There should be some cap ±~2 levels (or based on team score) so that new players aren’t steamrolled.
In the beginning of the game I was constantly getting raided by players twice my level and it just happened again. It made it extremely frustrating to get my stronghold upgraded when my maxed out mines couldn’t keep up with all the iron being stolen. Now I’m a level 10, getting raided by a 17. Their team scores are not quite double mine but enough that I could never defeat them in my best attempt.
I have a guy on my alliance that got to level 4, never leveled up any of his heroes and just stopped playing. I assume what happened to me also happened to him and he just gave up.
You can’t be raided at all until you build an Outpost, which you can’t do until your stronghold is level 5. It’s pretty unusual to get to Sh5 before reaching level 5.
Once you’ve built an outpost you are in the mix. The system allows on,y matches within 300 trophies, which prevents egregious mismatches. Some people “drop cups” by setting weak defenses and then steam-rolling opponents with their attack squads.
I guess that’s where I messed up, I saw that busted building and fixed it before much of anything else.
I haven’t even hit 300 trophies yet, I think my max was like 150, but I don’t go out raiding. If that’s the case I’ll just drop to 0 and not participate, can I tear down the outpost???
I just got steamrolled by lvl18s for 40k iron & 36k meat overnight because I’m trying to upgrade the stronghold more.
I agree with you that 300 trophies is too large a difference at lower levels. If you have a 150 trophies you can get raided by someone with 3X as many. The percentage difference reduces as you get stronger though.
If you are losing that much iron/ham overnight, you need to collect from the Watchtower more frequently. The only food taken in raids is from what’s being kept in the watchtower. If you keep that count low, you won’t be attractive to stronger teams, since they can’t get many cups from you and the amount of food/iron they get is based upon how much you have in the tower.
Don’t worry buddy - you won’t stay there long anyway 
