IAM
Emperor
I have been here a while and have heard this spearman beats tank so long I was searching for the original story. OK so what is the original story?
Spearman beats tank??? original story???
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Tristan_C
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In civ1, instances of phalanxes (def. str. 2) beating armor units (att. str. 10) were common enough to have a major impact on gameplay. Sometimes the phalanx could achieve enough defensive bonuses to make them dead-even or perhaps slightly stronger than the tank. 
mariogreymist
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A few phalanxes fortified on a mountain road could effectively defend against modern weaponry and protect a supply line, thanks to ZoC rules in the first two editions of Civ.
IAM
Emperor
Oh OK so it's not a single story from a famous game. No wonder I couldn't find it. BUt that definetly explains why the story is so prevalent.
mariogreymist
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It wasn't quite that simple. As soon as you surrendered defensive bonuses with your phalanxes they ceased being much of an offensive option as they could all be killed by a single enemy unit.
TheMeInTeam
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Troop spam still had its merits, though.
mariogreymist
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no doubt. Compared to settler spam, it was a joke though (assuming a multiple continent map). I tried to play a civII game the other day, and had trouble with convincing myself it was okay to build that many settlers.
But in relation to the question asked: no, it wasn't one famous game. It was a common occurrence in civ1-2 to have a tank or two killed by phalanxes as you killed off a border garrison en route to your tanks v muskets war.
Sportyatuncw06
Warlord
Upkeep on the first two civs wasn't based on size or distance of the empire (if I remember correctly) it was based on buildings and units. It was possible to churn out settlers after settler. after getting 3 cities I would build military in one, workers in one and settlers in the other and expand until there was no more room without crashing science.
mariogreymist
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There weren't workers until civ3...in civ2, settlers performed worker functions (which were more limited). Cities also could grow while building settlers, but lost 1 population on completion, meaning you did need to spread out their production to avoid disbanding cities at pop1.
Tristan_C
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I misused a pronoun. WE, the humans, did the teching while Shaka & Genghis & Co. seemed to stop at bronze and just spam the hell out of phalanxes. They'd fortify them in open country and never really needed to let go of the defensive bonuses if blocking passage could force a fight. It's not like they ever had offensive options or ability to counterattack, but they could halt invasions because a tank can only kill so many defenders in advantageous terrain before the math catches up.
Sportyatuncw06
Warlord
that's right no workers, been a while but the same basic rule applied in Civ II, you couldn't expand to fast.
Jerrymander
Epistemologist
This why I spammed bombers. Blow a passageway then zoom some armors and howitzers in from your capitol with UNLIMITED MOVEMENT RAILROADS.
oh god
TheWilltoAct
I am observe
Loved Civ1, my dad still plays! 
r_rolo1
King of myself
Well and people complain of losing 70% odds battles in Civ IV ... 
I wonder how things would be if spearmen defeating tanks ( that one btw is a pure civ III motto ,unlike the phalanx beat battleships civ II (IIRC) syndrom ) were actually a common vision in civ IV ( to be honest I think I never saw one in my games besides some tests with free wins vs barbs ). Wise was the poster that said in RB1 back in the very early vanilla days that he didn't wanted a combat odds display because people would start complaining of losing any battle above 50% odds
I wonder how things would be if spearmen defeating tanks ( that one btw is a pure civ III motto ,unlike the phalanx beat battleships civ II (IIRC) syndrom ) were actually a common vision in civ IV ( to be honest I think I never saw one in my games besides some tests with free wins vs barbs ). Wise was the poster that said in RB1 back in the very early vanilla days that he didn't wanted a combat odds display because people would start complaining of losing any battle above 50% odds Civ 2 changed the combat mechanics to make it less likely. The combat in civ 2 is more like the combat in civ 4, appart from all the situational bonuses in civ 4.
Assuming I can remember the combat bonuses right, phalanx was def 2, above it says tanks were attack 10, whcih might be right. Might have been higher, I htought catapults were attack 6, but nvm. But taking those numbers, at that point even in a "fair fight" the phalanx has about an 16% chance of winning, something like that. As I remember it you roll between 1 and ATT+DEF. In this case for a tank attacking a phalanx between 1 and 12. 1-10 the tank wins, 11 or 12 and the phalanx wins. So it was a lot more likely than you would expect from "reality". It did get kinda annoying, but the AI was so bad it was easy to get a massive tech lead which is why it was more noticed. In more modern Civs getting several generations of a tech lead is far harder.
Add in other bonuses and it gets silly. That is why you had hit points in civ 2, so the chance of a phalanx winning one round was about the same, but it needed to win a few rounds to kill the enemy which was a lot less likely.
City walls is something like tripple defense too, so a phalanx behind city walls could be hard indeed to take out.
Assuming I can remember the combat bonuses right, phalanx was def 2, above it says tanks were attack 10, whcih might be right. Might have been higher, I htought catapults were attack 6, but nvm. But taking those numbers, at that point even in a "fair fight" the phalanx has about an 16% chance of winning, something like that. As I remember it you roll between 1 and ATT+DEF. In this case for a tank attacking a phalanx between 1 and 12. 1-10 the tank wins, 11 or 12 and the phalanx wins. So it was a lot more likely than you would expect from "reality". It did get kinda annoying
, but the AI was so bad it was easy to get a massive tech lead which is why it was more noticed. In more modern Civs getting several generations of a tech lead is far harder.Add in other bonuses and it gets silly. That is why you had hit points in civ 2, so the chance of a phalanx winning one round was about the same, but it needed to win a few rounds to kill the enemy which was a lot less likely.
City walls is something like tripple defense too, so a phalanx behind city walls could be hard indeed to take out.
Ok found the civ 1 manual online
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ1/manual/civ1_man.htm
Which confirms the above.
In a general fight, with no bonuses on either side a phalanx has a straight 16% chance of winning (1 in 6), which happens reasonably often. Add in some defensive bonuses, and it gets much higher. City walls tripple defensive strength, so it would be 6 v 10, which is a bit less than 40% chance of winning.
This is why everything is done in combat rounds and units have hit points since civ 2. As it just happened oto oftehn that the phalanx would beat the tank, or the bomber etc. Normally late game I used mass bombers as I recall.
So the story exists as it happened to just about everyone who ever played civ 1 and managed to get a tech advantage on their opponents.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ1/manual/civ1_man.htm
Which confirms the above.
In a general fight, with no bonuses on either side a phalanx has a straight 16% chance of winning (1 in 6), which happens reasonably often. Add in some defensive bonuses, and it gets much higher. City walls tripple defensive strength, so it would be 6 v 10, which is a bit less than 40% chance of winning.
This is why everything is done in combat rounds and units have hit points since civ 2. As it just happened oto oftehn that the phalanx would beat the tank, or the bomber etc. Normally late game I used mass bombers as I recall.
So the story exists as it happened to just about everyone who ever played civ 1 and managed to get a tech advantage on their opponents
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