I just didn't quite understand the following: (Attack - Defense) * 5% and 300% – should this be understood as: (attack minus defense) * 5% * 300%?:confused:

No, it means that there is a maximum multiplier, which is 4. There is also a minimum multiplier, which is 0.3. That is, 1000 peasants will deal 300 damage to a Sapphire Dragon, despite the latter's huge defense. On the other hand, 1 Archangel will deal no more than 200 damage to peasants (50 * 4), despite its huge attack. This does not take into account secondary skills.

QWERTY didn't say everything about modifying the calculated damage using the secondary skills "Defense" and "Attack". More precisely, everything is written correctly about "Defense" (the already calculated damage is reduced by a certain percentage), but with "Attack", as well as with the secondary skill "Ranged Attack", things are a little different. With a positive difference between the attacker's attack and the target's defense, the calculated damage is indeed increased by the specified percentage. With a negative difference between the attacker's attack and the target's defense, this percentage decreases!!! The decrease is 1.25% for each difference between the attacker's attack and the target's defense for the "Attack" skill, and 1.75% for the "Ranged Attack" skill.

Let's calculate how much damage 100 peasants in a hero's army with an Expert "Attack" skill will deal to 1 Archangel. Let the hero's attack be 9. Then the peasants' attack is 9 + 1 = 10. The Archangel's defense is 30. The difference between the peasants' attack and the Archangel's defense is 10 - 30 = -20, i.e., negative. Then the multiplier will be 1 - 20 * 0.02 = 0.6. Therefore, the damage will be 100 * 0.6 = 60. But there is also an Expert "Attack" skill!!! Since the difference between the peasants' attack and the Archangel's defense is negative, the increase in damage due to "Attack" will be less than 30%. To be more precise, it is 30% - 20 * 1.25% = 5%. Finally, the damage of 100 peasants to 1 Archangel will be 60 + 60 * 0.05 = 63 (and not 78!).

P.S. I checked this myself using the map editor. I can send the results by mail (to view, you need the Origin 7.0 program).