You are understanding nothing correctly. LOL. What takes place on a tile versus what takes place versus a town attack are 2 very different things. 1st, on a tile, you can only send a total of YOUR MAX march, but should really only send the bare minimum of what you need to yield with of only t1 (unless you are doing some tile trapping, which the way this discussion is going, I would suggest you steer clear of for quite some time).
When attacking a town, its a whole different ball-game. They can have unlimited amount of troops there, they could be reinforced, or even you as the attacker can use more than your max march if you setup an onslaught with your clan.. these are things that differ from Tile attacks. And also why Higher Tier troops are important.
Your losing sight of the fact that another MAJOR component to the game is KNOWLEDGE and SKILL SETS, So if your t4 are not fully leveled up knowledge-wise, but his T1 are, plus with the new upgrades in the Citadel which adds even more attack %, And the fact that he most likely sent much more than your 71k troops, it is very easy to understand why and how he won.
Remember there are the 100% and 150% increasre in March boosters can be used at anytime, along with the increase attack bonus or reduce enemy defence bonus.
Also check out the game guides as different types of troops do better against others, as well as a lot of knowledge attack upgrades and hero equipment.
Hi Evil
You may have the same knowledge and better hero equipment but other things that could have helped your attacker - Boosts (Enemy troop Health etc) - Hero skills set mainly to Cavalry, Health and Defense - Cavalry Shaman - Cavalry Aes - t1 Cavalry Offense up 80% (from Valkyrie building) as well as up to 175% increase in troop size (I see this in pack today). So yes his t1 "farmers" were stronger than your t4 "warriors" in this battle.
For the record, I only train t1 warriors and only 1 type but I am a small player not looking to be a battle hero.