Quote Originally Posted by Revenant
With the working shield, a lot of units will have much increased performance, their defence will actually go up of 12 points in some cases. And so a lot of late era units without shields, which performed admirably against them, will be totally outclassed halberdiers, zweihanders, Lancers, Gendarmes etc.. There will be no point in fielding newer units.
Indeed, it seems that unit balancing takes factors into account we were not aware of.

The testing results indicate that a shield is a detriment in melee combat, which is an idea I can wrap my head around. The bulkier the shield, the more of a penalty in melee, but with a boost in missle resistance. Many units, like sword infantry, won't feel the burn of the penalty much since they have high normal armor, good defense skill, and high melee attack anyway.

What the penalty means is that shieldless melee units (two handers of all stripes, plus peasants) will have it easier by 3-6 points against shielded troops. Again, it smacks of troop balancing.

I see no reason to assume things are not working as intended.