Maybe Alex is suggesting that they throw the spears, which would give them longer range than the hoplites?
If this is the case, then you should know that in those years javelins were not very popular.
The problem with a javelin is that the enemy can pick up the same javelin and throw it back at you. The romans later solved this problem by introducing a special javelin (pilum) that would brake in two upon impact and become useless to the enemy. Using a special tool they could put them back together when they recovered them from the battlefield after the battle.
Until the romans introduced this special weapon javelins had only been used by auxiliaries since the days of chariot fighting.
The new spearmen fireaxis is introducing must be an infantry unit fighting hand to hand combat with his spear exactly like the hoplite.
There are no phalanx units in Civ anymore! This is explained in the civ-of-the-week text. The reason is that the phalanx is battle formation not a special kind of soldier/warrior. When you were using phalanx units in Civ 1 and 2, you were really using hoplites (or spearmen). Fireaxis just renamed the unit - and I like that
