So recently I was watching one of Com Jaks videos on Running with rifles. He was talking about campaign balance, and it was version .93. Anyway, he was talking about how the first map Keepsake Bay, was heavily hard for new players to complete, especially since they only have a limited arsenal of weapons to use at the first ranks, private and private first class. He also stated how it was much easier to complete that map of you spawned on Villa instead of Ranch or East Beach or whatever it was called back then. After playing the campaign again, mostly on the easiest difficulty, I noticed that spawning on the right side of the map was definitely the harder feat than spawning on the left. Mostly because your AI teammates don't follow you up, a good portion of them hang back at the spawn, defending it or something, and the APC doesn't move up or crashes into something and gets stuck. Also considering how if you get into an APC at the first ranks like private and private first class, none of the AI will get in with you because your too low of a rank. Basically, spawning on the right is too hard, especially on the hardest difficulty, even on the lowest one too, because of no support from AI teammates, low rank, and limited arsenal. Maybe make it so AI move up to the right, and a good majority of friendly soldiers, like 70-75% will push up, and 25-30% will stay back and defend. I really like the campaign, but I notice how people playing for the first time will play that first, and generally have a hard time getting ahead, and end up quitting the game or rage.

Also, I played the map Bootleg islands, I edited the options for campaign so I get XP faster, and when trying to get Memorium, it took me an hour just to get it! I even had 10 teammates, all AI in my squad, assisting me! I know it's suppose to emphasize the importance of radio calls for paratroopers and artillery and mortars, but in Memorium, there's the radio tower that inhibits the use of radio calls, so you can only use your squad, your guns, and that's it. This was on the hard difficulty, not the hardest, but not the easiest. So I was really surprised by this. If I was stuck on that for an hour, imagine a newer player playing on the hardest difficulty, without the XP a boosts and stuff.

hey,

0.93 is quite old, we made several balancing overhaul on map2 since back then, so that Comjak's video might not fully reflect today's compaign experience.
About the difficulty, we always wanted the game to be a tough nut to crack, there are enough easy shooters out there.
Also if starting from either the wester base or the eastern base involves a different difficulty, that's fine. There's no need to have symetrical maps. I real war, the maps are also most likely not symmetrical either
Keep in mind that if you start the campaign with "Keepsake Bay", the difficulty will be decreased to give you as low rank player a chance and avoid to rage quit.
About the AI, they attack the same way no matter if you start from the villa or the ranch. Also the same amount of soldiers will stay back to defend the base.
When you start from the ranch, some AI might attack from the beach, and some also from some tents spawns quite far to the north of the base so that the forces are much more spread compared to the villa attacking forces, which might give you this feeling about the different AI behaviour.

About bootleq Islands, it's always a wise thing to try to get a base which has a radar tower to be surrounded rather than only attacking it from one side. You might want to capture the other bases around first before you go for the radar tower base, in your case Memorium.