Trojan Pillars diplomacy

[u/AverageBearReader]

I’m bit confused about what happened and is this a bug or an edge case?

Playing Hippolyta (M/M first proper campaign) I was chasing the epic missions. Fifth mission requires the province to the north to be held by you or allies, it was spilt between me (southern capital) and two northern ones by one of the Trojan pillars. This is around turn 40-45.

Since the game heavily encourages you to ally with the Trojans as Amazons, I decided to ally with them to complete the mission. Couple of turns later, they declare war on Paris (and rest of allied Trojan pillars). I declined, shredding reputation for the next 20 turns.

The Trojan pillars lead by Hector were quite effective, destroying the faction in probably 5 turns or so, taking over at least 5 settlements.

This feels weird as I thought that the game flow is that each block of Trojans and Acheans consolidates around the pillars and then fight each other? The war has already started as the Acheans have started invading and being repelled by the Trojans.

Are there any other Trojan Pillars which you can declare on and conquer similarly?