AI trigger-happy on breaking player alliances?

[Lepaso]

A buddy and I were playing with the new DLC (normal mode, mp, cradle), and the AI seemed really eager to drop us as allies. He and I were allied with QQ, QQ and I had 200 relations both ways, QQ did not desire my or my vassal's land, 50 trust. QQ and Mamluks surpass each other as rivals in March, maybe Mamluks got too big, maybe QQ, and they are no longer rivaled to each other. QQ immediately breaks the alliance and rivals me. I figure it's a fluke thing, since there was no apparent reason for them to do this, no 'breaking alliance' warning, nothing, completely left field, so we restart to the beginning of the year. Again, same thing. Restart once more, same thing. Again, but he rivals my buddy instead, which makes a bit more sense since their relations were deteriorating. Once more, me, again.

I switch over to QQ to see what's going on. nothing unusual, a bit of corruption, low manpower, typical AI stuff. I check his rivals, and his choices are, once he loses the Mamluks, myself, my buddy, or the AI below him he is allied to as well, so no matter what, if he wanted a new rival, it would be one of his allies. Thing is, he has the worst relations with my buddy, then the AI, then me; we loved each other.

Is this typical stuff in Hard and Very Hard now carried over to Normal because of the changes? Sheer bad luck? Is the most likely scenario that the AI ally had 55 trust which meant he was less likely to be rivaled? I'm confused on why I was the top priority rival.

 

[SaucyBaron]

You probably got rivaled because you were one of the only available rivals he had, the AI will always try to fill up it's available rival slots when it loses one due to power differences.

Opinion is irrelevant to this, you only had a measly 50 trust with him, that is the default trust level aka he is not invested in your alliance at all. if you want someone to be guaranteed to be a long term ally you MUST boost trust a lot, it's either 80 or 90 trust where they are guaranteed to never rival you.

The alert for breaking an alliance is only if the AI is planning n manually breaking it "usually wants your provinces or low trust", if the alliance autobreaks due to negative relations or rivalry there isn't enough time for the alert to show up.

 

[bradles0]

also this line
"-AI is no longer prevented from seing the player as a long term threat to work against on normal difficulty."
means that powerful and slowly growing players are more likely to draw the AI's ire.

 

[Lepaso]

you were one of the only available rivals he had

I'm well aware, I switched to him and he could only rival me, my buddy, or his AI ally; he was allied to all 3 of us. I would assume that it would be a three-way split, but from the (limited) restarts, it nearly always picked me, which is what's throwing me for a loop.

means that powerful and slowly growing players are more likely to draw the AI's ire.

See, this is why I would assume I would get picked, and I'm fine with that, but I've barely expanded. I have taken about 4-5 provinces and 2 3PM vassals, both of which were orthodox, so it's not like I'm getting a religious/AE malus from conquering Shias, at ~1480. What's also throwing me is that he never rivaled the AI ally even once, and there's no way in hell that AI had 80 trust, it was a recent alliance.

 

[makaramus]

QQ got very few rivals as choose if you play as them you will see so I think in sadness he HAD TO pick you as rival

 

[Incompetent]

I've noticed the AI will sometimes go hostile, desire your provinces and then calm down again after a month or two. It does this even when allied with high trust.