Uh... hate to burst your bubble, pal, but Astrum has been expecting war with Caerwyn for quite some time now 
That is where I meant to direct my question. And yeah... the whole Baal thing was a trick to make you look the other way. We need time to plan and rally, which is especially hard to do without telling any Marshals or nobles. It all went on in the realm council, spanning some 6 nobles. We suspected exactly what Baal said in his letter to all the rulers and there was a general distaste or rather hatred against SA for destroying the northern "pagan" realms. Caerwyn being one, we were thoughtful of the fact that we may be next and if we didn't act now, we would never have enough power (combination of us, Averoth, etc) to face SA.
The Brotherhood of Astrocracies was a real in for the schemers. Translated a certain way, it definitely looked like an alliance against all pagan nations. Oh yeah and might I add this: Allison.
On another note, the "Too Much Peace" message kept popping up for us but that wasn't a reason that lead us to war at all, but it is a rather annoying feature in the game.
