I dont use IRC anymore but Bart asked for 10% land, 2.5k acres. Not an unresonable demand but our hands were tied from other deals so we couldnt give them free land at the time. Neither did Panthira want too. Then I approached him again after they waved us into fort asking if he would settle with the land he took in the initial wave. Now he claimed we blanket MS them, even if it was just 5 MS on 5 smaller humans, and the price had now gone up (didnt say how much thou). We then started retal warring them. About 4 days later after they had taken alot of land and made one player quit I contacted Bart again and said the madness should stop and we should CF before things got too infected, but then he said that "Any CF terms now would be so severe that your KD will no doubt refuse them" making it clear he wasnt really interested in a CF. Another 2 days later I tried messaging Bart again but then he made it clear Panthira should be the one contacting him, not me.
Im not sure if any other CF offers were made by Bart to Panthira in between all of this. Im not even on slack alot these days.
In retrospect we should of course just had given them the 2.5k land. I was under the impression Bart would be resonable even if there was some fighting before final CF talks. He was also very polite and not hard to talk to ingame before the fighting started, but its pretty clear there is alot of anger vs Panthira burried deep down there and he doesnt mind trashing a kd for 2 weeks over 2.5k acres. Had I known there was so much bitter hate there I would have tried to convince Panthira to just give him 2.5k land :P
Your kd doesnt really have to worry thou, he is far to busy razing us, even into war and eventually his CFs will expire. The other top kds will only let him sit there and explore freely protected by a fake hostile for so long. Eventually the race for Spartan acres will start. BB getting the PI slice have already put pressure on the other 3.
It was a legit hostile for a long time. Outsiders had nothing to do with it. But when one of the kds have dropped from being 50% of the other kds size to like 30%, unresonable CF tems noone can possible accept have been made, and the kd arent hitting back anymore and the other kd is just razing to be spiteful while exploring its t/ms and some potential cows (I see this as the same as randoming btw), its a pretty one sided hostile.
Otherwise any kd with an expiring CF could just start waving a kd half their size, present CF terms the other kd couldnt possible accept (like 40-45% land for CF) and then just explore and be protected by said "hostile".
At some point the hostile ends in my book when only one kd is fighting. Others might view it differently and it is within their right to be wrong :)
On the other hand. If Sparta presented a resonable CF offer, like something back for the excessive razing and the pked provinces, a notice period and a long duration CF (like year 10 or 12) so CD doesnt risk being powerplayed in a few weeks again and CD still refuse to CF to keep meter points on Sparta as a threat. Then I would agree Sparta have the right to take whatever steps they need to take to get a CF and close down the meter. I do however believe razing into war is over the top here. They could just wait for the war to be over to resume razing and force the CF.

