A piecefull alternative

[Adrian II]

Fester, I tried that too, but I found out good boys tend to become fat boys to the point where all your nice little model armies are sporting huge signs saying "My leader stinks, please attack!". I'll admit that it can be fun to try and upgrade your gluttonous king or eternally pissed general by sending him into battle while keeping him out of harm's way just enough to hide his lesser qualities, but only occasionally. You know, the easy easy catchy routing enemy thing, with the old rag being held in the saddle by servants on either side and hiccuping "P-peasants? I though you s-said ph-pheasants!"

[Silver Rusher]

This tactic is also good as the Russians or especially the PoN if u make em playable.

[Blodrast]

well, in reply to Soly's post, of course you get beaten....that's the whole point of it. At least for me. I set some limits, and don't expand, get only certain territories, enough to have a decent economic base, but not enough to be considered (by myself) a superpower. My whole point being to sit and not-quite-watch-but-neither-kick-everybody's-ass-in-50-years.
Occasionally, sure, I get defeated. That's definitely part of the challenge.
And sometimes it's fun. There is no question that I can beat the AI anytime I want, the fun (for me, nowadays) is trying to beat it under challenging conditions.
Several things have been suggested, like giving money to the AI factions, or using -ian and playing them for a few years, or even switching from one to another after a while, all great suggestions.

In this particular example, I get my fun from having fully upgraded troops pulverizing armies 10 times bigger, or routing the enemy w/out even moving one unit, wreaking havoc and confusion and falls and risings with my agents, etc.

Getting defeated every now and then, having really really bad (read: "powerful") re-emergences in the middle of or next to your land, and trying to keep your bad-vices-loaded generals and king under some control is part of the fun and challenge, in a twisted sort of way