[Zen]

The easiest way to evaluate the gold cost of troops is to place Gold per pop 200%, then you can identify the discrepencies in gold/resource usefulness.

I don't think it's a fair accessment to base the value of archers on the effectiveness of Staff of Storms, Arrow Fend, etc, because of the overeffectiveness of these spells globally against one entire type of unit (archers).

It's obvious (at least to me) that these spells/magic items have to be toned down to provide a very real advantage but not totally negate the entire unit class.

Even with that argument, I don't think having more precision is a bad thing at all.