well 3 hits don't give a hostile. if this was a smaller kingdom taking hits you would tell them to learn diplo. They have diligently been working on ways to stop nw dropping but yet you go out of your way to figure out how to do exactly that anyway. You could have stayed your size and retalled and maybe even take some extra acres. Instead you took it to war. Now you want to not hit and cry foul? The minute you stopped hits you made it a fake war, if it wasn't one before this already. At least in the past kingdoms were told to keep hitting as long as they are at war or be considered in fake war.
But given current events, rules may have changed. Guess we wait and see.