Well was that not the plan of GX?
No, it wasn't. GX was to expand to a certain size and stay there, only allied to one or two realms at most. As for Alara, they might have been lower on the totem pole than GX if they allied with them, over the long term that would have been the best way to turn around and break said alliance, once they had Minas Nova's lands. And any realm that gets reduced to their sole remaining city as fast as Alara did isn't exactly going to be equal to anyone in any alliance they make, so I'm not exactly sure where you're coming from with this argument.
CE didn't ally with their neighbours from the get go. They crushed an enemy then place their future allies as they went. Just like Morek did on Dwilight and Perdan with Westmoor and Perleone.
The difference being that GX never had any plans to replace Perleone and other neighboring realms with anything once the war started with Alara. Their only goal at that point was to remove Alara, possibly replace it with a vassal realm (one possibility being that vassal realm would be ruled by my character, though I'm not sure how likely that plan was), and that was about it. Perleone was merely an enemy to defeat, and Vix/Perdan interlopers to be crushed whenever they brought their armies down to fight. Though with the way that Perdan and Vix entering the war has cornered GX and see most realms in the south as threats, Perdan and Vix may have created their own CE rather than squash a threat like they were aiming for.
