There are a few small clans in the desert, and Hero_Party was being diplomatic with all of them. Hospitallers ordered their pawns to do Hosp bidding in crushing anyone that held an interest opposing Hosps, such as forcing Chevalieres to attack a castle they had no interest in, to the point that Chevs just wanted to declare independence and be on their way.
Not even just that, the Hospitallers tried to engineer a false peace between Shogunate and LLJK, simply so they could order these clans into the Hospitaller alliance and invade Hero_Party, promising LLJK the Hero_Party fiefs in exchange for Shogunate taking LLJK's. This would only be possible with the complete genocide of Hero_Party players and claims in the desert, and was basically the most laughable attempt at stacking the odds in Hosps favor I've seen yet.
The best thing is, no one is manipulating anyone against Hosp these wars. No one ever had a grand plan. You guys simply reached too far, thinking you could bumble through Strategus as a bunch of arrogant, omnipotent warlords of the world, commanding any minor faction in your path to Join Or Die, as the last months of Strat 3.0 probably did nothing but give you false, empty confidence in your power and ability.
But when you take the EU alliances on our doorsteps away, take away thousands of duped lordly plate and cav, hundreds of thousands of duped gold, and replace an apathatic, cynical Strat playerbase bored of 8 months of a bad Strat and replace it with clans in NA looking for a new start, to not get bossed around, to not be beholden to every Hospitaller whim, what do you get?
What you see before you. Hosp army after army slaughtered in the sand, allies turning their backs, new powers rising inspired by Hospitaller war crimes and injustice to bring suffering to your homeland as you have done to mine. If you ever want it to end, it won't be because you got a bullshit claim on a hacked castle you didn't deserve. It will be when you reconsider how you play the game, the deals you make, the shit you post, and come to the table begging for peace and mercy as a weakened husk of the invincible empire you thought you were. Only then will I accept peace.
Until then.. send more troops