Quote Originally Posted by Ulstan
The lack of flanking fire is about a 4, while shields hurting folks in melee is about a 9 on the broken-ness scale.

Without flanking fire, archers would still function, fulfill their primary role, and kill people at range.
Your missing Musashi's point. Without a flanking fire bonus, there is no incentive to flank! Just always leave your archers, even HA's in the main battle line and fire away! It's easier than trying to maneuver for position, after all. This does seriously detract from the tactical depth of the game, if there is no reason to flank with archers. BTW this doesn't only apply to HA's. There are situations in siege defense and attack where foot archers can get into flanking positions. But hey... why bother trying to maneuver them through the streets into an advantageous position, if I can just mass my army and fire from the front, for the same effect?

With their shields *hurting them* no shield unit can possibly be used for its historical role in any way shape or form.
I don't think anyone is disputing that there's a problem with shields, although frankly I haven't noticed it breaking my campaign games to the extent that some people in this thread say it does. Same thing with the "broken" spears... I still manage to use them, and win. Hopefully CA will find a way to fix shields without breaking archers, and that's all some of us are asking for.