As forewarned http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/alliance-changes-heads-up_topic141.html - here , all but one of the Alliance Changes have just gone live.

• Alliances without a stated NAP or Confederation are now considered Neutral with each other, rather than at peace
• Alliance Set Up cost has been increased to 5,000 Gold
• The 24 hrs of "War Pending" has been removed, and wars now go into effect immediately
• There is no direct benefit (at this current moment) to declaring a war, except by way of announcing a bigger intention than accidental/low-level skirmishes. There will however - in the near future - be some 'management' advantages to actually declaring war (such as seeing enemy cities on a Map Overview)
• War declaration fees no longer exist
• The only thing that has not (yet) changed is the amount of Gold the alliance coffer protects from theft, but this will change shortly with the next updates to the diplomatic and military codebase (later this week)

For the avoidance of any kind of doubt, the state of Neutrality allows military actions. For example, if you now run into another alliance's caravans or troops on a Resource square, a skirmish will occur.

A very peculiar, highly limited circumstances buglet regarding harvesting caravans occasionally vanishing has been resolved, we hope.
It only effected a very small number of players who have had their caravans returned to them. http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/ive-lost-a-caravan_topic191.html - More details available here.