I am always amazed when folks start a thread and say "Wow my Knights got ripped up by a unit of Trebizond Archers - what am I doing wrong???"

But they don't mention the morale of the units involved. As CBR-san correctly points out, there is a direct relationship between Valor and Morale (and Attack and Defense stats). Morale does not affect the Speed, Charge or Armor stats.

I think that melee (hand-to-hand fighters) units should be morale 8 in order to be dependable. Remember that the comp calculates the state of morale of a unit by starting with the base morale and then subtracting morale points for everything (from taking missile fire to being tired to being depleted to being surrounded to being outnumbered to being close to a stinky camel to having your friends routing to having the Genral die). Once the morale hits -18 or something like that the unit routs.

So morale is all important and valor is related to morale.

So, since V0 Kataphraktoi have morale 4 they need to be V2 in order to have morale 8 and so they can work effectively (again, this is just my humble opinion, but is also the online standard).

There are several outstanding unit stat guides. Now I know a lot of people who say that they just like to play, they don't care about stats. But if you don't know that a Polish Retainer works best at valor 2 or above then I don't think you can really use it effectively.

Morale is the key to the strength of your army. Flanking is the key to tactics on the field.

ichi