I have been asking myself many times now how meta units fight each other.

my experience: 

- T1 units usually die before T2 units and they usually die before T3 units.

meaning lots of lower tier units are a very effective way to protect your t2 and t3 units

- projectiles are cosmetic, which is fine in general but confusing so here are the questions:

I was not able to determine whether units focusfire or the damage distribution is somewhat random.

like is a meta unit regarded as one unit consisting of different parts, or still as many units?

Is there a code that determines whether a certain type of unit is focused before another or do the units simply shoot at their closest target and the large units don't take damage cause they stand behind and theres no splash damage??

While firing from meta unit to meta unit does shooting at a target actually also mean damaging the same target? cause it didnt always seem that way or at leats not that obvious to me.

my opinion on how units should behave ideally - because it won't just look nice but also builds a platform for fun features :

- different classifications for units. I'll use hunter, protector, artillery, support as an example.

they represent the units from scouts to energizer(forgot the name - sry ) units.

in terms of formation also just one possible scenraio : protectors(brutes) should be in front followed by hunters(scouts)  then the support( energizers?) and lastly the artillery ( archers).

so this is a row or columm formation

now what happens when those two meta units engage in combat is that the hunters break formation and start toovertake their allied brutes and try to break through the wall of enemy protectors to assasinate the supports then the artillery ( different types of scouts coudl mean different priorities) or pick off targets under 25% health, the focus of the protectors is to keep the formation intact  and form a protective circle around artillery and supports but also chasing down scouts if there are spare protectors. while the supports do their healing thing , the artillery more or less deals heavy random area damage.

this kind of behaviour of units could impact the design of meta units heavily. do i go heavy on protectors to either have more focused fire and pierce through the enemy in a triangular formation? do I build heavy on arty protected by a descent amount of protectors and decimate the whole fleet / harrass t2 units?,or am i gonna fill the unit up with more scouts to overwhelm the arty spam? etc. all kinds of interactions are possible.

the triangular formation could also be a way to shhot through towards the commanding t3 unit and assasinate it.

imagine a circular formation that begins rotating during combat to spread out focused damage more evenly amongst the units to sustain firepower throughout the course of battle. basically a direct counter to the triangle.

Well you see the possibilities this opens if we add certain behaviour to units and the strategical value formations can have.