I understand the frustration, I really do, and the concept of opportunity cost (working on stuff seemingly unimportant instead of fixing bugs and cheats) but it does not apply in this case. Now does it apply to Cyan vs Orange? Yeah. Does it apply to most new troop tactics? Yes. But not to events like this. And yes, most agree that wall manuals suck and make fun of them at every opportunity.
Every event is the same but with a few different parameters. Whether it's speed ups or enemy troops or forts or generals or whatever, it's simply a parameter. Same for the what is won; simply parameters. Food, wall manuals, troop tactics, it doesn't matter, a simple configuration file e.g., prize1=wallmanual,prize1count=1, prize2=food, prize2count=50101....
Of course I'm speculating here but I bet it takes 5 minutes by one person to create an event. Also probably a bunch of them (let's say, for 6 months in advance) are all planned and defined together. The art work and name are generic and can be anything. Pax Augusta itself is being reused; the google shows that it was used for collecting trade goods in the past as that's a parameter. Someone reused the entire thing but changed trade goods to speed ups for this week's event. Simple.
To summarize: no bugs were unharmed in the making of this event.
That said, could events be fun and something involving the community? Yes. Every so often we vote on one parameter (one of the prizes) but what about all parameters? Heck, are there community members that'd enjoy writing an entire event including all parameters (i.e. every step and prize, and name/description) as a proposal? Yes, many are creative and would enjoy it. But the thought of more community involvement comes up often in many ways (e.g., beta testers) but doesn't happen and that's the real tragedy here.
