Try playing on medium campaign difficulty instead of hard. Medium normalizes relations every turn towards neutral. H and VH normalize to worse relations every turn, unless you do something like constant bribery to stop it. I've found that a medium campaign difficulty makes the diplomacy more predictable for my style of play, with fewer crazy moves by the AI just because our relations have bottomed out, due to a constantly sinking relations meter.Originally Posted by Julius_Nepos
Also, try a starting position like Spain, England, or the Moors (although the Moors have poor units to start with), where you're not surrounded on all sides. That makes it easier to expand at your own pace, and turtle for a while between expansion pushes.
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