I wouldn't go as far as to say that looting damages player retention. If a realm points newbies to destroyed regions that is a mistake and they are going to pay it losing the guy. Unfortunately, the game loses the potential new player as well. You can't blame looting for that though. I think it's quite appropriate that war torn areas are devastated.
Looting became the monster it is today back when peasant count started to affect production. Back in the day you could have 10 peasants in the region, but still get 100% production. Back then looting was a fun way of stealing gold from your enemy, burning some food, maybe even making the region rogue. But all it took to recover was a bureaucrat and some civil work for a week or so and the region was good to go again and provided all the benefits it had before. No knight lost income because gold was distributed realm wide instead of per region basis. These days you have to wait months for the population to come back and the knights of the region struggle.
I think the game has lost a lot of its fun and lightness due to such realism additions and drive away new players.
