Quote Originally Posted by craziii View Post
in guard mode, you just need 1 soldier in your entire unit clipping 1 enemy soldier at any point during the charge, the entire unit stops. same thing during fights, it will keep formation instead of fighting. never use guard mode for anything but the moments you want to keep an orderly battle line.
This. It usually takes more than one - perhaps two or three, but that's how it goes. More often than not most of your troops will waste their charge. I've been thinking it may be worth it to charge normally then switch to guard to carry on the fighting while flanking is organised. That's especially useful for armies with units especially designed for wearing the enemy down (eg, hastati, libyans/liby-phonecians, lugoae) to make that flanking movement all the more decisive. I would like to know about this myself to make my armies more financially viable - using those few cheaper units to hold things together is more cost effective (therefore more armies) than fielding more elite troops which aren't really necessary.