Choosing Rivals

[PerAl]

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to this game (about 17 hours in) so please forgive my ignorance :)
I was just wondering why, when choosing to set a rival, there are only a certain amount of factions to choose from. In my current game I unified spain as castille, and I currently only have two rivals, Austria and the Ottomans, and the other two I have left to choose from are france and portugal. Portugal are my allies, and I don't want to upset them, and I don't want to risk rivalling France for fear of starting a war.
How come I can't choose a much more practical rival like Tunis or Fez? They don't appear on the list when I choose a rival. Is there a way I can make them appear on the list or something? Thanks!

[tonypa]

You can only pick rivals who are about equally powerful as yourself. And same time fairly close to you.

So for example as Spain you can not just put Ming as your rival when you have not even discovered them. And you can not simply rival countries that are much more powerful or much less powerful.

Sometimes you are only left with your current allies. AI tends to pick a rival anyway and break alliance. You do not have to, you can have less rivals and eat monarch points penalty. But eventually, it depends on actual situation, maybe you want to get rid of your ally instead.

[PerAl]

Ah, okay, thanks man. That would explain why I can't rival Fez, They only have one province haha

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by tonypa:

[...]

Sometimes you are only left with your current allies. AI tends to pick a rival anyway and break alliance. You do not have to, you can have less rivals and eat monarch points penalty. But eventually, it depends on actual situation, maybe you want to get rid of your ally instead.

If you have high trust with an ally (I think at least 80 or 90) he will not cancel the alliance just because you are the only eligible rival.
However, he may still break the alliance for other reasons (low opinion/same provinces of interest/...) and rival you after breaking the alliance.

Edit: Of course this applies only if you have the DLC which adds Trust, I think it's Cossacks.