beetle said:
Despite the emphasis in my previous reply, you have explained only why spears/pikes get a defensive bonus against mounted melee units, not the reason why spears/pikes get a bonus when they are the ones attacking mounted units.
The Attacker is moving into the Defenders hex and then BOTH are fighting. This means the the poor knight will not just stand their and look good. Nor will they runaway (civ has no rout/flee system), they will attack the pikeman. We can assume that if a pikeman attacks (moves into the defending knights hex, days of battles occur. The defender is simply the one that defends the hex, with bonus sometimes since he could have been prepared. But when it comes to how units fight. The knight still have a horse that is strong and that can trample.
beetle said:
To attack, yes. To defend, no. The mounted melee unit also try to run away. Why is horse archer better at defending than a horseman when the latter has the same re-positioning ability?
Both the knight and the camel archer for example, will probably re-group. The difference is that, a camel archer has nothing to gain to ride back to the pikemen. The knight can do nothing from 100m distance, except to wave with their hands.
beetle said:
This applies equally well to the chariot archer (et al.) as it does the horseman/knight. Plus, why doesn’t the lancer get their attack bonus against mounted archery units? The whole spear reach/set-into-ground rational falls apart.
Still, the camel archer (or whatever) has nothing to gain to be in melee and if it ends up with a spear nearby and get hurts, they will try to getaway from there. They will defend themselves with a handweapon of some sort but their big thing is archery so they will not stay. The lancer, I don't personally get, why they get a bonus since the strength and speed of the horse is already (or should be) calculated with the strength of the unit. They should make the lancer a knight replacement and have pikemen upgrade to musketman (and loosing the +50% vs. mounted).
Civ 5 is a tactical game when it comes to combat. But since it is not a complete tactical game (we do not have minigames with battles and turns that are hours or days) so if we see this from a civ 5 tactical and strategic point of view, they should let the +50% be applied to any horse. If not for simplicity.
Bonus issue: When something upgrades, let the thing upgrades to what it does. A horse archer is an archer. It is a man that is good with his bow. He rides a horse, yes, but still he shoots arrows. His outfit has probably trained archery for many years (and riding). Soldiers has come and go over the years. When the times comes, let this outfit become what it do best, shoot arrows. In this case, let he be a crossbowman or at least switch promotions (if not for clarity).
Edit: So, yes I do understand the critique for this rule, but also I do understand where it comes from and since this is a turn-based semi-tactical game, they should do what the civilopedia says, because if a horse archer don't want to be hit by a spear he has his increased move to get away.