it caught my husband's attention

Good to know, we'll keep that in mind. ;) And does your husband play "Heroes"? If so, did he start playing before you and introduce you to the game? Do you play against each other?

The game is advertised as difficult, but in reality, it's the opposite.

I'm glad for you! Different maps have very different levels of difficulty. By the way, do you always set the difficulty to normal at the start, or do you just not change it? On expert or maximum difficulty, it's harder because you have fewer/no resources, and the AI players have more.
Here are two more tips:
1) When starting a new game on a new map or restarting the same map, always do it from the main menu, but never use the "Start over" button to avoid the well-known bug with the keymaster's tents (they turn out to be supposedly initially visited by the AI players, which means they can go anywhere, disrupting the intended course of the game).
2) It's best to set gold as the starting bonus for all players, but not resources or artifacts: this can also have unpleasant consequences if the AI enemy gets a particularly important artifact for free (enhancing necromancy - for necromancers, etc.).