Quote Originally Posted by RickooClan
Try to think in the opposite way, if you are the smaller force and one of your ally is getting bigger and bigger [and the gap will likely be even bigger as big country grow faster]. In order to win the game, you, as the smaller country, has to take action before it is too late.

I somehow think the AI of ally is pretty good in 1.02 now. The AI will ally with you to buy the time to build up their countries, and betray you while they think the time is right. I especially like the idea that while one country is getting bigger, their relations with ALL other countries will getting worse as it make perfect sense for the game objective - only one winner for the game.

As the main objective of the game is taking lands and with only one winner. Developing and making ally/friends is the path or tools only to fulfill that objective and surely at some stages the AI or the player have to betray their ally in order to take their land and win the game. (or stopping your ally win the game faster than you)

Imagine you are playing a board game like Risk with your friends. While one of them obviously getting into the stage of one super power, as a smaller country, surely you will team up with the others to defeat/stop him to grow (even he is your ally). If not, yes your country might keep alive as the super power might not attack you "first" as ally (if the objective is not taking ALL the land) but by the same time you have fewer and fewer chance to win. You simply get no point to help your ally winning the game and the same apply to the AI ally in m2tw.

The key of the game is to become the first to take 40 lands + their target province (for long campaign). Hence keeping your country alive or mantaining good ally means nothing to the AI/player if somebody is about to win the game.

ps. the story will be totally different if the glorious achievement rules applied (GA mode in MTW) and thats why lots of players want it back.
Realistically, at least as a human you would realize that you cannot win if your ally is close to achieving victory or already has done so. You'd want to stay on good relations with that ally just to make sure you won't be the next target and may just end up as the ally's best friend. Consider the real world as an example.

If the AI does want to attack its trusted ally, it ought to do so when it can actually win and not a suicidal attack just to make a point. Attacking a random allied general with odds of 1:1 in the ally's lands isn't really smart nor is besieging a town that is heavily garrisoned with a small force that may give you good pre-battle odds (i.e. 6 dismounted feudal knights vs 10 horse archers)