The generalized nature of attack-defense exchange

One attack-defense exchange is not just about a kid trying to punch another kid. It’s also about MOBA players trying to gank and kill enemy players. Or a chess player trying to take an enemy piece. Or a soccer player trying to get through a defender. Or a business trying to do a strategic move to win a market segment.

Attack-defense exchange exists whenever a conflict or competition of any kind exist.[citation needed]

The structure of an attack-defense exchange

An attack-defense exchange is a part of a battle. In other words, a battle consists of multiple attack-defense exchanges. We must always remember this. In the same way that we can win a battle but lose the war, we can also win an exchange but lose the battle. Winning the war is more important than winning the battle, which in turn is more important than winning an exchange.

For example, rather than winning a lot of exchanges but only dealing minimal damage to the enemy, it’s better to lose a lot of exchanges (sustaining minimal damage) and deal one powerful blow.

One attack-defense exchange can be divided into several phases:

  • the start-of-intention phase where the attacker prepares to do an attack (e.g. moving into position, gathering power, etc.).
  • the start-of-strike phase where the attacker starts to do the attack.
  • the end-of-strike phase where the attacker finishes doing the attack and the attack either land successfully (the attacker wins) or not (the defender wins).

We can add more phases to the attack-defense exchange, such as the withdraw-strike phase where the attacker returns to a normal position after attacking. But, for simplicity, we’ll stick to the ones outlined in the bullet points above.

The conventional attacker strategy (using optimization)

The optimized attacker strategy is straightforward:

  • minimize the attack-preparation phase (the duration between start-of-intention and start-of-strike) ideally to zero
  • minimize the strike duration (between start-of-strike and end-of-strike) ideally to zero

The unconventional attacker strategy (using deception)

There are multiple deceptions that you can use to win an exchange. For example:

  • start the attack at a slow pace, and then suddenly accelerating unexpectedly (whether in preparation or striking phase)
  • start one attack and then suddenly changing the target, path, or type of the attack (feinting)
  • other deceptions that I’m currently not aware of

The conventional defender strategy (using optimization)

There are some optimizations that a defender can make to win an exchange:

  • increasing reflex time to shorten the duration between the attacker’s start-of-intention and the defender’s start-of-defending
  • increasing speed to shorten the duration between the defender’s start-of-defending and the defender’s on-defense-position
  • waiting for the final moment before responding so that the attacker doesn’t have time to course-correct (react to the defender’s on-defense-position) and win the exchange

The unconventional defender strategy (using intuition)

The attacker can have very short attack-preparation phase, because of speed, because the defender can’t see an attack coming before it comes (fog of war), or because of other reasons.

In this case, the defender often must rely on using intuition

  • using intuition to feel when an attack is coming and responding accordingly
  • knowing the likely target of attack and then responding accordingly

The above strategy is still useful in normal cases where the attacker doesn’t have a very short attack-preparation phase.

Evasion as a better win than blocking

As a defender, it’s often better to win by evasion rather than blocking. This is because when you block, you’ll usually still sustain some amount of damage (albeit lower than the amount of damage you get without blocking).

Counter-attack as a better win than evasion

Even better than evasion is a counter-attack. There’re two types of counter-attack:

  • post-strike-counter-attack, where instead of returning to normal position after evading or blocking an attack, you immediately start an attack.
  • pre-strike-counter-attack, where you move in to attack before or while the attacker is doing an attack.