An simple math analysis of "Leadership vs. Attack" leve up dilemma

[maltz]

I've been troubled by the Leadership vs. Attack dilemma if they are both presented in the level-up choice.

I just realized that each extra attack converts to 3.3% of damage. Now the comparison is really simple:

Is the extra leadership better or worse than 3.3% of your army strength? The answer is YES! The leadership bonuses are always about 10%-20% of your current leadership. So it is MUCH BETTER to pick leadership than attack.

But we all know the early-level leadership bonus are much less compared to what you get later. It seems that those early leadership picks should be spent on Attack. So where is the cut off that you should switch from Attack to Leadership? From the game's default high score list I can see that Leadership in end game is about 20K. 3.3% of that is 660 - this is the cut off even from the end-game perspective. Any leadership bonus above 660 is an automatic priority.

The actual cutoff should be even lower than 660 because your attack is already higher than the target's defense. Let me give you an example. Let's say your unit X's raw damage is 10. They are usually asked to attack creatures with a lower defense due to game design puts more Attack than Defense on creatures, say 5 points lower than their attack ratings. Your character already have an attack of 10 just from equipments.

So your gross attack is 10 dmg x (1 + 3.3% (100+5+10)) = 15 dmg. So what's 1 extra ATK doing for you? 10 dmg x (1 + 3.3% (100+5+11)) = 15.28 dmg. Basically you are only getting 0.28/15 = 1.9% of the bonus from this one extra Attack point (much less than 3.3% as advertised.) The actual case varies - just that the actual bonus you receive from each point of Attack gets less and less when your Attack goes higher and higher.

If an average bonus of 2% (guessed from the 1.9% from the example above) per Attack is used, you should start taking Leadership ALWAYS when they reach 400 points. This is around level 7 - 8 as a warrior. Needless to say they are important for survival at higher difficulties, too.

p.s. I think defense is much less useful than attack. If you are good you shouldn't be hit very often at all.