That is the part that confuses most people and is also hard to believe.
http://wiki.utopia-game.com/index.ph...Overpopulation
(
Solds home -
Def Spec Desertions) =
299 soldiers home -
300 deserters= -1.
(OffSpecs home * Metric) = 200
200 > -1
So
"If" = true and therefore
"then" = true
(OffSpecs home* Metric) = 2000 X 0.1 = 200. Two hundred offensive specs desert.
Notice that in the next hour the numbers are different. The 299 soldiers would be enough to cover 2700 def specs. Likewise in the example where you release 1 spec to get 300 soldiers you have to release more before the next tic. The metric changes every hour too.
I should add the other extreme. If you have no soldiers and everything is home you might lose an equal percentage of everything. If you have a few soldiers your elite/thief loses will save soldiers and cause specs to desert. Later when you are less overpopulated (land comes in + desertions) the small number of soldiers saved will start preventing elite losses. If you have few elites your number of specs will drop until soldiers desert. Because specs and soldiers deserted you are less overpopulated and the metric drops.
Sending a few soldier to an offline chained province can save a lot of troops. Nightstrikes can do a lot of damage.
Calculating exact losses can easily confuse (and they might take more land, or nightstrike one minute before tic etc). Probably better to just have enough soldiers to cover several hours of desertion. If your kingdom sends 1000 soldiers it would drive your metric up a little, maybe .12 instead of .1, and you would lose 1300 X 0.12 = 156 soldiers. That is much better than losing 300 defensive specs.