Printable View
This is for engagement only walking/running still affects fatigue while in guard mode.
You can take 2 of the same units and have them engage each other. Have your unit just stand there while the other gets to exhaustion and your unit is still competely fresh. Once you've exhausted the opponent leave guard mode and the opposing unit decintegrates.
I noticed this when I set 12000 Roman peasants up against one Urban Cohort unit with no mods. With guard mode, the Urban Cohorts never tired. In fact, if I made them attack and they lost stamina, sticking them in guard mode slowly restored them back up to fresh energy levels, and then they slowly but surely slaughtered all the peasants (well actually the first 7000, I got bored after that).
I imagine, however, the frontline units who are actually engaged in combat do tire, but the majority who are standing around doing nothing but waiting for the men in front of them to drop dead, don't tire - so when the average unit stamina level is shown, it appears the unit isn't tiring. I suppose you could try to determine whether this is the case by seeing if the men at the front doing the fighting become less efficient at killing as the fighting progresses - which would suggest they are fatigued. Be difficult to test properly though.
Actually, phalanx units in guard mode already show fatigue after prolonged battles so scrap that.
Can this be modified?
A lot of the falanx units are set in guard mode as default at the beginning of battle so i dont think the fatigue thing applies for them
Fatigue level and it's effects have always applied to the unit as a whole while fatigue rate is determined by what percentage of the men are engaged in the activity. It's possible that so few men are fighting when in guard mode that the recovery rate exceeds the fatigue rate.
It does work properly, units can fatigue in guard mode but a lot less likely to. One big downfall to guard mode is you can easily lose all your experienced men. Fatigue will quickly occur if the A.I. can crack the unit. Phalanxes can easily tire since 3 or more rows are continuously fighting.
It kind of sucks that the A.I. never seems to use guard mode for non phalanx units. Guard mode usually is'nt best for your units on the flanks but is so valuable resource to the center of your line.