Since I play on H/M, I give the AI money as it appears the AI doesn't receive as much money as it does in VH/M, hence tends to go into horrible debt. I don't play on VH/M because the AI tends to be overly aggressive for my liking. After a few turns, I check the "Financial Ranking" in the info scroll to see which faction has money then I use the console command "`" then "add_money factiony, x" in order to attempt to balance the game manually based upon historical expansion of factions (Parthia tends to get overrun by AS really quickly in my games). Personally, I think it's no different than scripted "add_money" commands and it gives the player more flexibility in attempting to recreate a balanced, slow-paced game. As EB states, "you have brains, the computer has money," I'd go further and say that you have brains to control the computer's money and hence attempt to create a balanced and challenging game -though usually EB's efforts make game play really wonderful without doing this and I give major props to the EB team for the work they've done already