Melee class Promotions

[Galvatron]

so... those barbs in the hill in that fort are skirmishers with spears? Or have they discovered spearmen?

That's a good question. The answer I think is they haven't discovered spearmen, but they have spearmen after a fashion. The spearmen unit is their last line of defence. It's not an actual unit of spearmen but rather the camp followers, women, children and lame men that fight when the tribe's train is under attack. In other words they're fending people off, which uses spears and defensive formations as well as fortification. They aren't true soldiers. They're too slow to run which means they have to stand and fight. Circle the wagons, as the Americans say

Do you think the first skirmishers had spears or lumpy clubs?

Clubs and rocks, and then axes.

Again: skirmishers predate the human race. Chimps perform skirmishes similar to tribal humans would have for the exact same reasons.

Edit: Have you ever seen 2001 a space odyssey? This is pretty much the commonly believed process for... the human race:

Since you play civ you'll know the significance of the songs name that's playing there 'thus spoke zarathustra'. Because IRA thre dawn of humankind. I just got that.

Thank God it's hammer time wasn't invented yet.

You could not hunt with a lumpy club.

Precisely. The club is exclusively for fighting other people... also stones. You keep leaving out the stones, but those were a thing too alongside clubs.

And how does a lumpy club beat up spearmen, not the ones in the fort but the ones you build with all that hard work getting to bronze working?

It's not the club that beats the spearmen... well it is a little, but mostly it's not the club it's the clubber that beats the spearmen. Spears are inferior weapons used by inferior infantry, and clubs, later axes, and then later swords are superior weapons used by superior infantry. Spears are easier to use and cheaper, so they are given to the cheaper infantry. Swords are more expensive and harder to use so they're only given to elite infantry.

 

[Victoria]

It's not an actual unit of spearmen but rather the camp followers, women, children and lame men that fight when the tribe's train is under attack.

And yet they fight horsemen significantly better than foot.
Full respect for trying though.

 

[Galvatron]

And yet they fight horsemen significantly better than foot.
Full respect for trying though.

A similar line of reasoning to why cavalry suffer a penalty in district combat.