The Shield Problem(s)

[Jambo]

the foz, it's not that it would nerf stats (as seen by the unit scroll). The question was really based on the current two hotly debated hypotheses that 1) armour upgrade adds +1 as the increase to stats suggest or 2) armour upgrades actually mirror what the vanilla armour grades equal in the EDU file, i.e. padded = 4, mail = 5, heavy mail = 7, etc, all the way up to the Gothic armour (advanced plate) at 10.

For example, Italian spear militia start with padded armour and have an armour rating of 4. There next upgrade is mail. Spear militia have 0 armour and their next upgrade is padded. The increase according to the stats is only +1, however, some have shown with tests that the upgraded Spear militia perform very similar to the Italian militia; possibly indicating that the upgrade is really based on the "padded" and battle map appearance rather than the "incorrect" +1 on the stats would imply.

I just wondered how this fitted in with giving units with shields an ungeneric boost to their armour stats which distorts them from the +4, +5, +7, etc associated with the various armour levels?

I know I probably haven't explained it very well, but I hope you understand.