Minor DoW cancelled by removing Influence?

[RJCowan]

Found an odd effect in our brand new PBEM game. I am playing Spain, and planned to DoW Portugal on turn 1. I set the DoW, went about other diplomacies, then pondered if there was anything I had forgotten. I recalled an earlier game where (for a reason I cannot recall) I had decided it was preferable to reduce the Influence in Portugal to Neutral before the DoW, so I went back to Portugal and reduced influence.

When the Diplomacy results were revealed, I found that I was still at peace with Portugal. Apparently, the reduction of influence erased the DoW.

So, the first issue is that reducing influence should not remove a previously set DoW, and if it does, it should give a message.

Second, as a side bar, is there any reason to remove Influenced from a minor before attacking it? I found nothing in the rulebook saying it had any effect at all to leave Influenced on, but have this vague memory from months ago that attacking an Influenced minor (NOT an Ally!) was a BAD THING. Is this memory just more evidence of my dementia? Or is there an undocumented effect of attacking people that like you more than others?

[Jimmer]

Yes, there is a reason: You lose an extra PP for the war with an ally. However, the net effect turns out to be zero, because you also lose a PP by downgrading them from ally. So, in reality, there isn't a reason.
 
However, you can't reduce an alliance with a minor that has corps/fleets to conquered. You have to reduce it to neutral.
 
I suspect this is a bug, because it SHOULD work. But, there would be no profit to doing it.

[Marshall Ellis]

I was able to dupe this and was able to squeeze this quick fix into 1.07!