but what isn't clear to me is if the min_delay is the time between the beginings of attack animations or the time between the end of one animation and the beginning of the next.

The latter of these two is useless for balance because every animation has a different number of frames and tacking on an extra 2.5 seconds to that doesn't change the fact that the unit will attack at a differet rate depending on which animation it chose to execute.

The former of these is totally useful if it works as prescribed. In this case, we can set the min_delay larger than any unit's attack animation, and all the units will attack at the same rate.

However, setting min_delay to 50 for two identical units and giving one fs_handed skeleton and the other fs_slow_swordsman still results in a victory for the fs_2handed for reasons passing understanding.

So, I must conclude that min_delay is either broken, or works in the useless manner described above.

Then, noting that setting min_delay exceptionally high slows down combat dramatically, I must conclude that it is working, and thus, must be working in the useless manner described above...which pisses me off

I guess I am hoping someone will come here and teach me how to make the above mock battle (between two identical units save for their skeletons) a tie for all skeletons so I don't have to go through and figure out the combat benefits of every single animation.