I dont know much about mods, almost nothing concerning to making it. But i think the cheat's changes mods is the best way to make the AI more challeging/harder, if you like to fight battles, of course.
Or if you prefer the campaign/turn way, you can set the specific mods to the instances and stuff.
The better think you can do too, is bring mods to balance it at all, getting the content and aint being smashed. For example : if the cheated AI is very hard for you, you still enjoy the content, but you can mode yourself, maybe lowest upkeep? strongest leader? special unit? slotsbuilding?; or if it is standing easy for you, like boring, you can bring the AI a little more motivation, with less upkeep for it maybe? less recruitment time? buff your prefered rival?
In the mix you will find some confortable content within, and would be fun, slighter than this you can do on your own, way you playing, you can just hold it easy in the begin maybe, dont trying hard, giving it time to adjust your height.

I gain no satisfaction from beating an ai that cheats because it's dumb. There's no fun there. No real tactic learned because the ai cannot adapt and counter. And before multiplayer comes up, can't do that atm because the load times get too long the game will force end the session. That and I never have a good experience with the other players.

Thanks for taking the time to help, though. Much appreciated.

The deal with the cheated AI is to have more armies, so the chance of one of this armies enter your game is higher, and if you have some "cheats" aswell dont looks like anyone is cheated at all, because the game just became more filled with people, i think its easier a lot to the AI to interact with you with many armies, where the script possibilities are further than when they only have 1 army; is the same army they will have to do anything, so will end not handle it well, at all he will only be at his base, most times, or will look insane if leaving his home there to be agressive.
In a game with you and the AI cheated will not look as cheat anymore, will only be a game with more action/interaction, and it should be challeging for you to deal with more possibilities, which i must tell, you sure will get overlaped by the AI in this aspect, because if there's one thing the AI handles well is multitasking and you would feel defied, further tatics needed, would be fun.
But as you talked about long loading, if you would prefer skip doing battles, just in case, you can search for mods to the campaign, which would require better tatics maybe, instead of fighting, like "half movement", "no march" just examples, but you can search this kind mods as instance adaptations which would require more tatics, maybe, you could try.