Territory Triumph/ City Conquest Help

Hi- I’m new to the game.

I have an alliance (also new) and we haven’t occupied any cities. An R4 registered for the event but I am unsure of the city they declared war on was automatically assigned (its adjacent to us) or if they selected the city on their own.

It also says that if we don’t have any occupied cities, we’d be able to attack ANY level 1 city- can this happen before attacking an adjacent city or only after?

Please help :( I don’t want my alliance members to get demolished as we are still growing.