Well, I suppose we should give the other side to this conversation. One that will be supported with a nice piece of evidence in order to ensure we are all working from a similar page. But then I will disappear back into the shadows, for I do not care much for writing on the externals.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate WB for being the first to hit the 'Declare War' button. I suppose they reason they beat us to it was because they did not fact check their own declaration. This is fine, of course, and especially on the external forums it is common to give out false lines in the hope to smear others. In this instance, however, there is a whole bunch of untruth in the declaration despite it really only being a few sentences. Maybe it is simply down to not knowing any better. Lloyd's hand in this surely stretches further than just being controlling with us..
In stating the following:
gave us an ultimatum; Accept or Leave
You do know that the actual player stating 'my way or leave' was Lloyd, right? Though I am sure it might just be what Lloyd passed on to you. Anyway, relevant evidence is here:
The main issue here, is that Lloyd wanted back some 70 villages, of which around 50 were war caps from our mutual enemy*, and maybe 20 of which could be construed as breaches if you were wearing your WB-tinted spectacles. WB recruited two members from the very same enemy, directly breaching terms in excess of 80 villages. I offered the free recruitment of these villages in exchange for calling all breaches even and starting again, but this was, as you have probably guessed, rejected..though they still recruited them anyway. When asked to make some other compromise, the resulting answer was as above - no villages would be given, so we could have the relation over instead, perfect. WB therefore have Lloyd to thank for this recent development. They might think it is their leadership making some valiant stand here, but in reality they tied themselves up in knots over a handful of enemy villages. I don't know, there's no helping some is there.. It would be interesting to add that all the villages Lloyd got anal about were the ones right next to him, and not the ones in similar positions for his tribemates (read from that what you will).
The one we wanted to be with until the world ended.
This comment is again so far from the truth. I was told many times by Lloyd that my tribe was not trusted in the slightest by WB members! Then I suppose these were solely the words of Lloyd, so we cannot be sure what was truth in terms of what was passed on from his end. Ultimately it doesn't matter what was thought before, since the actions of the WB duke were solely an attempt to disrupt the future of the relation, meaning that what I am sure many from both sides had hoped for was not achieved. Accumulating in the mighty (lame) war declaration from WB after we already started attacking..but it makes them seem to have taken initiative, which thus far is all they have taken (though I do expect them to take some isolated villages if they ).
In terms of "free reign", well, Lloyd probably framed your opinion here too, right? Honestly...it's kinda backwards how nobling from a mutual enemy is considered against a NAP, but recruiting from them is seen as totally fair. It is quite honestly crazy how it has come down to this.
Ultimately other than fact checking, and I suppose having some sort of anti-Lloyd stance (can you blame me after what he has done?) I see no other reason for me to make comment, since I don't particularly enjoy this part of the game. I'll leave lie spreading to the ones who care more
*Please note that these are rough estimates, the actual numbers can be verified if you find someone willing to give up their time. Main point is that overall the amount of unsorted breaches were heaviest on the WB side, with 0 attempts to fix them (even after stating some would be fixed, and they weren't..)