Which honestly says more on the bunch of bullies than on them. Anyone with the least bit of pride would not have participated in this gang bang...
So they should just have ignored all the awful things that were said about them? By this piddly little upstart realm?
Any realm that says such things to/about such a massive behemoth should expect to get squashed. (Honestly, I'm frequently surprised Riombara didn't get squashed long ago for the things I said about Enweil—and they weren't a tenth as bad as what Thulsoma was saying
)
And, as Indirik said, they were able to abuse family gold and new-character troops to bring their army size up to a staggering amount for such a small realm, and build up their walls to (I think) level 7. This made it absolutely necessary to bring a truly massive army against them.
And what would you have had Tom do? Just delete all their troops? You know he doesn't operate that way. The loopholes were closed, and people were advised to handle it IC. Which they were already doing.
