I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I quit my h/m Romani campaign at 245bc yesterday because the Sweboz had advanced in to Pannonia and were sending 3 - 5 full stack armies over the border at me every turn. After a couple of turns of this I sent an army up through the mountains and sacked and destroyed 3 of their cities, including the one that gave them a border with my tiny empire, and let them all rebel to the eleutheroi. I then offered a ceasefire and, despite not sharing a border with me anymore, they flatly refused and within 3 or 4 turns were back in Pannonia sending multiple full stacks over the border at me.

I decided to try a Kart-Hadast campaign and in 259bc, despite me not taking any cities and only holding what I started the game with, the yellow death decided to besiege Lepki with an army of 2 pantopadoi, breaking our alliance. I lifted the fog of war to see what they had and on their way to my lands were more full stack armies of pantopadoi and akontistai than I could possibly count, so I quit that one as well.

I have also never, ever, ever been able to obtain a ceasefire, no matter how much money is offered and no matter how hard I beat an enemy, unless we do not share a border anymore, and even then they'll only accept it occasionally, and will break it again as soon as we share a border again.

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I've found playing in M/M and roleplaying to give the best experience, along with using Force Diplomacy to put the AI back in its box when it goes off on one. If you expand slowly (and I mean at the rate of about one province every 3-5 years) and give the AI time to adjust to the way things are, it doesn't tend to be as bad. What is also fun in the later game is punitive expeditions and trying to maintain a balance of impotence amongst the AI. Without treaties or anything, intervening on behalf of weaker factions and reducing the capabilities of the stronger ones. But never conquering anyone, just making sure no one gets too powerful.

But to prevent the game going boring, I spend more time managing the AI than my own faction (and another reason to expand slowly and not take too much territory is to avoid turning the game into primarily settlement-management). I do my faction things, then turn off the fog of war and look for who needs money, which armies need moving, and occasionally who needs to be made to besiege something. I also give shed-loads of money to the rebels at the start and boost their garrisons; they're a really effective bulwark against too-rapid AI expansion in the early game.

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