The AI has a nasty habit of attacking you're big pieces with its king and dying as long as long as that big piece has been weakened a little bit. Either make the king better at attacking or change the AI.
I also found that a great strategy for beginners is to seize as much ground as possible in the beginning by trying to move the front pawns up by two spaces with the main focus being either the white color tiles or the black colored tiles. Leave the backline alone until an item can be grabbed. Almost always attack their pawn with your pawn even if their pawn is defended as they'll likely lose against your now big piece if they attack it in retaliation, The first to be able to mess around with a big piece has an unrecoverably high advantage. This is because their onslaught against undefended pawns will never truly backfire as no mechanic allows pieces surviving an attack piece to upgrade.
In my opinion, their enough risk in attacking. all the good strategies in the game will involve stalling in the beginning and playing like a maniac in the end. They're will be a greater number of relevant playstyles if you make attacking more dangerous.