Also in XL, the Norwegians have it possibly the hardest of all! Nowhere to expand to easily, NOOOOOO money and only one province! Too bad, because Norway is cool!
Norway is a pretty cool faction if you remember two things: Viking valour bonus, and the Swedes are cowards...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
by 'the Swedes are cowards' I mean no disrespect to the RL nation of the same name, rather that there is a very easy exploit for Norway: simply set a unit of Vikings in training on turn one to maintain loyalty, then throw everything you have across the border into Sweden - they always retreat without fighting - end of faction and you now have Scandinavia's richest province in your hands, plus iron

From there, like any other Scandinavian faction, you can kick some butt...