The value of Ghoul units is divided by a factor to represent their relative weakness (so you get more Ghoul units than normal units at equivalent Starting unit strength): 1.3 for Weak and Normal Starting unit, and 1.1 for Strong and Battle Starting unit. (+] value of the unit]*2)*0.9 (so you can get slightly more units costing only than what the value of 160 for Weak starting unit would let you expect for instance) *: the value is calculated through this formula: Maximum number of units (+ 1 racial Cavalry)

The AI players receive additional starting units at higher difficulties (Lord and higher). In any case, each player will receive his racial Cavalry unit. 'Starting units' defines the strength of the units each player will start with on turn 1.

Whenever a new a game is started, many settings can be tweaked to adjust the game to your preferences. So in a story realm you'd have to start a new game, remember what difficulty you set it to this time and then compare wthe difficulty of a certain AI opponent or ally, to see if it is the same or above/below what you found in the first game.

Age of wonders 3 check difficulty