Are you sure they maintain position in guard mode? I did this on a full cav vs full pikes test and after a while I noticed some disengaged pikes that were bracing, had the entire unit facing 90° of their original position for some weird reason after having engaged the enemy. Almost like muskets.

I'll run the test again later tonight and see if the pikes do fine on elevation w/o guard mode, but I doubt it.

I'm not running any fixes btw, just my own little balance mods and *shameless plug* my mod in my sig.