It was offered in the negotiations prior to the invasion.
You are right that it couldn't have been the capital.
At the time, I incorrectly believed townslands *could* be declared capitals hence later on in the invasion's early days, Seoras being very serious about removing Barca from Shinnen Purlieus so it couldn't be declared their capital, and then D'hara from Shinnen Purlieus, so that it couldn't be given to Barca to be made their capital.
I don't believe the fact that Barca couldn't have a capital in townslands was mentioned in negotiations (of course, this was all back in May/June of last year...), just that they wanted Shinnen and that D'hara and Fissoa refused to provide a single region for Barca.
Well, maybe we didn't bring it up because we assumed you knew as well? The only time a townsland had ever been made capital before was due to Tom's interference to save his favorite realm, Outer Tilog. I certainly never imagined they'd make a townsland capital for Barca, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. Shinnen was the only choice. And from Shinnen, Fissoa could maybe have given a region... the desert? Barca didn't have many nobles left, so it wasn'T really worth giving more than a city and a few adjacent regions. D'Hara's regions were too far from Shinnen to give anything, and those eastern regions are crap anyways. D'Hara had already lost half of its economy with the loss of the West, it wasn't going to just give up and surrender half of what was left without trying something elsewhere first...
