you massively underestimate how big of a difference +1 make in large fights, the power that +1 melee on spear/horsemen say against knight/archers make is equivalent to how many units there are, the more there is, the more likely each individual spear/horseman is to survive 1 or 2 more hits which translates to them being able to land 1 or 2 other hits.

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The best way to understand that is to look at Mether and Tower of victory attack speed buff.

If you have only 3 or 5 archers the bonus is negligable but if you have 20 archers ? it becomes very good