Animal attacks are more efficient than spying

I think this has been discussed before but I couldn't find the thread. When one animal attacks, the very least information the attacker will get in the battle report is the condition of the target town's wall.

Sufficiently large numbers of animals attacking, maybe 20ish, will trigger the Catacombs and now the attacker has information about the target country's army.

If the battle lasts for more than one round, which it almost always does with groups of animal attackers, even with larger numbers of defence units vs attack units, the target town's towers attack and the enemy now has, at least, partial information about the target town's towers.

This happens despite the attacker being Despot and the target town being Collectivism, with her Ren and Industrial units, towers and walls defending, as well as my hero reinforcing with the equivalent number of animals as the attacker.

I will answer to this as long as is me ( or my alliance members) who send those animals ...As you said, the number of the animals needed to get full information about the defences must be very big. Believe me, even with 100 animals ( or skeletons) we're not getting a valid information about the number of the towers. And, even if those animals are triggering the catacombs, we are able to see your army, of course, but we cant get any informations about the size of the army send as reinforcements in case of future attacks. The purpose of those attacks is simply to rid off those animals LOL. We cant dismiss them - btw, it would be nice Bers to add this option once we tame each animal :-) . If we are keeping them in towns they are eating food, so, we have to send them out in a suicide mission to rid them off. Is the same for obsolete units ( like cats or medieval rams, we cant dismiss them as long as the building is locked ). 

Have you tried to obtain such information by attacking or is this just your guesses?

Not by guessing but based on the reports generated when alliance members or I have been attacked by animals. I sent you copies of the reports.However, another player has since informed me that reports are different for the attacker and the defender - I had no idea that was the case. Is it the same for all attacks?