Yeah, I have played on medium as Pontos in the past in EB and just found almost every single faction unwilling to make peace (and same thing when I played as Hayasdan). Once the Seleukids broke their treaties with me, I never could get them or anyone else near me to ally or even be peaceful with me. I had to constantly fight the Seleukids and the other nearby factions. But I could occasionlly get a smaller faction more distant to ally if I was lucky. So this just is to say that sometimes it works both ways.