That was phrased poorly. What I meant is that they have roughly the same combat stats as regular infantry, despite being much faster.
Cost Multiplier = Gather Rate
How much do you value each resource. The smaller the number the higher you value it.
Did some little comparison table (.ods / LibreOffice) for units. Not finished yet (a few units are missing, and in the Civ Column is incomplete).
Some data points I found interesting:
Naked Fanatics have, despite the big complain thread about them, not overly impressive combat stats
The P2 Champion Infantry Swordsmen of Athenians and Carthaginians have insane stats cost-for-cost, and have the additional bonus to be fast
Maidan Guard have really bad stats if you compare them to other fast infantry; they can only keep up thanks to the 20% damage bonus from Steel Working
Elephant Archers are cost-for-cost about twice as tanky as other archers and still deal about the same damage
0AD_Unit_Calculations_028_01.ods