I did those raids at the beginning of my EB career, years ago. I didn't like the endless AI stacks and the endless treasure. But I accepted that RTW AI is dumb, and the only way to have fun at playing, is for me to restrict me to a "AI-level" of playing, meaning no raids with ships and just occasionally invade islands. Furthermore I have in most of my games some houserules, they can restrict me to become a superpower to early and to loose the feeling in a game.

The human player is far more better, far more creative and capable of arraying longtime strategical goals, something that the RTW/BI/ALEX-AI will never be. I do understand the reasons to make those raids if a faction sends endless stacks to you and you have to fight a epic battle every round, but in my opinion and in my experience only the troops are changing from elites to levies, not the amount.

To be clear:
I do make punishment expansions into enemy territorities to enslave, burn and raze their cities, but not with ships as even with BI/ALEX the AI is not capable of doing these things.

XSamatan