Attacking othr Villages

I chose to attack another village using my s3 acount and used 20 clubswingers. What does attacking do?

I think that the only difference is troops really.
In Attacking, you kill all and any troops there are
in raiding some will survive if there's enough defense

If anyone can explain it better, or can add more, please do so

If you attack your troops will fight to the death, either yours or the defense. If you raid they hit long enough to grab some resources and then run. Unless one side has a huge advantage there will be troops left alive on both sides. if you send catas or a senator you have to attack for them to work.

Another thing about this (making it more complicated...)
when you know that in village A there are several soldiers, and you attack in raid a few times till they are dead
you will lose more soldiers than just doing a normal attack 1 time

thus
Player A has 12 clubbies
player B has 6 phalaxes
in normal 4 clubbies or so would be lost
in raiding, 4+1+1 clubbie (or something like it don't feel like calculating it) would die....