Excellent way to control the AI's expansion without FD

[Cullhwch]

After you've carved out a good-sized empire (ie gotten so large that total defeat is absolutely inconceivable), it's really pretty damn easy. Once your diplomat finds a target army it only takes about a minute to do the whole process.

[Ardri]

I normally run the money script to keep all units around 300,000 mnai, once I want to rp an extended peace between Rome and say the Aedui, I just cut the Aedui money down so that they only stay around 10,000. Without money they don't attack and when another war is ready to start up I bump them back up to 300,000 and the fight is on. Just an alternative to the method you proposed which sounds pretty effective itself.

[oudysseos]

Interesting approach, but still a bit of an exploit: the money you get from tribute is given to the AI faction by a script, so it's essentially the same thing as using a cheat to give yourself money. But if you earned the first million the hard way, at least it's not such a flagrant cheat.