Dear Evony Team, Shame on you.
If you can do something within the rules of the game (which for a computer games, means by manually using the intended client) then it is by definition not cheating.
The relevant Webster's definition of cheating is:
"Cheat: to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards."
Show us the rule or regulation which said that certain kinds of attacks are cheating. You can't because it doesn't exist.
Insinuating that people who optimized their prestige growth are "cheaters" is both offensive and wrong-headed. The goal of this game is to optimize. You optimize resource production, army production, hero strengths, reach, alliance size, etc. Why should optimizing prestige be any different?
The fault of the fact that some people discovered a quick way to get prestige is actually the fault of the developers. They built a game with a flaw. Calling it an "exploit" or "cheating" is simply a weak way of obviating their own responsibility for building a flawed system.
I had well over 1M prestige before I learned of the 2k-warrior-on-level-10-NPC technique, and when I discovered it I tested it a bunch of times, then calculated that I could get about 5.7M prestige per day. Since there was nothing left for me to do in the game I though that taking down the long time prestige hunters on my server was a worthy goal. Instead they changed the rules.
That's ok. They did the same thing to everyone. The guys on my server who got to 2M prestige by hunting got there fair and square, because they learned more about the game, and did it faster than I did. Good for them.
That's exactly what you're supposed to do in an optimization game, optimize.
Taking away their prestige, and that of those of us who tried to compete with them, is simply poor sportsmanship.
Congress wanted to do the same thing to the CEOs and other executives of the TARP banks who took huge bonuses after receiving government money. The House of Representatives even passed a bill trying to tax those bonuses away. Then the Senate (and many Congressmen in hindsight) realized that despite the fact that it felt like people were "taking advantage" or "being unfair" or "exploiting the system" they realized that the contracts they had set up with these companies did not prohibit their bonuses. And despite the fact that they didn't like it, they realized that the executives were playing within the rules. They rescinded their witch-hunt, and just changed the rules going forward.
They realized that changing the rules of a game retroactively, that calling something "cheating" (or worse, a "crime"), after the fact, is wrong. Its unfair. Its un-American. Its unjust.
You want to punish people for finding the problems in your system? Fine. Nerf the prestige. BUT HOW DARE YOU CALL US CHEATERS? You have no right.
Another Webster's definition for cheating is perhaps more relevant
"Cheat: a fraud; swindle; deception: The game was a cheat."
Capriciously changing the rules and specifically targeting behaviors which had been within legitimate boundaries of the game, well, now that...that is cheating.
Shame on you.