Why is the rival system so broken in EU4?

[volbound1700]

I hate when they give you only 1 or 2 options for rival and it is a close Ally. Why are not any of the top 8 factions (minus you) an option? I am Spain right now and I have rivaled Mamelukes and England (lost Burgundy and Morocco). My options are Portugal and Aragon. Literally my Allies (and I will likely get PU with Aragon soon). Why aren't the Ottomans, Austria, Poland, Tunis, etc. options?

[Radene]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Originally posted by Vetgirig on Linux:

Between 25% to 400% of your strength are available rivals.

Are you sure? I've been in situations where there were several empires who had maybe 50-75% of my strength who weren't available as rivals.

What "strength" are we talking about here? Just the army/navy strengths you see aren't all of it, development and tech count too.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Radene:

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Are you sure? I've been in situations where there were several empires who had maybe 50-75% of my strength who weren't available as rivals.

What "strength" are we talking about here? Just the army/navy strengths you see aren't all of it, development and tech count too.

I'm talking army strength, development, and institution-weighted development.

[THAC0]

Originally posted by MasterYi:

Ottomans, Austria, Poland are probably too far away or strong for you.

If you want to rival them just expand more and get stronger.

Tunis is too weak if you already eclipsed Morocco.

the problem i have with this statement is ive litteraly been riviled by some dinky ass small country as some major blob
Example, Played as Mamluks, Exapnded into Arabia and what knock beat the heck out of some of the a-holes in Middle of Africa (Forget the exact spelling Euthopia or w.e) Force them to split as i didnt wanna deal with the religious BS so there tiny and weak now.
go back to dealing with India as im expanding that way, Get Riviled by the same guys i force split up look back at Africa only to notice there smaller then i left them awhile ago
granted mind you its not like i have all the DLC or even half of them i have very little in terms of DLC

so i know the whole 'there to big or to small' is kinda a BS thing at least when you have little to no DLC coz ive had times where I coulda Riviled like a barley excistant Naples that was almost taken over by the Pope as a nice meaty France, Only to check later and find naples dead completely after having them riviled for a month

Serioiusly think this game is pretty broken when you have little to no DLC that it 100% dos not work the way its intended. hints why i normaly stay away from the forums coz my experiances are 100% not what 'pro' / 'top' end players experiance or such.

I tend to mostly play countrys like Burgundy / Medium nations mind you (Burgundy my fav) and ive seen scoutland get claim / burgundy lands during the sucession when im not playing as burgundy which just made me go ??? at times, Serioiusly the number of times ive seen a small dinky place get ownership over burgundy or even france lands when im not playing on that side of Europe is just lolz

yes ive seen France lose to mighty Moracco / Mighty Brittany and what knock
rare but ive seen it.