Robi D
Minister of (Dis)Order
Look at it this way from a real life perspective. Even though a copper tipped wooden stick isn't going to do much damage to the armor of a tank eventually the tank crew will run out of fuel and ammo and wont be able to fight back and will end up starving to death
but in the process of this loss a tank crew of 3 or 4 took out 10000 odd spearman.
The other thing is that the combat in the game is based purely on numbers and what is in effect a roll of the dice and not a copper tipped stick bashing away at a couple of inchs of steel.
If you look at the battle log it gives you a detailed rundown of the battle. And how each roll of the dice went. Here is a typical battle on noble level with no bonuses or promotions
As you can see a tank only needs to hit a spear 3 times while a spear has to hit a tank 11 times and the tank has more chance of inflicting a hit.
I ran it 10 times, the best was 7 spears to kill a tank, the worst 18. The average was 11.9.
The other thing is if your playing in the game and go up against an inferior opponent it pays to build a few tanks with specific promotions for the civs units. When i ran 10 battle with tanks having a melee promotion the average was 16.8.
I don't think any of these results are unrealistic and really why would you go and park a single tank next to a stack of 20 spears anyway and it simple enough to take a few extra turns to run through a civ by taking a break to heal.
At the end of the day battles are a roll of the dice and there is always the chance to get unlucky and lose.

The other thing is that the combat in the game is based purely on numbers and what is in effect a roll of the dice and not a copper tipped stick bashing away at a couple of inchs of steel.
If you look at the battle log it gives you a detailed rundown of the battle. And how each roll of the dice went. Here is a typical battle on noble level with no bonuses or promotions
Code:
Battle Tank Spear Tank Spear Tank Spear
Battle Odds Str Str HP/ hit HP/ hit Hits Hits
1 0.0 28.0 4.0 44 9 3 0
2 0.0 28.0 4.0 44 9 3 0
3 0.0 28.0 4.0 44 9 3 0
4 0.0 28.0 4.0 44 9 3 1
5 0.0 28.0 4.0 43 9 3 0
6 0.0 28.0 4.0 43 9 3 1
7 0.0 28.0 4.0 42 9 3 0
8 0.0 28.0 4.0 42 9 3 0
9 0.0 28.0 4.0 42 9 3 1
10 0.0 28.0 4.0 42 9 3 1
11 0.0 28.0 4.0 41 9 3 1
12 0.0 28.0 4.0 41 9 3 1
13 0.3 28.0 4.0 40 9 3 1
14 5.4 28.0 4.0 39 9 3 1
15 22.9 28.0 4.0 38 9 2 3
As you can see a tank only needs to hit a spear 3 times while a spear has to hit a tank 11 times and the tank has more chance of inflicting a hit.
I ran it 10 times, the best was 7 spears to kill a tank, the worst 18. The average was 11.9.
The other thing is if your playing in the game and go up against an inferior opponent it pays to build a few tanks with specific promotions for the civs units. When i ran 10 battle with tanks having a melee promotion the average was 16.8.
I don't think any of these results are unrealistic and really why would you go and park a single tank next to a stack of 20 spears anyway and it simple enough to take a few extra turns to run through a civ by taking a break to heal.
At the end of the day battles are a roll of the dice and there is always the chance to get unlucky and lose.