To me, it's all the same. That seceding a day before war is fine while seceding a day after war is declared is not sounds like complete bull!@#$. The act, intent, and outcome are exactly the same.
The "strategic secession" rule is extremely arbitrary, and I quite dislike it. People with good knowledge of English and of the rules will be able to pull of with ease what other less knowledgeable people would be harshly punished for. Same for the strategic capital move, really. It's so incredibly easy to make a reason up to justify purely strategic reasons. A well-planned act would be untraceable and unpublishable. Reminds me of when Alluran moved their capital from their old historic center to the city bordering Enweil. It was incredibly lame. But hey, it was "to keep that duke from seceding". Uh huh. I could go on staging a revolt on Enweilieos with the fake drama and all in order to have two capitals extremely close to Riombara too, if I wanted and said players agreed.
The other rules are very easy to verify. When the people exploited the loophole to generate a ton of wealth in Dwilight, nobody doubted that it was obvious abuse. There was no room for interpretation. With these strategic secessions and capital moves, though? Anyone who properly understands the rules can easily stage a justification for what is otherwise a purely strategic act, while other well-intended people will get harshly punished for poorly justifying the exact same act.
The rules should, imo, either be completely removed or given some non-fakable criterias. There's no justice otherwise.
