My thinking is that surely being able to be seen from a distance away isn’t an advantage.
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There are a few reasons. One is that a high ground means hiding spots. If you take a hilltop, you can hide part of your army behind the hill. Armies don’t fight like one mass against the other, they are often split up, based on the tactics of the army leader. Knowing what your enemy does below you while being able to hide some of your tactics, is a huge advantage.
Also you should not imagine a high ground as a little grassy bump. A real-world natural high ground (what the tactics book did mean by high ground) also comes with natural obstacles. It’s kind of a package deal. So if you manage to take a hilltop, it comes with some loose rocks and tricky soil that you can carefully climb in advance but your enemy must deal with it while charging against you. It’s kind of difficult to efficiently fight while climbing and balancing, meanwhile your opponent has a stable stand and only needs to poke at you.
The advantage against projectiles is again a thing that becomes a real thing with hills. Obviously a few meters of slight, grassy elevation did not matter, but a higher, steeper ground did. With low energy projectiles the little gravity effect did count but the edge of a hill also serves as a natural cover.
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