I realized that I had never commented on what happened. Here it goes!
I found that if you just wait and not bite off more than you can chew, one alli or another will get into a war and you get to decide whose side to be on. If you cancel an alliance with one side, their allies will often cancel their alliance with you. Therefore, Benevolent "Dictator" or not, you are not going around breaking treaties.
Another curious thing I noticed was that my king's status was not affected by breaking alliances, (certain ones at least). I hit the Byzs just to see the effect and nothing happened. Maybe you don't take a hit in influence if you WIN?
That brings me to another line of thought: If you do not help an alli, does your influence suffer?; Does anyone have a table for influence effect? - ie. you have so much chance for an alliance if you have 6 crowns of influence vs. 5); and lastly, Why in the world does the capture of an assassin not give you a pop up screen with the choice to break an alliance and lower the influence of the king in question?, after all it is supposed to be a measure of whether you will keep your word or not.
Glad for any comments!
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