Ai aggressive expansion

Is it just me or the AI are very aggressive in the new 1.2.5a update. Playing as rome on very hard and when i'm focusing on carthage (arround turn 70, 12tpy), most of iberia already get conquered by edetani, arverni disapear because in a war with the entire gaul and edetani, getae already expanding to pannonia and iliria, ardirae gone, athens own all of mainland greece except appolonia (because i own it), macedon dissapear within 50 turns, galatia owns most of asia minor (even lydia already died), selucid lost most of its territory by that time, pontus gone. Is this a normal thing? i replayed the campaign and get a similar aggresive ai result with iberia split between carthage; masaesyli and arverni (i've never saw masaesyli left africa before); thyni owning thrace, dacia, panonia; asia minor split between rhodes, ptolemy, and galatia (pergamon, lydia, and pontus gone). Previously on 1.2.4, whenever playing with rome those small factions would not dominate the entire region, only the major faction like ptolemies, carthage, and arverni; their expansion are much more slower as well in very hard difficulty. Is my game bugged or this is intended? I'm not using any submod except graphical, music and kam's slower battle.

Those areas you are referring to are very dynamic and fluid - a lot of factions competing each other which leads in many DOWs and conflicts in between at early stages (possibly due to scripted bad relations). Iberians will fight each other and usually one will prevail - they won't touch Carthage who is a super power at start. The Gaulish and the Germanic areas are also full of action with all those small factions competing each other. Macedon (and Greece) is a prime target for Rome AI (in most cases) and Macedon in particular will get a lot of hate from Thracian factions as well so it is hard to get by all these.

Ptolemy will usually expand towards minor Asia, Koinon Galaton will look at central and north eastern minor asia's provinces (vs Pontus, Kolkhis) and many times will ally with Ptolemy. Seleukidai will suffer from satrapies revolting and finally Parthia which in 90% of my campaigns will dominate far eastern territories.

So what you describe seems mostly normal to me. Of course small variations always occur but more or less the AI is a lot more happy to play aggressively early game where alliances and relations are not established yet, so that AI makes a DOW decision a lot easier.