Question about FPI 10

[onomastikon]

I have performed my searches and read the guidelines, and would like to ask a question about FPI 10. It is written that a frequent unwanted request has been:

Limited reprisal attacks for defenders
Background: Users have suggested that defenders should not get their full attacks.
Result: This has been ruled against in favor of balance, as the units are currently balanced in a fashion that would not accommodate altering the attacks to favor the offensive player.

I am not sure I understand this. If the GLOBAL rule is changed so that ALL defenders in all situations always have a limited form of reprisal (e.g. per turn -1 to damage for every third reprisal), what need would there be for balance, since all units will be affected equally? Each faction and each unit in the game takes turns being an attacker and a defender -- according to the contingencies of strategy games, of course.

Please note, I am not trying to nitpick or have any favors done. While I find the unlimited reprisals counter-intuitive and slightly suboptimal, I do not wish to start a discussion on that out of deference to the suggestion that such topics are unwanted. I do, however, want to understand the main argument (balance) against the FPI. I would be grateful if someone could help me out, perhaps with a concrete example of how a faction would become unbalanced should an alternative reprisal system be tested.

Thank you in advance.

[zookeeper]

Well, imagine a situation where one player mass-recruits WC's or goblin spearmen or other cheap units, whereas the other player relies on fewer more expensive units. Swarming a strong unit with many weak ones would suddenly become a lot more advantageous, since some of your weak units would end up receiving less damage or none at all (and you'd get to choose which ones). It's already very easy to take out almost any enemy unit by surrounding it with 3-4 of your own, and further nerfing that unit's ability to present a threat to its attackers would make it even easier.

Also, if melee and ranged attacks aren't affected separately, you'd end up with situations where you could whittle down an ulfserker's melee attack by peppering it with some cheap thrown spears first, or to hit a drake burner with inconsequential melee attacks first so that your archer can then finish it off without fear of (significant) retaliation damage, and that doesn't sound very fun since suddenly a major part of the overall tactics would be about how you can most effectively whittle down the enemy retaliation with cheap and otherwise meaningless attacks.

[JaMiT]

Another consideration may be that by giving more advantage to the attacker, you give more advantage to the side that can attack first. Basically, such a change would benefit a side in proportion to the number of attacks it can make, so if the first wave of attacks kills a unit, the defending side will have fewer attack possibilities on its turn, hence lessened benefits. It may be a global rule change (at the scale of combats), but that does not mean it will affect all sides the same on the global scale.

This would generally mean an advantage to player 1 (map balance) or the player with the fastest units (faction balance).