Quote Originally Posted by SlickNicaG69 View Post
Hoplite: Shield - 3, Armor 12 [Linothorax (6), Helmet (2), 2 Greaves (4)].

Cohort: Shield - 5, Armor 10 [Chainmail (8), Helmet (2)].

It is important to get these right, as the classical hoplite, would not only have less overall armor, less protection from missles, and be more vulnerable to ap units (which I believe the cohorts to be), but the unit comparison in game would theoretically be pretty much historically accurate as well...
I'm a bit confused by this. I think one point that MisterFred was trying to make was that it is reasonable for Hoplites and Cohorts to have the same shield values, due to Hoplite's smaller shield's being offset by their greaves. Meaning, the greaves would be contributing to their shield value, not armor, since they mostly protect from frontal attacks. I think giving Hoplites a higher armor rating than Cohorts based on the fact that they wear greaves would be erroneous. As I understand the way those stats work in-game is like this:
Shields only provide their full value of protection from frontal attacks, giving only half their value of protection from side attacks, and no protection from rear attacks.
Armor provides the same value of protection from all angles. Armor piercing weapons reducing this value by half.

So if Hoplites are indeed armored more heavily toward their front, then this should be reflected via a higher shield value, possibly even equal to that of Cohorts. Their actual armor rating would be less than that of Cohorts. I think this makes sense.

As for the attack values, I'm very unclear on what the actual in-game effects of the Spear and Short Spear attributes are. I think one significantly reduces the units defense against infantry while the other reduces their attack. I think this was a very bad decision on CA's part, since it makes it pretty much impossible to judge how well a spear unit will perform against infantry by simply looking at their in-game description stats. If spears are supposed to be inferior weapons to swords, then spear units ought to simply have lower attack values. There's already inherent bonuses for spears versus cavalry, so having an additional, hidden nerf to their performance against infantry is just frustrating to players like myself. I think the EB team addressed this issue by giving spear units higher base defense and attack scores than comparable sword units. It's still hard for anyone who doesn't know the actual penalties (as well as which class of spear the unit is considered to be carrying) to determine how a spear unit stands in comparison with other units.