I've seen this from both sides. Now before anyone yells "traitor"-- I handed off all my cities to Bloods to leave the server, then was asked to join OF, and decided it might be fun and ladon-free.
When cheda asked for relief, I was in Bloods. In my 6ish weeks there, it was the only ask from OF. And I told Bloods my opinion was-- if a guy joins a world with no VM, that's his own stupid fault. Give him 48 hours max relief for them to roll him off the front as if vm kicks in, though they should only need 24... but Bloods chose to honor an indefinite situation. I was really against it and still am. It's ridiculous. While I was there, Lucy in Bloods had a RL emergency, asked for advance relief BEFORE being hit, and was granted. Bill Munro asked while being hit... Uncle B at one point... Dave twice... and a couple more people I don't remember now. All granted, even though they'd already been revolted. This was during my six weeks in Bloods. Also, Bloods took cities from dins constantly while dins was in OF dealing with "RL", without asking relief.
Since joining OF I've seen people with RL issues here that took them from the game and made them vulnerable-- Reimu, A1b3, pigs, Antoine... with no ask for relief and a few dropped cities as we dealt with it. And just about every op there's a new ask from Bloods for RL situations... dins twice now, Dave again, and I can't even remember the others... but it hasn't been BEFORE being attacked like Lucy, all the rest have been after people have been getting revolted and are MIA. Dins is a prime example of how OF deals with it, vs Bloods. It's "okay" in Bloods to go offline and yell RL and then be outraged if it's not honored by an enemy who's trying to fight a war.
RL is important, but at some point the game needs to be played by those who are here playing it. I was in VM this weekend because I wanted to focus on RL... debated not going and hoping I didn't get attacked, but didn't want to screw over my team if I couldn't log in. There are really very very few RL emergency situations that mean you CANNOT log in enough to flip cities to friends and defend a little bit...or empty your cities and call for immediate helen revolts from all of your team to take them before the enemy notices... it's more often that people don't WANT to. Which is fine, but it's also a choice. And if you know that will be your choice, and you'll be frustrated getting attacked in those times, you shouldn't play front line in a game like this unless you're willing to lose some cities.
I'm only commenting on this because I like people on both sides-- but I think on this server, "RL issue" has become another defense tactic, instead of stacking, sniping, or flipping. And it's really not fair to attack those who are prioritizing the game for their desire to play it in full.
