Let’s say for argument’s sake that the Inca civ doesn’t exist in this game. So, that leaves out them.
How would you feel if all spearmen line units (spearman, pikemen halberdiers) had plus 1 range? Would it break the game balance? Would spearmen be too strong?
The spear-line is already wayy too strong for their cost, which is why you see them massed up in EVERY. SINGLE. GAME. that doesn’t involve 100% meso civs on both teams. Just ask Longswordsmen. Oh wait, you won’t find any, because they are never trained!
Meanwhile Longswordsmen, Non-Battle Elephant Elephant units and half of the UUs cry in the background, never to see AOE2’s famous midnight sun, in any serious game.
Scouts are already uncommon and thus not a very strong strategy. Spearman line dont really need a buff in my opinion.
I see no argument in the first post why spearline needs a buff.
Their group damage potential rises exponentially with range. It’s one of the reasons kamayuks are so deadly when fighting as a group.
And this gets even worse when we factor civs like slavs.
Unless something else drastically changed they would be unnecessarily hard to cost effectively counter for non archer civs.
It could be a very specific civ bonus. Maybe for a civ with no halab and it could be the main bonus of that civ.
Overall it sounds nice, but I see two main issues:
Some candidate civs may be:
The bonus should start in castle age maybe
Replying to the OP proposal, I think it would be good for the game of the spear line had +1 range universally, but the stats would need to be adjusted to make it not-a-buff.
Incas are irrelevant, there are a couple of civs with Champ-but-better UUs, there would be allowed to be a spear-but-better UU.
Mostly it would be good for immersion. If step-lancers and an Inca UU have +1 range, then pikeman should also have +1 range.
It would also help make scout rushes more viable, if the stat decrease outweighs the extra range in small numbers.
Late-game deployment of spear units would be trickier, which unit trickles being punished, and that might be a good thing.
Finding the correct balance of new stats for a good balance would be hard.
If any particular unit would be hurt to much by this change, there already is a pikeman armour class where they could receive some bonus damage, so that problem could be fixed easily.
The main benefit would be increased immersion, the balance can be done such that gameplay changes are minimal.
I know some people hate the proposal for this reason since they ‘don’t care’ about the accurate representation of units and therefore other people shouldn’t either 
Maybe as a unique tech for a civ that lacks halberdier or at least blast furnace. As a general buff it’s way too overpowered. Burmese halbs (which aren’t the strongest) basically turn into gold-free kamayuk with roughly the same cost-efficiency.
Give it to the teutons and remove the cav and Infatry armor again.
If necessary remove halbs as well it it turns out more op then current +2 armor halbs and +2 armor paladins.
They are very op, so they’re never seen in KotD
I just hate the design of teuton rework. Even when it’s not too good in pro games. It’s stupid just slapping free meele armor on everything. Far too wide civ bonus. Ruins teutonic knights, turns them in just another civ with exedingly great paladins. FU paladins are almost a joke nowadays with cumans, teutons, lithuians and the original Frank’s.
Anything to fix this terrible rework is fine to me.
Also Pro tournaments aren’t everything, most importantly game needs to be fun and balanced for the average customer to play and watch (here comes proc player into the picture)
taking a slow defensive civilization and adding extra armor to it to make it competitive is not a rework.
you keep saying this but never say how.
so tell us, how do you balance around people without great control, decision making, and strategy, without breaking it for those with all those things? You’re the one who wants this, so give us the framework.
There are many types of people who play aoe 2, quite often with incompatible demands. Balancing the game around pro players is a great approach since many people watch games with high rating players, so this appeals to a broad audience.
it’s almost like they are an effective counter to cavalry. and they perfectly encapsulate medieval infantry use, which you should be okay with, since you clearly want things historically accurate.
funny literally just saw them during KotD3 between Nicov and Dracken. guess your never comment is bunk.
Actually the +1 range as a civ bonus may really work. Maybe for Koreans (if the loos halab), or even better Italians or Turks. Italians need an anti cavalry option for 1v1, Turks a trash unit…
the tt of the GC will eventually be fixed, i dont think its worth putting in the effort of rebalancing for +1 range on something that is very likely to get fixed at some point…
so have a spear with +1 range… might work, might be the easiest of all the spearlines to try and balance… but ironically the pike is usually the longer weapon (afaik) but wont be the first historically broken item (ironclad etc)
you know its halb right? halberdier 
Yeah, actually i feel the +1 range for the spear line is really good especially for chasing the mounted units since the mounted units have a good mobility and moving faster, i agree with this suggestion it seems really good to have and fair too.
If we were to give them extra range we’d have to nuke the bonus damages to be, at most, half of what they are (if not less), and then we’d need to nerf the Cataphract’s Cavalry Armor statistic so that it doesn’t fully negate Halbs post change. Which means we’d have to tweak the numbers on Camels, Mamelukes, Genoese, as a result, which would be a balance nightmare.
I think it’s far from worth the effort.
Thinking about phoenix’s comment, it should really be given to a civ with pikemen and not halbs, because pikes are very long weapons. Maybe even restrict the bonus and don’t include spearmem either. Just pikes for realities sake.
Pike and shot was first used by Spanish, then Dutch. It would fit for these civs. Landsknecht and Swiss used pikes too, which would indicate teutons. Are there any other clues which civ could historally deserve such a buff. I never heard of korrans using pikes, maybe I am wrong, but slapping a random buff on a unfitting civ would be sad to see.
Well, It’s not that celts are needing a buff, but scottish infantry was know for their longpike formations
A design for celts as a pikemen civilization would be historically more fitting than a siege civ. But this is one of the classics civs. It will never be changed.