Looking at Human spear units, a Militiaman(T1) has 7/11/4/11/13 with a 1 g/h upkeep. A Pikeman(T2) has 16/17/11/17/29 and a 2g/h upkeep (The stats go ATK/Spear DEF/Bow DEF/Sword DEF/Cavalry DEF). Now we look at the upkeep costs. It costs the same g/h to have 2 Militiamen as it does to own 1 Pikeman. So, if we compare 2 Militiamen to 2 Pikemen, we get:

 

Militiaman: 14 / 22  /  8   / 22  / 26

Pikeman:   16 / 17 / 11 / 17 / 29

 

 

Thus, based on cost efficiency, you will gain more Spear and Sword defense by training Militiamen, but more Attack, Bow and Cavalry Defense by training Pikemen. This is not groudbreaking by any means, there's probably a tutorial somewhere that shows this. Hope it helps you out though.

 

EDIT: Oh, I see you are referring to the initial resource production cost, not upkeep cost. My bad.

As a human, I tend to produce t1 cav during peace and t2 cav during war/tournaments for this reason.

For dwarves a very interesting unit is the halbardier (T2 spear):  Its attack is only 16, but its defense vs. cav is 29.  In theory that's a 14.5 cav defense per hourly gold upkeep.   They are fast to train (600sec), only yeomen (T1 spears, 500sec) are faster.  But not cheap, 3 gold + 2 swords + 1 chain mail + 1 plate.  An overall mean time before death caused by killing rats would be wrong, I use other units to fight NPCs.

 TH

 

In other words, keep talking please, it's very helpful.

However, please note the unit stats listed on the Arcanum differ from the ones listed on the Illyriad site:   http://www.illyriad.co.uk/GameInformation/Races/Dwarves/UnitStats" rel="nofollow - http://www.illyriad.co.uk/GameInformation/Races/Dwarves/UnitStats

If the maintainers of the Arcanum have updated their lists, this may no longer be true. 

Because I have ran into discrepancies in the past, I've been basing my plans on the information on the Illyriad site. Though if anyone has noticed any differences between what is posted on the Illyriad site, and what they are seeing in game, I would love to know. 

Axar, please keep up the excellent and interesting posts, I can't wait to read more of your thoughts.

The following PDF shows comparisons of all units (offense/defense) over all terrains for three different comparison types:

attack vs defense

attack/gold upkeep vs defense/gold upkeep

attack * build rate vs defense * build rate

Obviously, there are a lot of numbers here and it would take quite a mind to encapsulate all the information.  Let alone what isn't taken into account:

City Walls

Sovereignty Build Rate Increases

T2 Buildings Gold Upkeep Decreases

There might be more, I have pneumonia now and am not up to more thought on this.

... has melted my mind! Thank you! 

Get well soon.

In the medium run, defense is probably more important than attack.

In the short run, armies created only for attacking to give xp to a commander, build costs per attack power come into play.

Innoble, we all have our own experiences that form our individual opinions.  To that extent, yes, we all have limited views.

Does your experience include existential combat?    Because I suspect if you ever experienced sustain combat against folks intent on killing you, firepower production would be a prime concern to you.

However, if you place a priority on a different aspect of Illy military system, then, of course, you will opt accordingly.  Because I, or any other player, choose a different priority does NOT mean that our views are _limited_.  It simply means we have a different priority for our military.

This is a wonderful aspect of Illy.  So many trade-offs.  No perfect answer.  No perfect unit.  No single path to success.  No definition of success beyond each player's unique definition.

That is the wonder of Illy summed up in one sentence. Well done!

 

Of course, cost efficiency is not the only factor to be taken into account. In this game the kind and type of unit required may be dictated by the terrain, biome and other factors.... my two penneth.