Phalanx - Spearman, no difference???

[Alex 14]

A spearman has 1/2/1, this should be the same as phalanx??? Come to think of it a spearman proberly has better range. What do you think?

[Brad]

I think the Spearman replaces the Civ2 Phalanx, so the Phalanx isn't in Civ3

[monolith94]

Or you could just call it the phalanx. . .

[Wernazuma III]

Come to think of it a spearman proberly has better range. What do you think?

Any particular reason for this suggestion?

[Fiil]

Maybe Alex is suggesting that they throw the spears, which would give them longer range than the hoplites?

If this is the case, then you should know that in those years javelins were not very popular.
The problem with a javelin is that the enemy can pick up the same javelin and throw it back at you. The romans later solved this problem by introducing a special javelin (pilum) that would brake in two upon impact and become useless to the enemy. Using a special tool they could put them back together when they recovered them from the battlefield after the battle.
Until the romans introduced this special weapon javelins had only been used by auxiliaries since the days of chariot fighting.

The new spearmen fireaxis is introducing must be an infantry unit fighting hand to hand combat with his spear exactly like the hoplite.

There are no phalanx units in Civ anymore! This is explained in the civ-of-the-week text. The reason is that the phalanx is battle formation not a special kind of soldier/warrior. When you were using phalanx units in Civ 1 and 2, you were really using hoplites (or spearmen). Fireaxis just renamed the unit - and I like that

[Christantine The Great]

To be a bit more accurate they use the term "spearman" because about all civs in the game used a guy with a sharp stick in one form or another. Simple as that. I kind of will miss those guys with the blue shields who protected my cities until mech-infantry replaced them.