops in skirmish.

Human opponents are more difficult than AI. I suggest you should wait for Total War Rome II or other RTS games and you will have real challenges again.

Answer 2

AI in RTW is very basic, have you tried RTW expansions? You have Alexander (ALX) and Barbarian Invasion (BI), they are very enjoyable. Also you can try lifting some victory conditions, maybe raising the number of provinces from 50 to 100 or to the max, so you can fully dominate the ancient world.

There is a link where you can edit the victory conditions on RTW here

Editing Victory Conditions at RTW HeavenGames.com

Also you can try mods, like Europa Barbarorum which adds much more detailed provinces with more cities and a larger and detailed campaign map. Enjoy!

Europa Barbarorum Site