Noobie Question about stats, How does defense affect a battle?

[insanoflex]

So, I'm a bit confused about how the stats work. Defense stat is used on defense, and breakthrough is used on attack, that much I know. I'm just curious how hp/organization damage is calculated based on these stats. For example, I was trying to see for myself how it worked, using the Italian invasion of Ethiopia as a kind of test bed. I had 1 division against 1 of theirs. After all modifiers were taken into account the stats seemed to be 15 soft attack(both sides, no hardness on either side). My division was on the attack and had 9 breakthrough, while the enemy division had 90 defense. I expected to lose, and take significant casualties, but I really didn't after about 5 days of fighting. I took 3% strength damage while the enemy took 2%. I kinda feel like I should have either dealt less damage than that, or taken more since the difference in defense is 10x.
My conclusion to this is that the defense stats don't really matter nearly as much as the attack stats do. But I'm still new so I'm not really sure. It's hard to get the perfect battles going to see the effects. I'm also curious what the wiki means about "Each attack has the potential to be a hit or miss, where hits would cause HP and organization damage to the enemy unit. After each attack, the defending unit removes one defense (if it has some left) and the actual chance to hit depends on if the defender has defenses left or not. The base chance to avoid hit when unit has defenses left is 90%. If the defending unit has exhausted all of its defenses, the chance to avoid hits drops to 60%." In the battle screen I don't see anything saying how many "defenses" a unit has left. Or does that mean, each attack will reduce the defense stat by 1, 10% chance to do damage each time, afterwards each attack has 40% and that's per hour?

 

[Zwirbaum]

Using your example:
Attacking division: Soft Attack 15, Breakthrough 9, Softness 100%
Defending division: Soft Attack 15, Defense 90, Softness 100%.

Each hour of combat (unless there will be tactic change, air superiorirty, CAS joining engagement etc.) it will work like this:

Attacking division compares it's effective attack (Here 100% of Soft Attacks, because against 100% soft target) = 15 Soft Attack, against 90 Defense of defending divisions. 15 < 90, which means each of the 15 attacks will have 10% chance to hit, averaging to 1.5 Hit per hour.
Defending division compares it's effective attack (Here 100% of Soft Attacks, because against 100% soft target) = 15 Soft Attack, against 9 Breakthrough of attacking division. 15 > 9, 15-9=6. Which means 6 attacks over attacker breakthrough, each having 40% chance to hit = 6 * 0.4 = 2.4 hit per hour + 9 attacks parried by breakthrough with 10% chance to hit, averaging to 0.9 hit per hour. Giving total 2.4+0.9=3.3 average hits per hour.

There is also roll of how big damage to strength and organization is, but I do not remember it from the top of my head.

 

[insanoflex]

Ah I see, so higher attack always means more damage, it's just that defense negates it to a degree. 90% to be exact. That makes sense. So super high defense doesn't really help, if the attacker's attack is low? As long as it's over their attack, your casualties will be low?

 

[Labatyd]

So the advanced question: how does it work with multiple participants in the battle e.g. 2 attacking divisions with 15 attack and 9 breakthrough vs 3 defending divisions with 8 attack 16 defence? Are attack values added and then randomly/orderly applied to opposing divisions or is each division calculated individually vs another opposing division?

 

[Zwirbaum]

So the advanced question: how does it work with multiple participants in the battle e.g. 2 attacking divisions with 15 attack and 9 breakthrough vs 3 defending divisions with 8 attack 16 defence? Are attack values added and then randomly/orderly applied to opposing divisions or is each division calculated individually vs another opposing division?

Each division choses randomly which division is attack. So Division A.Att (First division of the attacker) can attack Division A.Def B.Def or C.Def Same applies for Division B.Att (Can target A.Def B.Def or C.Def). IIRC if both Division A.Att and B.Att attack for example Division B.Def they will get 30 effective attacks against their 16 defence = 14 unparried attacks + 16 parried for total of 7.2 hit attacks in that hour.

Variant 2 (in case my IIRC is wrong) - it will be 15 attacks against 16 defence and another 15 attacks against 16 defence = 3 hits in total (1.5 from each division)

 

[Culthrasa]

indeed.. higher defense then all combined attack is useless in that fight. However, in practical terms upping defense is always good when you are on the defense. First of, you will sustain losses that diminish your stats. Second, an attacker can also attack from more fronts giving him more combat width (thus more attack through more units able to participate). And thirdly, beside hitpoints there is also organization which drops quicker if your defense is lacking (in the end, a combat ends cause either hitpoints are reduced to 0 or organization is reduced to 0).