Slitherine

Currently, i was looking a bit at the different army lists and I have noticed that the Polish lancers in the 1494-1524 list cost 76 points, while in the 1525-1558 list the exact same unit only costs 54 points.

Is there a reason for this or did I discover a bug?

For the 1494 list:

Lancer Banners
Heavily Armored Superior Horse
50% Crossbows, 50% Heavy Lancers, Swordsmen

For 1525:

Lancer Banners
Armored Superior Horse
50% Bow, 50% Light Lancers, Swordsmen

So although the two units share the same name, the later Lancer Banners have evolved somewhat from their late Medieval predecessor. Let's break down the differences that lead to a lower point cost for the 1525 Lancer Banners:

Armored instead of Heavily Armored. This makes them slightly less good in melee, and slightly more vulnerable to arrows. Still, with the increasing use of firearms, armor is less important.

50% Bow vs 50% Crossbow. I don't think this makes much difference in terms of cost - perhaps it is even slightly better. Crossbow ignores armor, but is ineffective vs foot. Bow does better vs horse than crossbow, but lacks armor piercing. It's a tradeoff, basically.

50% Light Lancers vs 50% Heavy Lancers. The 50% doesn't really matter - since these are impact capabilities, they act as if they were 100%. The main differences is that Light Lancers don't get an impact bonus vs heavy lancers - so charging Gendarmes, for example, would be brutal for the later Lancer Banners. Otherwise Light Lances are basically the same as Heavy, but that does make them a little cheaper.

So that's basically it. The later Lancer Banners are less well armored, and use Light instead of Heavy Lances.

Ouch! I really did not see the difference, even i looked twice over the stats. That's kind of embarrassing...

Sorry for that. But anyway, you are mentioning that Crossbow ignores armor, but is ineffective vs foot and Bow does better vs horse than crossbow. How did you get this information? I looked into the manual and could not find a passage mentioning this. Maybe i will embarass mayself again.

Looks like the Pike and Shot manual never got updated with Shooting POAs, but they are on pg 53 of the Sengoku Jidai Shadow of the Shogun manual. The only difference is that it uses "Matchlock" instead of arquebus. Note that you do not need to own the game to access the manual. Just click on the link for the manual on the Steam page.

Crossbow: -150 vs foot, -50 vs mounted
Bow: -50 vs foot, -100 - 200 depending on completeness of armor

Keep in mind, though, that you really don't need the game manuals. Just ctrl+click on a unit to get all of its POA info, or play with Detailed Tooltips on so the game will give you the info before you choose to open fire.