What I meant is, if the AI had a special routine for declaring a war without a causus beli. It'd check if it had the admin to declare war and take the stab hit, then work as if it spent the admin instead of taking the stab hit? Or soak stab hits using it's admin?
That's assuming they even have a true pool of points that they need to manage in the way the PC does. I believe the developers have given enough evidence that this is questionable and likely not the case at all.
Mict : If the AI knew it would lose stability by doing an action, why couldn't it carry out the stab raise in the same tick?
Playing the game shows the AI's process: Same way every other action -> reaction works in EU4. You take the action and it then reacts the next tick. The AI takes an action, and cleans up the consequences/begins to in the next tick. I do not recall if they immediately raise armies upon you declaring war, but this would be another good example of them being unable to react immediately to events while the PC has the game paused.
Unless there was a specific subroutine added to the AI to take into account their complete inability to deal with stability mechanics [enforcing my point that the AI doesn't know how to play the game], I stand by my claim that they get absolutely zero stability hit from warring without CB or on a married country.
Which is indicative of further issues with EU4, the fact that the AI is so weak and unable to play the game that it ignores the gameplay that is forced on the player.
The AI does not cheat with points.
The AI does try and keep stab high; if it takes it hit and the stab goes down; most of the time they will raise it if they have the points. I have personally seen it and used it for my purposes. They also do this with War Exhaustion.
Again, this is how the AI Cheats:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/AI#Cheats
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713930
What you saw was an event-triggered stability hit. The AI is not immune to those. What is clear is they do not get stability hits from declaring wars without a CB/with a royal marriage/from breaking truces. Ive had one do all three at one, actually, and had.. you guessed it, 3 stability afterwards. I highly doubt a country with 4 provinces and a 2/2/2 ruler has thousands of admin points stacked up ready to go whenever they break one or all of these routines.