This is probably the single most common thing that people ask about on the forum. There are several ways to address it, depending on what you are looking for:
What are some strategies to minimize my chances of getting plundered?
There is no way to eliminate the chance of being plundered, but to minimize it you can:
- Schedule your production times so you can collect right after they finish. You can only be plundered when you have uncollected items in your city, so this is by far the best method.
- Run multiple short productions; you can only be plundered once per player per 24 hours, so if you can't collect on time, this will at least minimize your losses. You should still collect as often as possible.
- Post the strongest defensive army you can. This won't stop players who are several ages ahead of you, but it will often deter players in your age or lower.
- Send a friend invite to your attacker. You can't attack friends, so if they accept this will make you safe. Implicitly you are promising to aid your friend regularly, and if you don't you will probably get dropped from their friends list and become subject to attack again.
- Offer to contribute a few FP (per day, per week, or just once) to the attacker's Great Buildings. This may be a smaller price than the plundering losses, and also gives you a chance to receive rewards for the Great Building donations.
- Try to join the guild of the player who is attacking you. You can't attack fellow guild members. Do be aware of any guild policies in the guild you want to join.
- Join a guild that has some powerful cities in your neighborhood. Many guilds will try to protect their members by threatening to plunder people who have plundered one of their own. (On the other hand, some guilds try to plunder people in other guilds that they are at 'war' with, so this could make you a target; talk to someone in the guild about your situation first.)
Being plundered makes me angry, can you help me feel better?
You certainly have my sympathy, especially if you are being plundered by a player much more advanced than you. It is unpleasant to be stuck in a neighborhood with aggressive advanced players. But you will probably be rotated out of this neighborhood before too long. Over the long run, things tend to even out. You'll find yourself in easy neighborhoods sometimes too.
In the meantime, take advantage of high-age players in your neighborhood. By aiding them you have the chance to get blueprints for high-age great buildings. You might see if some of them would like to trade high-age goods for forge point donations; you can earn a lot of goods that way. If you have a lot of high-age players, there's a good chance a few will be using two spears as a defensive army. You can beat that, and a single plunder from a high-age building can make up for all your losses from being attacked.
Added: The new (January 2017) neighborhood rules modify this a bit; you should no longer find yourself in a hood with far advanced players. But there will be players an age ahead of you, and players with much stronger attack bonuses than you. That is still frustrating, but a strong defensive army is likely to impose some losses on your attacker, and you have the option to build up your great buildings as well.
I am philosophically opposed to games that reward conflict and aggressive behavior. Is there any way to opt out of the player-vs-player part of the game?
No, it is an intrinsic part of the game and the developers have made it clear that they don't plan to change that. If this makes the game unpleasant for you, then your best bet might be to find a different game that doesn't have this element. Elvenar is another city-building game that doesn't have PvP fighting.
I think it is immoral for people to plunder me, will you support me in condemning them?
No, players who plunder are playing the game as intended, and are not acting in an immoral way. No actual damage is being done to anyone, and by playing the game you are agreeing to subject yourself to its rules. Condemning someone who plunders you doesn't make any more sense than condemning a chess player for capturing your pawn.
