Being that I discovered the stupid thing, I can't think of anyone better to discuss it

Basically, the problem is that in melee combat, a unit's shield value is subtracted from its defense instead of being added into it. This ends up making all shield units incredibly absurd in melee combat, as they suffer at least -6 from their intended melee defense (3 from the shield not giving a bonus, 3 from it giving a penalty) and in most cases a -12 (from the usual 6 point shield). The shield seems to correctly apply against missile attacks (certainly not the backwards functionality of them in melee).

As for how it has been fixed, the current version (that I intend to be final until the 1.2 official patch presumably fixes it) zeros the shield stat for all units, moving half (rounded down) into armor, and half rounded up into defense skill. The units get their all-important front melee defense rating as it was intended. Only half goes to armor so that the unit retains some of its flanking vulnerabilities, which is important for keeping horse archers and archers useful in combat, and keeping flanking useful in general.

You can find the link to the fix in my sig. Hope this helps.

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