RCHP, I appreciate you being even-handed about this. Let me just throw in a few additional thoughts.
1. DECIDE never, ever asked for RAM help with ~B~. They came to us. Did we say to them, 'no, don't hit ~B~' ? Of course, we welcomed them hitting ~B~ (because ~B~ were annoying, as everyone admits). We already had a NAP with RAM and they had even asked for an alliance. But, we certainly did not ask for the help.
That makes sense to me. DECIDE wanted to focus on ~B~, RAM asked if they'd like a hand, DECIDE said "yes please". It's been made out like DECIDE were
begging for help.... which is completely untrue. Perhaps RAM saw ~B~ as an opportunity to get some easy Ks? Perhaps they were trying to suck up to DECIDE with the pure intent of recruiting Brindamour/DBL J/Lwamii?
To be honest, I don't know what the intention was when RAM contacted DECIDE to ask if they'd like help with ~B~.
2. DECIDE would have been content for RAM to choose whatever spoils of ~B~ they wanted, as long as those players are not in DECIDE dominant Ks that are Ks away from RAM. Those ~B~ players were ones we had been fighting and were on our back doorstep and not near RAM. Your cons have stated well other aspects of this. There were numerous other ~B~ players they could have recruited, but choose not to.
It was known that the players we recruited were in DECIDEs Ks, and they had fought against DECIDE before. However this didn't seem to concern the council (bar noobaxes) at the time.
3. Before, during and after these players were recruited, diplomatic talks were held between myself and karma then wittman then mark berns regarding these players refugee status and that DECIDE would not release them as refugees. We tried.
You should've contacted myself, noobaxes or Bonhuer. I hate refering back to the old PMP/T-W-C days, but it should be noted that all the players you had "talks" with were Ex-PMP players. Should you had had "talks" with an Ex-T-W-C player (the tribe that originally built the friendship with DECIDE), perhaps you would've obtained a more favourable result. Noobaxes or Bonhuer would have been the best players to chat with as they know the most abiut the history between our two tribes.
4. We are not declaring war on RAM. We are attacking our refugees, our food. If RAM stops inserting themselves between us and our food, we have no reason to attack any member of RAM. We are cleaning up our Ks, simple as that.
Unforunately, it would seem like the RAM leadership has taken your statement as a declaration of war - which it wasn't.
As much as I agree that every player in RAM is just as important as the next, RAM could have used your target limit (5 players) as a defense base. RAM could've stacked them like crazy, exhausted all of DECIDEs offense and sent you packing. But I am not sure if that is still an option as Karmax seems to be "game on for another war".
We will see what happens though.
