So it's 264 times 6 vs 279 times 5. 1584 vs 1395. If the strength of each troop is the same the odds are in favor of the opponent. But then you have to consider if you're using any boosts. AW's give boosts to some kinds of troops. ELR, MMM and the important Fire Phoenix (when fed) also give boosts. So, if you just have the Fire Phoenix at lvl 10 and fed, your troops would be 2092.5. But wait, there's more!
For each troop type you may have an AW that increases their offensive power. Do you have a Victory Springs? If so if you send light melee out you have to calculate again. Those 2092.5 troops gain a bit of a boost, depending on the level of your AW. So you have a 15% level. 5 dogs will put 2301.75 equivalent troops out there against their 1584.
Now of course that’s offense. You have boosts for Defense as well. A Dwarven Armorer is a 50% health boost. Sweet, but does that mean your troops are 50% stronger? What is the ratio between a health boost (which is defensive) and a offense boost? It is 1 to 1? Or does it depend on the troop type and who is hitting them? We know if you send dogs against mages the mages are in bad shape. We know that every troop has a weakness, and a strength or two. How do you calculate that?
And then there’s the terrain. Since you have no idea if the field is going to be wide open or cluttered with obstacles you have no idea if your slow heavy melee units can reach those two mages before those mages destroy them, or not.
In the end then, I’m betting NOBODY (or so close to nobody that to argue otherwise is to quibble) does the actual calculations but, instead, does a sort of “estimation,” of which the size of squads is the primary component. They look, they see that their squad size is 279 and that they face a squad size of 264. Then sense that the difference isn’t’ that much even if their opponent is sending six to their five. Then they look the types of troops and estimate that if they send something strong against mages their troops will lose less. How much they do not calculate but only sense. “I should be okay with 5 dogs” they might say to themselves because it’s 5 dogs to 4 mages and the other stuff is single units. “Dogs will get to them quickly,” they might reason, “so they can’t do that much damage.”
So 5 dogs it is and away they go, reasonably certain they will win. As they fight more and more they hone their intuitions, realizing that if it’s 3 mages and 2 light melee, 5 light melee might not work as well as 2 light ranged and 3 dogs. But it’s a “sense” of the matter, not a calculation. As they go along that “sense” become more fine tuned, but it isn’t really a calculation, but a recognition of patterns. And that is how most of us, I think, fight.
The “moral to the story” is simple enough. Forget the calculations and go with your gut. Look at the squad size, the number of armies you are facing and forget the details after that. Experience will, over time, make those details something you sense rather than compute.
AJ