Unit Cost Equation

[Verjigorm]

Equipment is generally accounted for in the resource cost whereas skill is accounted for by the unit cost. The value of units such as mages is extraordinarily difficult to determine because their spells and combinations of spells (even if you leave out item bonuses and communion) is subjective and certain combinations of spells have greater "value" that the sum of the "values" of the spells alone (e.g. Body Ethereal combined with Bone Grinding > Body Ethereal + Bone Grinding).

Unit cost should be a measure of their statistical efficacy versus the "average" unit whose cost could be arbitrarily assigned. The "average" unit's stats are not all 10's and his cost is not 10gp... Once you have a sample space of units, you can determine the most effective ones. The combat simulator is a good tool for this, but it doesn't produce excel-like results. Any unit whose effectiveness against "Average" is 50% should cost the same as the "Average" unit. I'm not sure how you'd scale up the value as the percentages vary....How much more should a unit with 95% effectiveness cost?