What happened to spears?

[Freedom Onanist]

There is also a lack of swordsmen, the only sword foot unit you get until late on are dismounted knights.

Well, you do get armoured swordsmen as England and they are pretty tough.

[Raxxius]

I've found spearmen fairly useful for soaking up charges, they're cheap, easy to replace (pick em up from citys) and can hold a line long enough for my real army to perform a flank attack.

All in all I use em as I did in MTW and it seems to work fine.