[Wick]

With difficulty?

More seriously, the answer depends on how much accuracy people need to tolerate it. On one extreme the game could run the battle as a monte carlo simulation and use that to decide which is stronger. On the other extreme, simple counting, maybe people would enjoy a half dozen ewoks distracting the ID while the main force leaves them to their fate. It's certainly no weirder then SCs retreating because the PD ran away.

In between, there is probably a workable algorithm. Cost might work -- (20*gems+gold+resources) would have a lot of mundanes thinking a fully equiped SC shouldn't be their problem. I think the toughest case to calculate isn't SCs but rather mage teams. If a force that defeats a patrolling force without loss gets a free shot at the main force, would you prefer that? Or thats SCs need to bring along extra eyes to find the main army? I'm fine with either of those, so precise calculation is not a high priority for me.

A serious discussion of a force comparison algorithms wasn't my point so if that's what you would enjoy then please set up a target for us to shoot at. In the meantime, mine is up. :-)