Quote Originally Posted by Lusted
2 handed units with my workaround for the 2handed bug(give them the JHI infantry animation and reduce attack) are the only ones in my mod to suffer this problem. I actually balanced them compared to both JHI and shield units.

Im also curious about whether you apply this fix to cav as well.

Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?
I Sure do. Everything with a shield stat gets it put into armour, then zeroed. It would be unfair to fix the spear units, but let the cavalry suffer the 8-point stat swing they would have in melee combat due to their typical 4-point shields. It also helps balance the lower cav units against the later ones. Many late units have more armour but no shields, and as a result the early cav were being absolutely butchered by late cav that had only a minor stat point advantage against them. It in fact removes many discrepancies like that that people had been noticing.

It actually doesn't defeat the point of the shield either, as the unit's improved armour stat protects it from missile fire as effectively as the shield points had been, perhaps even a hair better.

I'd suggest even if you don't intend to apply the fix permanently, that you play a session or two using my shield-fixed vanilla file with a 2H fix in place and maybe a pike fix too. It's substantially better than even I had anticipated it would be, and hard to exactly describe well. Much easier to experience.

@Carl: Thanks for the note about the units bracing when having shield-value zero. I had noticed them doing this when they received cav charges, but not that they were failing to do it when having a >0 shield number. Sounds like another reason the fix should be applied, as it's a non-obvious benefit of being able to zero the shield.