couple of thoughts..

1. War games tend to attract aggressive players. This kind of situation isn't that unusual.

2. By sending all these mails, you've essentially identified yourself as "easy meat" to a predator. That's one thing I found out when I started.. you absolutely *cannot* appeal to most people's sense of decency here, simply because many of them don't have one. Any time you communicate, you need to try to do so from a position of strength. Not one of aggression, particularly, but strength. Doubt it'll have much effect now, but just somethin to keep in mind for the future.

3. Koolaid has the right of it.. It *is* all about who you know. Strong friends can help immensely... but even more than that..

4. Finding the right alliance to be in is paramount. If your alliance is unwilling or unable to work together to defend its members, then you're likely not in the right alliance. I know that's a bit harsh sounding, but it's kind of the way of things. A good alliance is like a well crafted shirt of chainmail armor.. each link needs to be strong on it's own, but when you put a bunch of them together, they collectively create something much stronger. In a basic chainmail weave, each link has at least 4 others supporting it, and the numbers only go up from there. The tighter knit the mail is, the more protected the wearer... Similarly, the tighter-knit an alliance is, the more protected each member.

5. Defense! Level 10 walls with 18k AT's can be something of a deterrent, unless you're in a late-stage server. Open gates with 50-100k+ scouts can protect against scouting.. and many people are reluctant to attack blind. Jack up your embassy, so that more alliance members can reinforce you if attacked.

One of my friends just weathered an attack by 1.2 million archers plus an assortment of other troops.. 17 waves. Wiped them all out. How? Because there's a heavy bias in the game mechanics towards defenders... An attacker can only throw 125k units at once... but you can have upwards of 1m defenders to meet those 125k waves. In this case, his alliance mates sent enough troops that there were almost 800k archers garrisoned in his city. Teamwork is powerful.