Cooldown period for stealing/raiding

Looks like some people are not willing to take any risks, even if this is a game and they're not risking anything real.

Arya wrote: If you are so concerned why don't you help him out with enough resources to get a rune up? Or destroy his attackers for him? Have you even spoken to this victim? Or, in fact, tell him to join an alliance, I'm sure then he can be provided with some kind of aid. Other than that, I guess sh*t happens huh, not everyone's lucky. Also, in the end remember, it's just a game, it's not like the guys life is over... and insulting people by calling them leeches because they choose the play the game a certain way is uncalled for. The actions in game are there to be used and chosen if you wish, you don't see me going around calling people wall humping turtles because they choose to play defensively, do you?

This is just a game.  That doesn't however suffice to disassociate your actions from your character.  Given especially that this is a long-term socially-emphasized war/political game where the recipients of your actions are always real people who would feel a similar, genuine sense of loss as you were the in-game roles reversed, you most definitely "are" what you do.

People who like to cling to the "people are basically good" fantasy will struggle to come to terms with this, but they mostly just need more excuses for everything than more pragmatic individuals.

If you want to make it more fair for the smaller players then add in a morale penalty for the larger players. Any player attacking a village smaller than half their size gets a penalty. that helps keep things a little more on the fair side. Or the game could impliment a restart feature for anyone with 1 village in which they can relocate but keep their research progress in case they are in the unfortunate area such as this. 

Offence and defence balance in general, is more complicated so im refering specific to stealing and raiding.

I only attack towns that are abandoned. Here are some of the signs a town is ok to continuously raid:

Still called New Settlement.
Population is under 10.

The first criteria I ALWAYS check, because you can get to the point in the tutorial where you name change in about an hour. The second is also good as by the end of newbie protection you can easily have a bigger population then 10, unless you've stopped playing.

And to all small players out there being raided, just send a friendly letter to whoevers raiding you asking them to stop. Usually their not evil people and if they realize you haven't abandoned the game they'll leave you alone, usually. Or do what I did and research a killing spell, let them hit it once for laughs, then ask them to stop.