Knight stats and defence value

Knights seem to have the same defence value. Gothic Knights have 15 defence as Imperial Knights and Feudal. The only difference is that the armor / defence skill is altered with later knights having greater armor and lesser defence skill. Does that have a difference apart from the armored units being vulnerable to armor piercing units?

I mean shouldn't later Knights have greater defence? Doesn't lowering their defence skill equates their upgradet armor? Or is armor value more significant than the defence skill?

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Originally Posted by Nakraal

Knights seem to have the same defence value. Gothic Knights have 15 defence as Imperial Knights and Feudal. The only difference is that the armor / defence skill is altered with later knights having greater armor and lesser defence skill. Does that have a difference apart from the armored units being vulnerable to armor piercing units?

I mean shouldn't later Knights have greater defence? Doesn't lowering their defence skill equates their upgradet armor? Or is armor value more significant than the defence skill?

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Later knights do indeed have greater defense skill and armor. If you'll notice any lancer/gothic knight will win at insane ratio's over even order knights. The difference is that later knights have far more horse armor, something that can be very important. If either the rider or horse die's then the unit is lost. So more armor on horse means longer lasting cavalry.

Also armor is usually better then just defense skill. As armor protects from any direction from any form of attack. Also the Gothic knights lack a shield, compared to the others.

I suspect BigTex is right, as usual. Since the later knights are going to win due to other factors, I suspect the lower defence skill is just as a "fudge factor" to stop them being just too good an upgrade.

CA did some such fudges in MTW (e.g. making Chivalric sergeants low quality).