Quote Originally Posted by Aonar
I understand you very well your previous post already. It just seems that I was not specific enough.
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, my friend.
Sometimes I wish we could all meet face to face, communication would be so much easier. However, in the meantime Puzz and Tosa answered your question and I can only agree. There needs to be a small random element. This element must not be too strong, though. Unit matchups still need to be predictable for tactics to work.

On the matter of Spear vs. Cav:
- a major influence on this matchup has the shield bug, as pointed out. However, if you take away the shield factor and put half in defense, half in Armour (as suggested by Jerome and known as the Shield fix) the spears work considerably better, but the Cav is still able to destroy the spearmen with a clean controlled charge. Either the spearmen don't have enough anticav power (they have AC=8 and 12 is max) or the mass of the horses is too high. The masses are actually (close to) realistic and if maintained will always enable a heavy (Inf or Cav) unit to push away a light unit. If one increases the value for AC in Spearmen then I assume that it will only enable them to kill Cav faster, not withstand a charge.

- Pikes actually can withstand a charge (when charged, not when clicked behind). The only difference to spearmen statwise is the entry "long pike" and the "phalanx" formation. I'd guess that the anticav mechanic that works here is in the code for the "phalanx" formation and not connected to the "pike" entry. I'm willing to test that and post my results.