Spearmen

Amateurs, thought the ex-pirate [...] They had never experienced the heat, blood, and death of combat. [...] Discouraged, Serramana hadn’t even tried to teach the men about vicious attacks and surprise defences. These ‘foot-soldiers’ would never learn to fight.

— Christian Jacq, The Temple of a Million Years

In game

Spearmen — Vital statistics
Spearmen	Slow-moving melee infantry unit meant for defending against cavalry at melee range. Very vulnerable to archer fire. Strong versus melee units, especially cavalry. Weak versus missile units.
Prereq:	Build time	HP	LOS	Attack	Attack speed	Movement speed	Upgrades from	Upgrades to
Bronze Age Level 2: Mercenaries Military	12.5s (188t)	145	5	17	2.1s (32t)	22		l
Cost			Created from	Armour	Weapon range	Specialty
Base	Ramp	Pop
: 30; : 20	: 1; : 1	1		3	Melee	Strong versus cavalry Defensive penalty versus ranged units Small attack penalty versus buildings.

Overall strategy

While they have the highest attack ratings for all melee infantry of the Bronze Age, Spearmen are still rather poor with regards to their use on the battlefield. It is without doubt that Spearmen, if used properly early on, can make a difference — they can be put together to charge chariots en masse, or be used to defend against Peasant Levy rushes, or to support a rush themselves. They however are still vulnerable if facing units such as Swordsmen or Guardsmen, or ranged units, particularly chariots. For this reason Spearmen are best used defensively early on with the assistance of Archers or Slingers, and shouldn't be used for offensive actions at least until the Heroic Age, when they in turn can be upgraded to become Medium Spearmen.

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.
• Hittite Spearmen — The Hittites can train a different type of spear unit which has lower armour, but has greater attack and training speed.

See also

• Warriors
• Libyan Spearmen
• Jungle_Spearmen
• European Spearmen

Notes

• Akkadian Spears - done
• Egyptian Spears - done
• Asian spears - done, mostly.
• Indo-European - most likely Cimmerian-style warriors will be used but the re-appearance of Rorarii from K & C can't be discounted, either.

AoE Spears needs new skins.

Currently, only factions are the following:

• India
• Pyu (AMERICAN)
• Zhangzhung (ASIAN)
• Sarmatians (NA / European)

Answer: Introduce new Indo-European style WBI Spears to this mod. It's a new project after all.

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 enemies without getting hurt himself; many men armed with shields and spears could form a defensive line which only the most skilled or well-equipped could breach.

Because spears were so effective and fairly easy to make (compared with swords or even axes), a vast multitude of men in arms could be raised fairly quickly, armed with spears and until the beginning of the modern era were the most numerous sort of infantry throughout the planet. Even the Romans who relied on sword-wielding legions had auxilia or mercenaries/non-Roman levies who were armed with spears, and eventually began adopting spears once more from the third century CE.