Misty Cave Part 3: Attack Sequence

So I missed a huge part of how attacks are calculated and someone which someone has brought to my attention! I'll quote the question in this post so I can give a proper answer on how the attack sequence works. It's really confusing to watch the replay on attacks and sometimes end up with more questions than answers. Here's the question from a comment posted previously

"when you send mixed units, how do they actually fight? For example, if there is only axemen you're fighting, if you send all 3 infantry and archers, do they all participate, or just the most powerful one (i.e. the one in the front)? I've noticed only the one in front losses units, which makes me wonder if the others even participate. Alternitively, if you sent spearmen and swordsmen against axemen, but the spearmen were first, would you not even get the bonus from the swordsmen?"

Asked by Melcockles

The answer is no the other troops won't make a difference at all. Only the first troop you send will actually make an attack on the axemen.

When you send mixed units the first one to attack is your strongest troop, followed by the second, followed by the third and so on. The troops keep attacking until completely defeated.

Let's use the above question as the first example

The enemy troop has only axemen
You attack with spearmen first because they have the highest power, followed by swordsmen, axemen and archers.

Round 1 Your spearmen make the first strike, the enemy axemen take damage but survive
              Enemy Axemen retaliate and take out some spearmen
Round 2 Your spearmen strike again and finish off the remaining axemen

In this case because spearmen are weak against axemen you suffered losses.

Your other troops won't do anything. Attacking with them would be pointless unless all of your spearmen are also killed off. In which case Round 2 would be your swordsmen attacking instead of your spearmen, but you may have also had swordsmen losses as well. It would probably look something like this

Round 1 Your spearmen make the first strike, the enemy axemen take damage but survive
              Enemy Axemen retaliate and take out some spearmen and some swordsmen
Round 2 Your swordsmen strike and finish off the remaining axemen

But let's say your enemy has mixed troops, there will be additional rounds. For example:

The enemy's line up is swordsmen then axemen

Your line up is axemen then spearmen then swordsmen

Round 1 Axemen make the first strike and eliminates the swordsmen

              The round ends

Round 2 Your Axemen attack his axemen but doesn't kill the axemen

              His Axemen retaliate and take out some of your axemen. The round ends

Round 3 Your Axemen attack his axemen and eliminates the axemen

              The round ends

Battle ends in slight victory

Again your swordsmen didn't do anything. In fact the spearmen didn't do anything either. The reason is that your troops stay in battle until they die. They you end up losing a certain amount of troops. You can't lose more than half the troops though. Technically you're losing the battle but the troops are retreating in time to return home.

It's a little complicated but you can avoid all this if you attack with only archers. Which is what I would suggest.

Special thanks to Melcockles for this!