The most important change in version 0.4.11 relates to spears.

While in most RPGs the reach of a weapon is disregarded, it plays an important role in A Legionary’s Life.
When you’re fighting against an opponent whose weapon has a superior Reach, it’s easier for him to keep you at a distance. In game terms, it means that hitting him is harder. This is always shown in the Fighter Details Screen.

Legionaries of the player character’s kind used short swords as their main weapon. There are many variants in the game, but as their name implies, their Reach is short. Despite this, legionaries won’t usually fight at a disadvantage. That would be frustrating and historically inaccurate, too. Short swords excelled in confined spaces, for example when fighting in close order, and that’s what this game tries to replicate. When someone is fighting with a long weapon in a confined space, a severe penalty is applied to his attacks.

Spears are different, though. After all, spears are very effective when used in a close-rank formation. Even if they are long weapons, they don’t suffer the “confined space” penalty. But if an opponent manages to get too close, the spearman is in trouble. In the game, this happens when someone makes any type of successful attack against a spearman (normal attack, feint, shield attack, etc.). Until the spearman spends two rounds without suffering another successful attack, he will temporarily lose the reach advantage, suffer a big penalty to his attacks–even worse than the one applied to long weapons in a confined space–and his Recover attempts will be more difficult. This icon will tell you when the effect is active.

Things are even worse if the spearman is fighting in an open space: the penalty will last for an extra round, unless he is left alone (i.e. no attacks are attempted) for one whole round, in which case the effect ceases immediately after his next action. This is why you’ll rarely face a spearman in an open space. For example, at some point in the demo you may have a chance to challenge a Carthaginian officer to single combat; he will ditch his spear in favor of his short sword, because it’s a lot more practical given the situation. Well, if you have the guts to challenge him. That’s arguably the hardest fight in the demo. On the other hand, he has a very interesting armor and to the victor, the spoils… but I digress.

Before version 0.4.11, the penalty to spears applied for a much shorter time (so short that players could hardly notice it) and fighting in an open space made no difference; I found that unrealistic.
Incidentally, this change will make the first battle a little easier, since all the enemies you can face in New Carthage are wielding spears.