Incompetence at best, calculated malice at worst

I think the worst thing about the era challenge is how pointless it is. There is no beating higher levels through tactics, or even luck. You either have the necessary era level to beat it, or you don't. If they just handed out rewards based on that, the result would be exactly the same and they would save everyone's time.
And as an added insult, we get locked out of the quests. This is really exceptional failure in this whole failed update.