Quote Originally Posted by -Dnomal-
Oh i think that the Early Legionary Cohort is the most cost effective... Or the Armoured Hopliltes of greece, even Romans break when they are ordered to charge strait in against them. Plus they aren't as expensive as teh Spartan's and are almost as gd as they are.
I did some cost analysis on ELC versus LC, assuming unit lifespan of 10 turns; and amortized the building upgrade costs over 20 units; and found that the LC cost about 1.33 times as much as ELC to train. Then I did some custom battles, and found that the LC are about 1.5 times as effective as ELC. So, while ELC are very cost effective; I think the LC are able to nudge them out of the top slot. (And I do, indeed, think that LC are the most cost effective unit in the game.)

I very recently posted in another forum about how I didn't think the Spartan cost was worth it, compared to Armored Hoplites. I still stand by that; but I am not so sure that the difference is radical. If you can protect their Achilles heel (low defense against melee and missile attack) then Spartans can be very effective. So an all armored Hoplite force is probably more cost effective than one totally composed of Spartan units; but, in the right hands, a ratio of 4 Hoplites and one Spartan unit might be a more cost effective mix than either of the other two options, as long as you can protect your Spartans from archers.