When I first started I chose not to plunder. I hated being on the receiving end, so I decided not to be on the giving end. Then there would be the quests that would force it, and I'd just plunder a house and send an apology, I felt
so bad.
After a while though... I don't know, I guess I got sick of being the nice guy? LOL In all reality I think it was when I was getting plundered, and realized that it didn't really hurt to lose the things I had lost. Adding to that the fact that I like to fight, and sometimes I did need goods I was struggling to trade for, and I hit the hood to see what I could find. Plundering is addictive.
So I changed my game plan to "aid before raid, few exceptions made". I do GvG, and my guild has some enemies, so they always get hit. Now my policy is that I will hit you if you are in an enemy guild (and always plunder if I can), or if you don't aid me. For the non-enemies though, I tend to plunder only if your defense army is garbage. Give me points or give me your stuff.
I think the meanest thing I do though to enemy guilds is during event questlines, I purposefully plunder their blacksmiths to screw up their quest completion. LOL My co-founder says I'm savage. Hahaha
Is it a more aggressive play style? Absolutely! Am I potentially making the game a bit more challenging for someone else? Yup! But hey, even Sim City had natural disasters, and those were a lot harder to recover from than me taking your Maharajah's Palace as far as games go in my opinion.
And hey, as a plunderer, I do get hit back. That's a risk I chose to take, and accept for what it is. Last week I was in a plunder war with about four other folks in my hood. All hitting and trying to get each other's stuff. It was the most excitement I've had in FoE in a long time.