Wow! Thank you all so much for the info on this.

I realize now that what threw me off big-time was the talk about how armour adds to defense although it is not included in melee combat calculations except for the AP bonus. This was of course regarding the base values generated by the combination of characteristics in the spreadsheet. There armour adds to the base defense value that is then exported to the unit_prod.

This means, however, that a modified unit_prod value ignores the armour-adds-to-defense doctrine. Example:

We nerf the defense value of halbardiers to 0 in the unit_prod while leaving the armour value intact. This would let the halbardiers absorb missile fire just as well as before but die in a melee from a crap unit using nothing but armour piercing harsh language.

There we go. My cake is gone. Reason ate it at last.

Let's see what questions this breeds for me.

Props to all you guys!