I've been drinking around with my Sturgia campaign and I'ma be a contrarian now and say that Heavy Axemen > Heavy Spearmen.
I don't know why, it looks like they shouldn't be on paper, but I get strong overall performance from them. They do better against cav, even, than the spearmen. I think it may just be that the AI just fails that bad at using spears or swords under the right conditions, whereas the axemen on hold fire won't futilely poke at things they should be slashing and chopping.
Using a dense shield wall formation, spearmen lose to equal numbers of cataphracts in custom battle testing too. Meanwhile the axemen shred them. They also do better against infantry.
I don't know why, it looks like they shouldn't be on paper, but I get strong overall performance from them. They do better against cav, even, than the spearmen. I think it may just be that the AI just fails that bad at using spears or swords under the right conditions, whereas the axemen on hold fire won't futilely poke at things they should be slashing and chopping.
Using a dense shield wall formation, spearmen lose to equal numbers of cataphracts in custom battle testing too. Meanwhile the axemen shred them. They also do better against infantry.