The initial idea was to punish them by switching the fief to the AI (after all, the villagers were attacked by their masters).
When we saw that there was a large army in it, we decided against it, as that would have fucked fallen over really hard. So we decided to take 1000 troops from them.
And then we decided to do it roleplay style.
Yes, in an ideal world, the bug would have been fixed months ago. In an ideal world everyone would be happy with the balance. Every patch would be a success.
However, as a dev team that is doing this as a hobby, we cannot spend an endless amount of worktime into fixing this. In fact, the worktime we can spend is rather limited. This is why we often appeal to players conscience, fairplay and honour. And this also depends according to your.. 'social status'. If you are a leader of a big clan, we expect more from you than if you are just the idling workforce. Because strategus stands and falls with the community. So if we allow everyone being a dipshit with every exploit possible, the game won't be fun any more. You might want to check last round for reference.
So, all in all:
Don't invent a new way to fuck someone over and play fair.