You won't understand stability any more if you use a no stability mod. Stability takes time to understand, but many parts are easy. For a good economy, build lots of cottages instead of farms and workshops. Courthouses help a lot, and expanding too large is a no-no. I'm not too good at stability myself, but when you invaded a country, capture cities and raze their capital, it is a refreshing feeling to have them collapse. Also, without stability, there's not a whole lot of obstacles for the AI from building giga empires.