Quote Originally Posted by vartan View Post
I'm not so sure. Phalangites can use guard mode or no guard mode. And none of these units 'auto-engage'. When not on guard mode, they like to steam-roll the enemy, auto-engaging if you haven't told them to attack. On guard mode, they won't engage unless you order them to attack. Still on guard mode, only those units disturbed will be reprimanded. Those in next rows in the phalanx will not come forth to attack. In any case, if you have a pike army versus a Roman or other sword army, you better be playing on the Alex engine because the phalanx bug consistently strikes fear into the pike player. With a bug like that, your non-guard mode phalanxes cannot steam-roll the enemy like it should. Instead, it likes to dance to the side, or even backwards. Phalanx bug: priceless...
Uhuh, the guard mode is of course a lot more defensive, and should be used to pin down the enemy while flanking troops do the killing. This works great when fighting non-phalanx- units, since they are very unlikely to break through the phalanx formation. Other phalangites, on the other hand, will damage your phalangites - and I was under the impression that using the defensive guard mode wouldn't be very effective against another more agressive pike unit. But I might be wrong, my phalanx experience is quite limited.

The phalanx bug is a pain of course; but since guard mode works fine against non- phalangites it isn't really a problem, in my opinion.