Let's consider the difference between attack and defense using the following example: - We are playing as a Warrior (attack is generally preferred over defense, all other things being equal). - Medium difficulty combat. Here's how it roughly looks: First stage of combat: We maneuver, shoot, cast spells, attack with the hero, deal small amounts of retaliatory damage, and focus our attacks. Second stage of combat: We have dealt maximum damage, killed about 50% of the neutral units, and suffered minimal losses (small amounts of damage). Finally, the remaining units have a chance to attack us. This is where we calculate our losses. a) With +30% attack, only 35% would remain instead of 50%. b) With -30% defense, the remaining 50% would deal damage equivalent to 35%. Third stage of combat: We finish off the remaining units (compared to the second stage, there are almost no losses). So, in the critical stage, the benefit of +30% attack turned out to be equal to -30% defense. Now, let's remember the initial conditions: - Warrior; attack is not as important as defense for a Mage or Archer. - Medium difficulty combat. Let's delve into this in more detail. The biggest losses occur in the most difficult battles, where you can sometimes lose half of your army. Such battles will be prolonged, and it will not be possible to destroy 50% of the neutral units before receiving the first serious attack. And if there are fewer initial losses against the neutral units, the attack loses its advantage. On the other hand, there are also easy battles where there are no losses. But where the losses are already small, the absolute impact of attack and defense on them is also small. In combat, medium and difficult scenarios are critical; this is where skills really come into play. Furthermore, we made the assumption that in the first stage of combat, we deal damage, and not the neutral units. But this is not always true in the case of fast-moving enemies, who start dealing their own damage much earlier than slower units. So, after a series of assumptions in favor of attack, we only obtained equality between 30% attack and 30% defense. In general, defense is stronger (because 1/0.7 = 1.43 > 1.3). And what about 15% attack?

Added 17 minutes ago

Initial striking power - Archers or units with "No Retaliation."

Attack bonuses do not apply to Archers. "No Retaliation" units are unlikely to be the main striking force; their perk hardly plays a role if you can use single-unit attackers to deal with retaliatory damage. Perhaps only against slow units do "No Retaliation" units fully reveal their potential, taking on the role of "Archers." Finally, Furies are a unique case. The combination of high speed, "No Retaliation," and retaliation against melee units is essentially similar to ranged attacks, and even more so against slow units. That is, these "Archers" actually benefit from the attack bonus.