I never 100% conquered the whole map even when I won the game. Now I'm pretty good on the strategic map on normal or hard(as Byzantine) but I don't play to win anymore. I'll never ever conquer the whole map I guess lol.

I won pretty often on GA or 60% thing until I set my game-end date to later dates...

True, the AI doesn't handle crusades very good.
I somewhat agree with that knowing that AI sends crusade without considering chance success but sometimes AI can make a crusade seems like two crusades.