I can't seem to work out what the Attack/Defense attributes mean. I guess that attack is how much damage a single swipe of a unit's sword will inflict, but I don't know what to make of the defense at all. Right now all I can think of it being is a sort of "health" attribute. How many hits it can take before screaming in agony and hitting the deck. But then, I don't know how this differs from "hit points" that certain units have.

Someone enlighten me, because right now all I can do is think "the bigger the number, the better".

I agree with the "bigger number" thing...

I thought it was just a representation of the unit's power...

Yes but what I want to know is how exactly it affects the combat.

I don't think anyone knows. It's pretty complicated, I'm sure.

I would say generally, though, that it progresses in "rounds" of sorts. When two men come into close enough proximity, they fight. One "attacks" the other; some sort of calculation takes place, involving the attacker's attack value and the defender's defense value. If the attacker wins, the defender loses a hitpoint (and, for most units, dies); if the defender wins, the defender becomes the new attacker. They alternate until one combatant withdraws or dies.

That's how I would guess it works. Of course, this says nothing about how often combat happens, what it means to be in "closd proximity", how it decides who attacks, how charges work, etc.

Yes but what I want to know is how exactly it affects the combat.

I believe how many hits it will take before that single individual soldier will die. That's how I've always viewed it, I liken it to the health of the general.

Then how does it differ from hit points?

Lets say you have a unit of Spartan Hoplites.
it is a 16/17 with 2 HP. Every time a hoplite hits someone else, he deals 16 damage. You have to give a hoplite 17 damage to kill him, but,a s he has 2 HP, you have to deal hime double that, so it´s really 34.

That's an interesting theory, but I would suggest that it's more like defense deals with how high a chance he has of surviving an attack, and hitpoints how many hits he must suffer to die. A simple system would work like this:

A 7/10/1hp unit (hereafter, unit A) fights an 11/13/2hp unit (hereafter, unit B). Suppose that unit A attacks first. His chance of taking a hitpoint off of unit B is (his attack) / (his attack + other's defense). In this instance, that would be 7 / (7 + 13), or 7/20. Suppose he fails. That means that B doesn't lose a hitpoint, and it's B's turn to attack. His chance to take a hit point off is 11 / (11 + 10), or 11/21. Suppose his attack fails. The turn reverts back to A, who again has a 7/20 chance to take a hitpoint off. This time, he succeeds. B now has just one hitpoint left. B attacks again, and this time he too succeeds. A loses a hitpoint, and, being out of hitpoints, dies.

I imagine it would work something like that, though confounded by so many factors that it would be a bear to work out.

You system is plausible, Takhisis, as long as you include some kind of probabilistic mechanism that changes the amount of damage meted out or the probability that damage is done.

Wow! Two excellent plausible theories, both so different. Now I'm confused.

There seems to be a probability mech, much like the one in civ (hence the spearman vs. tank) but, since most of the battling I´ve done was on LAN, what with the shouting of my pals, and everything, ´twas very difficult to concentrate on calculating odds.