Medium Spearmen

Six spears' lengths from the entrance  Halted that deep array And for a space no man came forth,  To win the narrow way.
	— Lord Macaulay, Horatius

In game

Medium Spearmen — Vital statistics
Medium Spearmen	Heavily armed but slow-moving unit that bests all other units in close-up encounters. Strong versus melee units, especially cavalry. Weak versus missile units.
Prereq:	Build time	HP	LOS	Attack	Attack speed	Movement speed	Upgrades from	Upgrades to
Level 2: Mercenaries Military	12.5s (188t)	173	6	20	2.1s (32t)	19	l	l
Cost			Created from	Armour	Weapon range	Specialty
Base	Ramp	Pop
: 50; : 40	: 1; : 2	1		7	Melee	Strong versus cavalry Defensive penalty versus ranged units Small attack penalty versus buildings.

Overall strategy

The first "heavy" unit that you will get, Medium Spearmen are a powerful force especially if marshalled together and sent headlong into the foe. Amongst all infantry types, they are the hardest-hitting, and are also endowed with lots of armour and HP. Make no mistake, however, as they easily overtaken by missile units — in particular by cavalry archers and skirmishers, and in some cases can be outflanked by faster-moving light infantry. Nevertheless, their proficiency with a spear and their endurance means that they are adept at taking out cavalry and towers. Thus, while Medium Spearmen can be an awesome force to reckon with when coupled with forced marching, they do require someone to take out archers (and in some cases, siege weapons).

Medium Spearmen, however, are extremely costly — they have the biggest appetites for food, and they demand the highest quality of arms and armour, amongst all other infantry types, and some may prefer to use light infantry, which performs well against all other units save heavy infantry and cavalry. Still, their military prowess on the Dark Age battlefield is unrivalled, save by lancers, which having greater speed and LOS can lay down some serious damage in a fight, but in many cases, they are not the only units to be found on the battlefield to fill this role.

Unit summary

• Amongst all other infantry types, Spearmen have the highest cost in resources, so you might wish to supplement them with light infantry.
• Spearmen are most effective but only as either purely defensive or offensive units, due to their speed. This also makes them vulnerable against more versatile units, such as missile infantry and cavalry, which can easily take them apart or massed light infantry.
• Rising Sun — The Japanese spearmen are instead salaried with more food as opposed to metal. While this may seem like a handicap, it in fact makes them very cheap in later stages of the game, helped by their being able to be spawned from the Barracks for free once completed.
• Mental Tartan — Far to the north of Britannia rule the Scots. Their Cliarthaire, while somewhat slow on foot, are highly proficient with the spear, making them the bane of cavalry.

Notes

Medium spears:

• Chinese - pretty much guys in helmets (both leather and bronze) and with some sort of armour (mostly lacquered leather kardiophylaces)
• Akkadian - "Iberian" units, with crested helmets. Just reuse the caetrati, but give him a set of new weapons. Spears mostly. He would be used
• Aegean/European - They wear brass helmets, patterened tunics, and carry leather shields. Nothing too crazy. Prepare 2 models - uncloaked Ibaranta for 1.
• Egyptian - He begins to wear padded armour like the other early units - Reshep Axes, Neith Archers etc. And a heavy painted shield.

These units are referred to as Sab Shari in New World Empires: Alexander, and are trainable only by the Achaemenids and Poeni.

History

A spear is a weapon made by attaching a sharp blade to a stick. In battle this allowed early man to attack his foes from a few feet away. This was a major advantage. A man armed with a spear could defeat many attacking warriors with getting hurt himself. Bronze was made obsolete when ironworking was developed. From the spear, the pike was developed. The pike was a longer spear with different iron tips for a different situation. Pikes and spears were commonly used as a defense against charging cavalry.