In guard mode most stay and use the pikes ,but it also depneds on the enmey unit.It is not optimal since they don't really do aything for most of the time,They don't even move the pikes or attack.If one gets through not all but those the men close to that enemy switch,which is better than vanilla Med2 behavior,but still not as good as Rome 1.And would normally result in more men comming through which doesn't happen(weird).Without guard mode they do use the pikes in the begininng to kill quite a few enemies, but the fact that they are marching forward means that they will switch relativly soon.So in phalanx fights they don't all switch to swords?
Bookmarks